Koga
キョウ Kyō
""The Poisonous Ninja Master""
[[File:File:HGSS Koga Art.png|{{{size}}}]]
Art from HeartGold and SoulSiver
Gender Male
Eye color Black
Hair color Blue
Hometown Fuchsia City
Region Kanto
Relatives Janine (daughter)
Aya (anime only, sister)
Trainer class Gym Leader, Elite Trainer, Team Rocket Commander (Adventures),
Generation I, II, III, IV
Games Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Crystal, FireRed, LeafGreen, HeartGold, SoulSilver, Stadium, Stadium 2
Leader of Fuchsia Gym
Badge Soul Badge
Anime debut The Ninja Poké-Showdown
English voice actor Ken Gates
Japanese voice actor Hōchū Ōtsuka

Koga (Japanese: キョウ Kyō) was the Leader of Fuchsia City's Gym. He is a student of ninjutsu who specializes in Template:Type2 Pokémon. He handed out the Soul Badge to Trainers who defeated him.

He was promoted to the Elite Four, at some time after the events of Generation I and its remakes, but before the events of Generation II and its remakes, thus leaving his daughter, Janine, in charge of the Fuchsia Gym.

In the games

 
Art of Koga from Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen
 
Art of Koga from Pokémon Red and Blue

Koga, known as the Poisonous Ninja Master, serves two roles in the Pokémon games. In Pokémon Red, Blue, Yellow, FireRed, and LeafGreen he is the leader of the Fuchsia Gym, but is promoted to a member of the Elite Four in Pokémon Gold, Silver, Crystal, HeartGold, and SoulSilver. Koga is a user of the Template:Type2; he likes the despair and horror that Poison-type Pokémon can inflict on others.

Koga has studied medicine and antidotes; he makes he own potions to heal his Pokémon. He also serves as a teacher. Many students come to him to be trained in the arts of Ninjutsu and Pokémon. One of his students is his own daughter, Janine, who takes over his Gym in the Generation II/IV storyline. In addition to these roles, Koga also patrols the grounds of the Kanto Safari Zone, to ensure that the players of the Safari Game are safe from the wild Pokémon within.

In Generation I/III, Koga's Gym is typically the sixth to be challenged. He has built invisible walls in the Fuchsia City gym, constructing a confusing maze out of them. Koga awaits challengers in the center of the maze, clearly visible, but a group of Jugglers and Tamers—Koga's students— must be fought first. Defeating him will earn the successful Trainer TM06 (Toxic) and the Soul Badge.

With the future of the Gym in his daughter's hands, Koga advances to a role in the Pokémon League of Kanto and Johto before the events of Generation II/IV. In these games, he is the second member of the Elite Four to be faced. The team he uses in this role is similar to his Gym Leader's teams; the main difference is the introduction of Pokémon not native to Kanto. Koga's battle style as an Elite Four member is designed to confound and destroy his opponent in battle. Rather than using brute force, Koga attempts to confuse, put to sleep, and poison his opponent.

Fame Checker

This is a list of the Fame Checker's information on Koga in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen Versions.

Fuchsia City - sign
  • What does this person do?
"Fuchsia City Pokémon Gym
Leader: Koga
The Poisonous Ninja Master"
Fuchsia Gym - Koga
  • Favorite kind of Pokémon?
"Despair to the creeping horror of Poison-type Pokémon!"
Fuchsia Gym - Juggler Kirk
  • What is this person like?
"Even though I've lost, I will keep training according to the teachings of Koga, my ninja master."
Fuchsia City - Charine
  • Family and friends?
"My father is the Gym Leader of this town.
I’m training to use Poison Pokémon as well as my father."
Safari Warden's Home - Pokémon Journal
  • There’s a rumor...
"Koga is said to have a thorough knowledge of medicine.
He even concocts medicine to nurse his Pokémon to health."
Safari Zone - man
  • What does this person do?
"The Safari Zone<sc>'s huge, wouldn't you say?
<sc>Fuchsia's Gym Leader, Koga, patrols the grounds every so often.
Thanks to him, we can play here knowing that we're safe."
Message from Koga
  • From: Koga
  • To: [Player]
"You and I, we must both set our sights higher and work towards meeting our challenges.
Now, I must go train my daughter."

Pokémon

This is a listing of Koga's Pokémon in the games in which he has appeared.

Pokémon Red and Blue and Pokémon Red and Green



Pokémon Yellow



Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal



Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen



Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver

First Battle



Second Battle



Pokémon Stadium

Round 1



Round 2



Pokémon Stadium 2

Round 1



Round 2



Quotes

File:KogaBlue.PNG File:Y Koga.png File:Koga 02.png
Koga's sprite from
Generation I
Koga's sprite from
Pokémon Yellow
Koga's sprite from
Generation II
File:SpriteKoga.png File:KogaHGSS.gif  
Koga's sprite from
Generation III
Koga's sprite from
Generation IV
Koga's VS sprite from
Generation IV

Pokémon Red and Blue

"Fwahahaha! A mere child like you dares to challenge me? Very well, I shall show you true terror as a ninja master! You shall feel the despair of poison and sleep techniques!"

"Humph! You have proven your worth! Here! take the Soul Badge!"

Pokémon Gold and Silver

"Fwahahahaha! I am Koga of the Elite Four. I live in shadows, a ninja! My intricate style will confound and destroy you! Confusion, sleep, poison... Prepare to be the victim of my sinister technique! Fwahahahaha! Pokémon is not merely about brute force--you shall see soon enough!"

"Ah! You've proven your worth!"

"I subjected you to everything I could muster. But my efforts failed. I must hone my skills. Go on to the next room, and put your abilities to test!"

In the anime

File:KogaAnime.jpg
Koga in the anime.

Koga's only anime appearance was in the episode The Ninja Poké Showdown.

Koga is a ninja who trains in an old mansion, the Fuchsia City Gym, in the woods outside Fuchsia City. The Gym is filled with traps such as fake mirrors, invisible walls, pits, and many Voltorb. Aya, Koga's younger sister, is one of his students.

Ash, Misty, and Brock managed to overcome the traps in the Gym and Ash was finally able to challenge Koga. Although Ash's Pidgeotto initially lost to Koga's newly-evolved Venomoth, prompting Ash to call out Charmander, their match was interrupted when Team Rocket tried to steal Koga's large supply of Voltorb, although they had raided the Gym with the intent of getting Template:Type2 Pokémon. Team Rocket was stopped by Psyduck, allowing Ash and Koga to have a rematch. Pitting Charmander against Koga's Golbat, Ash triumphed and won the Soul Badge.

Pokémon

This listing is of Koga's known Pokémon in the anime:


Pikachu
Debut [[]]
Pikachu
Debut [[]]

At Fuchsia Gym

 
Voltorb (multiple)

Voice actors

Language Voice actor
Japanese 大塚 芳忠 Hōchū Ōtsuka
English Ken Gates
Polish Radosław Popłonikowski
Spanish Latin America Gerardo Vázquez
Spain Carlos Sevilla


In the Pokémon Adventures manga

File:Koga.PNG
Koga in the Pokémon Adventures manga.

Koga is one of the three villainous heads of Team Rocket, and serves under Giovanni.

Koga debuts in the Red, Green & Blue arc chapter in Raging Rhydon searching the Moon Stone in Mt. Moon, here Koga fights with Red and Misty and forces his Rhyhorn to evolve with a mysterious injection, revealing what happened to Misty's Gyarados when it was kidnapped, however the mission fails. Koga later tries to bump off Red in Lavender Town's Pokémon Tower, where he uses a Gastly to reanimate the corpses of dead Pokémon buried there. He also attacks Red with his Arbok. However, Blue has his Charmeleon slice Arbok in half. Under his boss's orders, he captures Articuno and brings it to Saffron City. He is once again defeated by Blue at Silph Co., albeit that he almost killed both of them by not allowing them to reach their Poké Balls by using his Muk, then almost freezing them to death with his Articuno. After he is defeated and knocked out Red gets Koga's Soul Badge and Blue uses his special Golbat to find out where Team Rocket is holding his grandfather.

Later, Koga helps the Pallet Town Trainers in the fight against the Elite Four during the Cerise Island battle. Koga is paired with Blue and battles Agatha, but Blue first returns his Golbat to him. When the two of them finally meet Agatha, she separates them, making Blue and Koga's Golbat that he got paired up with again face Agatha's Golbat while Koga's Arbok had to face Agatha's Arbok which could change its patterns allowing it to gain the upper hand over Koga. When Blue was paralyzed from a Haunter's Lick he started throwing his shuriken balls which Agatha thought was a desperate tactic but in reality the were Pokémon holding Paralyze Heals hoping just one of them would get to him, which it did. Blue then joins him and with it he commanded it to use Leech Life on himself using his blood and put it on Arbok's torso to prevent its ability to change its pattern. Without Arbok's ability, Agatha was defeated.

Or so it seemed. In reality, Agatha just pretended to be defeated and had her Gengar masquerade as Koga and Blue's shadow to slowly suck the life out of them hidden due to Koga's quick loss of blood. After traveling through the maze for a while, they found themselves back where they started with Agatha nowhere to be found. They then figured out her plan and defeated the Gengar.

Unlike the other two Rocket Admins, who were instructed to return and manage their gyms, Koga was not even reached by Giovanni. He then disappears for a time, leaving Janine in charge of the Gym. Janine is worried for her father, but opposes his criminal ties. At the end of the Johto adventures, Koga decides to ally himself with three other Trainers who had been abandoned by evil organizations: Bruno, Will, and Karen.

Two of Koga's Pokémon have unusual powers: his Arbok can regenerate itself as long as its head remains intact (see above); and his unusually small Golbat's mouth can be used almost like a magic mirror for scrying to see things from a distance, even if walls or land are in the way. Blue takes this Golbat and keeps it for quite some time before returning it to Koga at Cerise Island.

Koga also uses custom-made Poké Balls which can be thrown as shuriken—perhaps an inspiration for Falkner’s later boomerang Poké Balls.

Pokémon

This is a listing of Koga's Pokémon in the Pokémon Adventures manga.

 
Grimer
 
Muk
 
Gastly
 
Arbok
 
Ekans
 
Golbat
 
Tentacruel
 
Weezing
  
RhyhornRhydon

Released

 
Articuno

In the TCG

There is a Theme Deck named for Koga in the Gym Challenge expansion. For that Theme Deck, see Koga.

Artwork

Pokémon

This listing is of cards mentioning or featuring Koga or his Pokémon in the Pokémon Trading Card Game.

Name Type Level Rarity Set Set no.
Koga's Beedrill   34  H Gym Challenge 9/132
Koga's Ditto   12  H Gym Challenge 10/132
Koga - -  H Gym Challenge 19/132
  106/132
Koga's Arbok   44   Gym Challenge 25/132
Koga's Muk   38   Gym Challenge 26/132
Koga's Pidgeotto   34   Gym Challenge 27/132
Koga's Golbat   27   Gym Challenge 46/132
Koga's Kakuna   21   Gym Challenge 47/132
Koga's Koffing   15   Gym Challenge 48/132
Koga's Pidgey   9   Gym Challenge 49/132
Koga's Weezing   31   Gym Challenge 50/132
Koga's Ekans   17   Gym Challenge 77/132
Koga's Grimer   19   Gym Challenge 78/132
Koga's Koffing   10   Gym Challenge 79/132
Koga's Pidgey   15   Gym Challenge 80/132
Koga's Tangela   16   Gym Challenge 81/132
Koga's Weedle   13   Gym Challenge 82/132
Koga's Zubat   14   Gym Challenge 83/132
Fuchsia City Gym - -   Gym Challenge 114/132
Koga's Ninja Trick - -   Gym Challenge 115/132
Koga's Crobat   -   Pokémon VS (no English release) 79/141
Koga's Forretress   -   Pokémon VS (no English release) 80/141
Koga's Ninja Gym - - - Unnumbered Promotional cards (no English release) -

Trivia

  • In the manga Magical Pokémon Journey, the ninja-in-training Walnut is an admirer of Koga.
  • Koga makes a short cameo appearance in a chapter of the Electric Tale of Pikachu manga.
  • Out of the original Generation I Gym Leaders, Koga has the fewest Trainer cards in the Gym Leader sets of the TCG. Incidentally, his only Trainer card besides the basic Koga card had to be edited because it featured a manji, which could have caused controversy between cultures; the infamous Nazi swastika is a reversed manji.
  • Because he became a member of the Elite Four in Generation II, he is technically the first member of the Elite Four seen in the anime, though he was not a member at the time he was shown. He is also the only one Ash defeated in battle (again, however, it was as a Gym Leader).
  • In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, the Ninja Boy on Route 217 mentions different kinds of ninja in the world. He says, "There are several kinds of ninjas. Are you an Iga or a Kouga ninja?" This is a reference to the two main schools of ninjutsu, Iga-ryu and Kōga-ryu, the latter of which Koga himself is named after.
  • Koga's Pokémon Yellow team is of a higher level than his Elite Four team in Gold, Silver, and Crystal and HeartGold and SoulSilver during the first match with him.
  • Koga, Bruno, and Lance are the only members of the Elite Four who have appeared in all four generations.
  • Koga's updated Sugimori artwork for Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver has him in a pose identical to that of his daughter Janine's in her VS artwork, only reversed.

Names

Language Name Reference to
Japanese キョウ Kyō The on-yomi of the kanji for "apricot" (杏). This kanji's kun-yomi is anzu.
English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Koga From 甲賀流 Kōga-ryū, a school of ninjutsu.
Korean 독수 Doksu Means poison fang which refers to his specialty in the Poison-type. Alternatively, 독수 can mean a vicious clutch.
Chinese (Taiwan and Mainland) 阿桔 Ā Jié
Chinese (Hong Kong) 阿梗 Ā Gěng 梗 has the on-yomi kyō in Japanese.

External links


  This game character article is part of Project CharacterDex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on each character found in the Pokémon games.