May

May (Japanese: ハルカ Haruka) is a ten-year-old Pokémon Coordinator from the anime and a former traveling companion of Ash. Her goal is to become a Top Coordinator. She traveled through Hoenn and Kanto with Ash, Brock, and her little brother Max. She is the daughter of Norman and Caroline, and her starter Pokémon was a Torchic given to her by Professor Birch.

Character
May is generally a very sweet and optimistic girl. She enjoys feminine and cute things as well as shopping. In fact, she and Brock occasionally went on shopping trips together throughout the Advanced Generation series. May cares about her appearance, sometimes spending so much time in front of this mirror that it caused her traveling companions to become frustrated with her, such as in The Bicker the Better. May also is interested in helping other people with their romantic problems.

Though she is generally kind, she occasionally argues with her little brother, Max. The two had arguments since Max's debut episode, but one of their most notable was in Take This House and Shuppet. May's harsh words to Max made him declare that he hated May and he ran away for a portion of the episode. Even though she had been angry, May quickly felt guilty for hurting Max's feelings and became very worried that he would be hurt on his own. In a later episode, May revealed that she had promised her mother to always take care of Max on their journey. So even though the siblings had many quarrels, May deeply cares for her brother and would go to great lengths to protect him.

In A Ruin with a View May heard Brock used to act as a cook during Ash's journeys. As she, Max and Ash were hungry, she was the one who asked Brock, if he could prepare some food for them. If a person or a Pokémon were to steal her food she would become extremely angry, which was demonstrated numerous times. Food was one of the few things May would become angry about, so it was an important tool to show a different side to her usually cheerful character. When May returned for the Diamond and Pearl series, she expressed excitement over the chance to eat at the Seven Stars Restaurant, but having her meal stolen made her enraged. She was later shown enjoying a large cookie, once again affirming her love of food and sweets.

When May first left her home, she was only interested in the traveling aspect of the Pokémon journey. This sparked one of May's most memorable quirks in Hoenn, "May's Expeditions". Starting from A Mudkip Mission, May would occasionally make a camera lens with her fingers, pretending she was the host of a traveling show.

Advanced Generation series
When May debuted in the anime, she did not like Pokémon at all and was only interested in becoming a Pokémon Trainer so she could travel. Everyone expected her to become a Trainer, to follow in her Gym Leader father's footsteps. However, after seeing a Contest in All Things Bright and Beautifly!, she decided to become a Pokémon Coordinator. Since she initially knew almost nothing about Pokémon or attacks, Ash assumed the role of her mentor. She gradually gained experience through her journey and practice with Ash.

As a Coordinator, May was able to learn more about Pokémon and form stronger bonds with them. In Come What May!, after winning the Fallarbor Contest, May told her Beautifly that she loved it. This is an example of her growth - from someone who initially disliked Pokémon to someone who cared deeply for them.

With her Pokémon, May was able to come up with different attack combinations to use contest battles. For instance, she would use her Combusken's Fire Spin and her Squirtle's Bubble to create a combination of fire and water, dubbed Fire and Water Whirlwind by Lilian. This even got a rival of hers mad, thinking she thought he was not worthy of the move so May did not use it against him.

Also, on her Coordinating journey, she developed a love for making her own Pokéblock with recipes that she thought up, including ones called "May's Purple Surprise" and "May's Pink Surprise" (Japanese: Haruka's Delicious and Haruka's Delicious 2). Unfortunately, the only ones who liked her Purple Surprise were her Munchlax and Jessie. "May's Pink Surprise" came from the recipe Professor Oak uses to make Ash's Snorlax's food. Thus, after May first fed it to her Munchlax, it was automatically made full. This Pokéblock was regularly used to feed Munchlax in order to prevent it from eating the food of others.

During her journey, she found a rival in Drew, a skilled and sometimes arrogant Coordinator. Drew became one of her main inspirations to try harder to sharpen her skills as a trainer. At first, Drew had claimed that May had "no style" as a Coordinator, but by the end of the Advanced Generation, when May beat him in the Kanto Grand Festival, he recognized her growth and skill as a Coordinator. Another rival of hers, Harley, is a flamboyant man who goes to extremes to beat May. And example of Harley's depravity was seen in A Cacturne for the Worse when recorded Max telling him a story from May's childhood. May had been wearing a blue swimming cap in the ocean, and her mother mistaken her for a Tentacool from afar. Her mother had attempted to capture May with one of her Poké Balls. Harley played the recording of this story during the Pokémon Contest to embarrass May into losing. May was able to beat Harley in the end, but she claimed that she had never been more humiliated.

At the Kanto Grand Festival, May also competed against Solidad, an experienced Coordinator to whom she lost to in the semi-finals. At the end of the Advanced Generation series, she left to compete with Drew, Harley and Solidad in the Johto region, aiming to find her own style. The decision to stop traveling with Ash was an important one for May's character. Because Ash played the role of a mentor to her through most of the series, she was largely influenced by his offensive battle style. By the end of their journey through Kanto, May had realized that an offensive style, while effective, was not necessarily the best for her and for contests. Her goal to find her own style is therefore also a goal to find her own independence and unique talents.

May has Contest Passes to compete in Hoenn, Kanto and Johto. She also has a personal theme song, I Won't Lose! ~Haruka's Theme~, performed by KAORI. It was first used as background music in the episode Curbing the Crimson Tide and was used multiple times after that during May's Contest Appeals or Battles. The song became the ending theme of the show between ''Pokémon Ranger - Deoxys' Crisis! (Part 2) and Home is Where the Start Is!''

Diamond & Pearl series
May reappeared from Our Cup Runneth Over! to Strategy With a Smile! to participate in the Wallace Cup. During this period, she wore the Emerald Version of her outfit. She shared that many of her Pokémon had evolved and that she had already won three Johto ribbons. Dawn recognized May upon meeting her and said that some people in the Sinnoh region called her the "Princess of Hoenn", causing May to blush. During the Wallace Cup, May battled against Dawn's rival Zoey and was able to beat her using Beautifly. She made it all the way to the finals but narrowly lost to Dawn in the end.

Best Wishes series
May reappeared in a flashback in The Dream Continues!.