When it comes to Pokémon, there are many things that really helped to make the series stand out. One of those fine additions to its popular roster of characters is Gary Oak. Without Gary Oak there is no drive for Ash to be the best Pokémon trainer of all time, there’s no rival that seems to undermine him at every turn and make otherwise simple tasks more difficult. I know for a fact that I always wanted to name him my rival in the Pokémon games and I wanted to beat him and I wanted badly during the television series for๊ Ash to prove that Gary was wrong about him.

The character of Gary helped to keep the series going, and It helped to give kids like me a reason to try to beat him at every turn. After all, none of us that played the video games wanted to end up like Ash did many times throughout the series, we all wanted to beat our rival and come out on top🤪. Even though it is likely that you know a lot about Gary Oak through the television show, there are certainly a handful of things you never knew about the legendary rival (thanks to hidden info in the games and comics). In the end, you’ll find that perhaps Gary’s overconfidence and resentment are the result of a few secrets that are not readily known at the beginning of the series.

15 💜 The🐽 Secret Behind His Parents

From the very start, you are told that Gary is Ash's ultimate rival, and that he is already ahead of him in terms of the amount of Pokémon he’s caught and a number of badges he’s earned. What you might not know though is that no one has any idea what happened to☂ Gary’s parents.

All you know throughout the series is that Gary has a sister whose name is Daisy and that his♕ grandfathe👍r is Professor Oak. Strangely enough, neither person mentions the fate of the parents and you’re left to imagine that they either died or left him and Daisy to be raised by their grandfather. It puts a whole new perspective on why Gary acts the way he does.

14 ꧂ He's In Pokémon Black And White 2!?

I will be the first to admit that I wasn’t really a fan of the Nintendo DS line of Pokémon games. After all, I grew up on the Gameboy versions and by comparison, I just felt that there was too much of a change between them. None the less I was surprised to learn that you can actually get to face Gary (as you did in the previous Pokémon games).

So how do you do this? First, you have to complete fifteen other tournaments including those at Kanto, Johto, Unova and Hoenn as well as Sinnoh. Once that’s done you have to beat the World Tournament ten times total. After doing this you will be able to unlock something called the Champions Tournament which includes trainers who have beaten the 🧸Pokémon League in each of their respective regions including Gary (AKA Blue).

13 He STOPP♌ED Being A Pokémon Trainer ♒

It’s hard being a Pokémon trainer and there are a lot of people in the Pokémon universe that wanted both Gary and Ash to fail in their quest to be world class Pokémon trainers. It is perhaps for this very reason that Gary Oak decided to hang it up and stop his pursuit as a Pokémon t🎶rainer.

So, what made Gary decide to finally call it quits? Well, his deep-rooted rival Ash of course! During the Silver Conference Ash defeated Gary by beating his Blastoise with his Charizard despite Gary having the type advantage in the fight. It is after this fight in the episode titled ‘Johto Photo Finish’ where Ash is visited by Gary who tells him that he wishes to call it quits as a Pokémon trainer and instead go in the footsteps of hi🎀s grandfather Professor Oak and become a Pokémon researcher.

12 We Knꦆow His Father — It's Not W꧃ho You Think

Not a whole lot is known about Gary and his origins apart from the fact that Daisy is his si♊ster and Professor Oak are his grandfather. You know that he wishes to be a Pokémon trainer and per🍌haps the best in the world like Ash, but like Ash, you have no idea who his father is. Even worse for Gary though is that there is no indication who his mother is either.

While all this spells gloom and꧃ doom for Gary and explains a good deal about why Gary wishes to outshine Ash at every turn to impress his grandfather it begs the questions wh🐓o the rest of his family members are. Lucky for us in ‘Pocket Monsters: The Animation’ it is revealed that Gary is actually the grandnephew of the Mayor of Pallet Town. This helps to explain why Gary is always seen with the cheerleaders in the series who are also a part of the Mayor’s electoral staff.

11 🎶 His Biggest Failure...

I’m sure you remember all the times Professor Oak and others told Ash how m𓆏uch better Gary waꦜs as a Pokémon trainer at the start of the series and throughout. I’m sure you also remember all the times that Ash ran into Gary and all the times that they would battle throughout the series, but did you know that Gary never made it to the finals in any league?

It seems strange to think about, but the sad fact is that Ash’s arch-rival just isn’t that good at winning Pokémon leagues. You would think that a guy who got ten badges in Kanto region would be good at what he does, but that just isn’t the case. In the Indigo Plateau Conference in Kanto he only made it into the top thirty-two, but in the Johto League, he did make it to the top sixteen of competitors in the silver con🐓ference.

10 His Relatio🔴nship With Ash Is Complex

When you think about it, this one isn’t that far-fetched given that some of the greatest rivals in history either are friends or were friends at one time, but this is something that isn’t discovered until much later in the series. In fact, it is interesting toဣ note that both Gary and Ash were neighbors and actually went out and saw movies together as see💃n in the episode ‘Lights, Camerupt, Action!’.

So, you may be wondering if they were friends at one time why all the rivalry in the first place? Well, in the Pokémon episode entitled ‘The Ties That Bind’ we learn that꧟ they were both fishing on their journey when the♍y jointly snagged a Poké ball. The ensuing fight over it caused the ball to break in half and they each kept a half as a reminder of what happened.

9 Theꦏ Gas Guzzler Stories

When you think of Pokémon now you are probably a little taken aback by the fact that so many Pokémon trainers, scratch that, so many people in the Pokémon universe don’t use 🍨cars. It seems strange that such an advanced civilization wouldn’t use some form of transportation and instead decided to walk everywhere.

Well, they all seem to walk everywhere with the exception of Gary Oak who instead uses 🔯his Red Convertible to get around. He loads up his famous cheering squad into his vehicle and despite being all of ten years old decides to drive around and show off how cool he is to Ash and the world without even being of age to drive a car yet. In a way, Gary was portrayed as the type🎃 of kid that could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.

8 🃏 He Is The Only Character To Be A Gym Leader, Rival, An🅰d A Champion

As bad as Gary may be at winning Pokémon tournaments, he has a lot of things going for him that show that he is a worthy character of mention. There are a lot of different people within the Pokém🐎on universe, so it is a bit surprising to learn that Gary is the only one out of all of them to be a true rival to Ash throughout the series, a⛦s well as being a champion, and a Gym Leader to boot.

In the original Red and Blue Pokémon games, he’s your rival in Pallet town and he secures eight Kanto badges, he also beats the Elite Four shortly before you are able to do so. As a result, he is the first one to become the new League Champion. In the later games, Silver and Gold, Gary has �♐�taken over the Viridian City Gym from Giovanni after defeating him and Team Rocket.

7 His Cathphrase 🐼Has Strange Origins

Pokémon had a lot of weird and interesting parts to it, and nothing was perhaps as strange as Gary’s timely phrase in both the shows and in the games of “Smell Ya Later,” but did you know that this wasn’t the exact translati♌on from Japanese to English of what Gary was actually saying?

In the Japanese versions of the games and in the show Gary would actually say the line loosely translated as “Welp, be seein’ ya!” and not the line “Smell ya later!” as we are all accustomed to remember seeing as kids. The term “Welp, be seein’ ya!” was a popular teenage saying at the time in Japan and that’s why it was placed into the game to start with. The creators of the game didn’t have an easy way to translate it to English ꦛthe right way and so they choose to use the phrase “Smell ya Later!” as it’s replacement throughout the series.

6 The Strange Reason He’s Your Ri꧒val in The Gameboy Version

While there are many plausible reasons why Gary (AKA Blue) is Ash’s rival in the series, there is one, in particular, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Being the kid that I was, and not really reading the manual at the time, I never noticed that in Pokémon Red and Blue, the reason listed for Gary being your rival is the🗹 fact that he is quote “the same height and꧑ the same age as you."

This may seem like a really dumb reason for someone to be your rival on the surface, until you put it into the context of the age of the characters and how kids normally act at that age. Usually when you are the same age as someone, as a kid, you always try to outdo them and show th🐎em that you are better then they are at whatever they are doing.