Using her expertise to help newbie trainers heal their Pokemon after an embarrassing defeat, Nurse Joy is a recurring character in the Pokemon anime series that has been around since the second episode, where she helped Ash's dying Pikachu after he was struck by lightning and accosted by a flock of Spearow. Since this moment, Nurse Joy has appeared in the series in one form or another, sometimes as the central focus of that episode's story.
Despite being around for so long and having multiple story arcs attached to the character, Nurse Joy isn't someone that gets a lot of spotlight, and a lot of aspects of her character fly under the radar compared to most other recurring characters in the series.
10 Most Regions Have A Different Partner Pokemon
Nurse Joys are generally most recognizable by both their uniform and their partner Pokemon, which, for a long time, was usually a Chansey. However, after the series moved to new regions, Nurse Joy's partner Pokemon changed to reflect the region they were in. Some Nurse joys had a Blissey instead of Chansey, while others had a Wigglytuff, Comfey, Indeedee, or Audino.
9 They Can Be Identified By Their Hats
A recurring feature of Nurse Joys is that, despite there being dozens, if not hundreds, of them around the world, they all look virtually identical. However, as Brock pointed out early in the series, he was able to distinguish between each different Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy by the crest on their hats, as each Pokemon Center used a different shape to symbolize that town's hospital. This carried on for some time, though would later be changed to another identifiable object.
8 Some Are Identified By Their Uniforms
Later in the series, particularly in Alola, each different Nurse Joy was identifiable not by the crest on their hat, but by their uniforms instead. Some Nurse Joys have slightly different-looking uniforms to others, while some have a different badge pinned on their shirts instead, making their differences a little more obvious to casual viewers.
Several Nurse Joys that have been the center of an episode's story have also had unique uniforms or worn more casual outfits in order to make them stand out from the crowd. However, there are much fewer of these Nurse Joys than the standard ones.
7 Each Region Has A Slight Redesign
Between changes to animation style and quality, it should be no surprise that each region's Nurse Joy not only looks slightly different in terms of their uniform but also their overall character design. While the first few region's Nurse Joys look relatively similar, the Nurse Joys from Unova, Alola, and Galar look significantly different, both with their clothing and their hairstyles.
6 Seven Actors Have Played The Character In English Dubs
Since Nurse Joy's first appearance in the second episode of the series, there have been quite a few actors to play their roles over the years. Aside from the complete recasting of the series after 4Kids lost the dubbing rights during the Hoenn series, each region has also seen the role recast with the exception of the Sinnoh series, which carried over the same voice from Hoenn. As of Pokemon Journeys, the role has returned to the actor who played Nurse Joy in the original series.
5 They Have Only Appeared In Three Games
Despite each Pokemon game heavily featuring Pokemon Centers and their respective nurses, Nurse Joys have only appeared in Pokemon Yellow and its remakes, Let's Go Pikachu & Eevee. In all of the other games, they are simply known as the Pokemon Center Nurses, while their role in Yellow and the Let's Go games pull more from the anime series than from past games. Despite the fact that most Pokemon Center Nurses aren't Nurse Joys, the majority of them share the same character design as Nurse Joy from their respective regions.
4 Joy Is Their Family Name
It would have been incredibly confusing to name an entire branching family of identical women in the same line of work Joy, but this turns out to not be the case, as discovered in the episode "Drifloon in the Wind." In reality, each Nurse Joy is called such because this is their family name rather than their given name, which makes a lot more sense than every nurse being called Joy.
The episode in question features two women from the Joy family, Marnie and Paige, who look identical to every other Nurse Joy seen so far, and their father, Karsten, who couldn't look more different if he tried.
3 The Nurses In The Generations Series Are A Little Different
The Pokemon Generations series takes a slightly different look at the world of Pokemon than other short series, playing out events from the mainline series through the lens of the anime series. While Nurse Joys don't appear very often, when they do, it is clear that they aren't the same Nurse Joys from Kalos as the ones seen in the anime, as they have slightly longer and darker hair than their anime counterparts.
2 The Nurse In The Origins Series Is Very Different
While the Kalos Nurse Joys in Generations look only a little different from the main Nurse Joys, the design of the Center Nurse in Pokemon Origins, on the other hand, is vastly different from any other design of the character. Unlike all other nurses, this nurse has a distinctly different hair color and design than any of her video game or anime counterparts and stands out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the anime's characters, which are all fairly faithful to their original designs in one way or another.
1 The Orange Islands Nurse Joys Are More Tanned Than The Alolan Variety
Shortly after his embarrassing loss to Richie in the Kanto League, Ash decides that he needs to blow off some steam and enters the Orange Islands version of the Pokemon League to cheer himself up. While several Pokemon in the Orange Islands have a slight variation on those found in Kanto, possibly hinting at regional variants long before they were actually implemented into the game, the Nurse Joy that they come across has a much darker skin tone compared to Kanto's versions. While this makes sense considering the tropical nature of the region, it brings into question why the Nurse Joys from Alola don't have the same tan.