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>According to Sugimori, she was not originally planned as a player character. He wanted to portray a trio of Trainers facing off against each other, hence designed the female character for the cover.
The female character was later adapted for the Pokémon Craft DX magazine drawn by Emiko Yoshino, as well as Green in Pokémon Adventures (released 11 months after the original artwork), Leaf in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen (8 years after the original artwork), and Green in Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! (22 years after the original artwork).
>Sugimori noted that he took the unnamed female character into consideration when he was designing the female protagonist for FireRed and LeafGreen. He also mentioned that the FireRed and LeafGreen female protagonist did not have a name at the time of his writing, in November 2012.
While Green shares many similarities with Leaf, it has not been officially confirmed whether Green is an incarnation of Leaf, a cross-canon counterpart, or a separate entity entirely.
>The majority of her Japanese default names are shared with Dawn and Lyra. She also shares all of Kris's alternate Japanese names.
Leaf's FireRed and LeafGreen sprite shows her with blue eyes, although every other sprite and the official artwork shows her with brown eyes.
Looks like Leaf has an identity crisis in general.
Also she doesn't have a single TCG art since FLRG era, in fact Green got at least 2 card versions and TCG promotional art.
I bet if Sugimori was asked on twitter who he prefers the most beside Peach, he would answer Green or post the original female trainer design without dropping the name.
