Seriously, its fucking Pokemon, not Tolkien's Complete Works. What the fuck's this bullcrap about canon protags and canon starters?
>But in the manga-
Pokemon Adventures is one of hundreds of endorsed Pokemon manga, each with whatever starter/protag variation the author decides. It's official, but these decisions are no more important to the game than a twelve year old's fanfiction.
>But in promotional art
You can find promotional art of all different variations and shit.
>But the hairstyle and skintone of this character-
Oh my god shut the fuck up if you have to draw a corkboard conspiracy map it's not canon it's a fucking fan theory.

Its meant to be a customizable game. Isn't that part of the draw of pokemon compared to other RPGs? You pick everything about your team and your experience. Do you think deep in the Gamefreak offices the programmers and creative team hunker in a dark corner and decide that this starter and this character is the REAL one, and all the others are just decoys? They just keep that information squirreled away until some genius on /vp/ picks up their carefully laid trail of breadcrumbs and realizes it was the faggot instead of the cunt all along. No, they just make two protags and three starters and let you decide what your adventure is.