Richie
Richie is a pokémon trainer who appeared in three episodes during the Indigo league, and also will be in some others (they're only aired in Japan). How many pokémon he has is unknown, but he has at least six, among them Zippo, a Charmander, Happy, a Butterfree, and Sparky, a Pikachu. He met Ash and his friends in an elevator, and impressed them greatly, before later chasing Team Rocket along with Ash for a day and a night, and it did at last turn out that they had to battle each other in the 5th round (Ash lost because of Charizard).
To say it the blunt way, Richie as a character is god damn boring. He acts like Ash, dreams like Ash, dresses like Ash, has similar pokémon as Ash... the main difference are the colors, really. He had green clothes and brown hair. And to make it even worse, Richie is Perfect with capital P. He trains his pokémon perfect, he acts perfect, dreams perfect... at least Ash has his stupidity which gives him some more depth.
But what makes him an interesting character is the way he affected Ash. Sure, Ash does have many great friends which means a lot to him, but no other character did make him just like Richie did.
One thing is that Ash and Misty bicker all the time, but while Ash almost never takes Misty's accusations to heart, he seemed to listen to Richie when he got angry with him.
Brock? Come on, Brock is more a mother than a friend.
Tracey? Big brother I'd say, his character was too different for it to be anything much.
But Richie was a real friend. They shared interests, they dreamed about the same (is it just me or do I talk about them dreaming about the same a lot?), they acted just like kids at that age and developed a deep friendship.
Richie also appeared in the Ono manga. The differences were basically that he was blond, and that his pokémon had different names (Chuchino the Pikachu, Charlie the Charizard (yes) and Happy the Butterfree) He also battled (and defeated) Gary before he battled Ash.
