Louie

Louie is a secondary protagonist in the Pikmin series, serving as Olimar's partner and co-worker. He first appears in Pikmin 2 – the only game in which he is a playable character in Story Mode. In Pikmin 3, he stays at the Koppaites' ship after being saved, twice, and appears as Olimar's partner in Bingo Battle, as well as a playable character in some missions. In Pikmin 3 Deluxe, he once again accompanies Olimar as a second leader in the Side Stories mode. He appears once again in the second act of with a more antagonistic role.

Louie is relatively new to the shipping business and has a ravenous appetite. He was raised by his grandmother, who encouraged him to play with bugs, as well as eat them – an activity he seems to partake while on PNF-404.

Appearance and personality
Physically, Louie has a single yellow tuft of hair and light yellow (beige) spacesuit, decorated with blue lines and blue gloves, like Olimar's spacesuit. Unlike Olimar, Louie is slightly lankier, his nose is rounder and slightly smaller, and his head is pear-shaped.

Louie is known to have a very ravenous appetite. He has prepared many recipes for creatures on PNF-404, even attempting to eat creatures that may be inedible to his species. His notes on the Iridescent Glint Beetle suggest he wants to start his own cooking show, called "The Insect Gourmet!"

Louie is also known to be very quiet and apathetic towards efforts he does not value. He does not care about anybody but his grandma, not even his job - he will often abandon ship and attempt to live on PNF-404 forever, or tamper with valuable delivery cargo. Whenever Louie goes rogue, he has a remarkable tendency to survive and brave through dangerous environments extremely quickly and easily, even to the depths of extremely long caverns.

Earlier life
As a child, he was quite skinny, and his grandmother always had him eat everything on his plate. When he lived with his grandmother, he used to be forced to play on a hill behind their house, where she would make him eat plants and bugs, the latter of which kept nibbling on him.

Olimar's return
Louie's first mission for Hocotate Freight was to transport a shipment of valuable golden pikpik carrots. In it, he was supposedly attacked by a ravenous space bunny, and the carrots were lost. The President of Hocotate Freight took out a giant loan to cover the losses of the carrots, and had no way to repay the debt other than sell off company assets. On Olimar's return to Hocotate, the President learns of the existence of treasure on PNF-404, and orders both Olimar and Louie to retrieve objects that can be sold for profit, in order to save the company. A few days after the departure, it is confirmed by a letter from the President that Louie has been working at Hocotate Freight for three months by that point.

Paying Hocotate Freight's debt off
As Olimar and Louie head to the Valley of Repose at the start of Pikmin 2, Louie falls out of the cockpit, leaving Olimar alone. After making contact with the ship, Louie sets off to return to Olimar at the landing area. On the way, he discovers a Red Onion and cultivates some Pikmin sprouts, just as Olimar had done when he was stranded in the first game. The player can control Olimar or Louie, and using the latter, make him reach Olimar through the use of the loyal Red Pikmin. The two then proceed to retrieve the Courage Reactor, the first treasure of the game, effectively starting the adventure.

The debt is eventually paid off throughout the game, treasures being found in the Awakening Wood and the Perplexing Pool, as well as the Valley of Repose. After collecting worth of treasure, Olimar blasts off from the planet, noticing too late that Louie is left behind.

The Titan Dweevil
Olimar and the President of Hocotate Freight return to the planet to find Louie and gather more treasure. Louie aimlessly wanders around the planet for a bit, as seen in the credits roll of the game. Olimar and the President later find him in the Wistful Wild, hidden deep in the Dream Den, on top of the Titan Dweevil. They rescue him and send him to the ship's treasure hoard (since the cockpit is already full), calling him the King of Bugs.

It is unknown whether Louie was a captive of the Titan Dweevil, or in actuality controlling it. Some of the pieces of mail the player receives from Louie's grandmother reflect that he was made to play with bugs by his grandmother as a child, so he has a great deal of experience with them; therefore it is possible he had the ability to control the Titan Dweevil. This is heavily hinted at by the sales pitch on Louie, here denoted as the King of Bugs, which in itself implies this as well, and the fact that Dweevils naturally mimic the objects they carry. However, if Louie really was in control of the Titan Dweevil, it was still not him or the Titan Dweevil who attacked, but actually the treasures carried by the Titan Dweevil. Of note is that if Louie is rescued, but the weapons are not, the Dweevil will still be fully aggressive on the next trip to the sublevel. In addition, in the Titan Dweevil's Piklopedia entry, it is noted that the creature has a habit of picking up shiny objects – potentially including Louie's helmet or its antenna.

Pikmin 3
In Pikmin 3, Louie makes his first appearance in a transmission received by the Koppaite explorers, who mistakenly assume him to be Olimar and set out to find him. After rescuing him from a swarm of Scornets, the Koppaites take him back to the S.S. Drake, and the ship labels him "Hocotatian". They then discover he has gone into a forced sleep caused by his suit; when he wakes up, he lands the Drake in the Garden of Hope while the crew sleeps, steals their juice supplies and the captain's rubber duck, and flees. In the process of fleeing, he manages to blow up a cinder-brick wall thus giving access to the second section of the Garden of Hope. It is currently unknown how he managed to do this.

Later, the Koppaites find Louie in the remains of the Quaggled Mireclops. They take him back to the ship and tie him up, retrieving the stolen items and interrogating him on the whereabouts of the actual Captain Olimar, once they learn his identity. The S.S. Drake now labels him "Food Thief". After rescuing Olimar from the Plasm Wraith, they give Olimar and Louie a lift back to Hocotate. However, after taking off, Alph writes in a note that Louie has gone missing again. Still, the Koppaites do not show much interest in trying to rescue him, as Alph simply says that "I'm sure he will be fine..." He is confirmed to have returned to Hocotate with Olimar in Olimar's Comeback, possibly retconning his second disappearance.

In Olimar's secret logs
Louie is featured shortly in each of the expedition logs that the player can unlock by collecting every secret memo. He is usually seen being ambushed by some enemies, like the Peckish Aristocrab or some Scornets. In the last exploration log, he is seen running away before Captain Olimar gets kidnapped by the Plasm Wraith. He even said that he had a bad feeling about landing at the Formidable Oak. He appears to have fled to the Twilight River right after.

There is an unreleased video that was never announced by Nintendo and was kept as a secret. This one, unlike Olimar's logs, seems to take place during the Koppaites' hunt for fruit. In it, he explains how he stole the juice from the leaders and found the Wayward Moon, just before being kidnapped by the Quaggled Mireclops.

Mission Mode
Louie is an unlockable character in some Mission Mode levels, as of the 2 DLC pack. Louie is always kidnapped by an enemy, and by carrying him back, the player will be able to play as him. He functions the same as any other character, and has a yellow background for his character icon on the bottom left. When saved, he will say something arrogant, like "Took you long enough!".

Hey! Pikmin
Louie is also briefly mentioned on Olimar's notes on the Crammed Wraith. He says how he wishes Louie was with him, so he could tell with his cooking skills if the creature is actually delicious.

Pikmin 4
In, Louie first appears during the credits and unites with Moss. While originally ordered by the President to find Olimar, he couldn't recall what Olimar actually looked like and quickly lost interest in his assigned task in favor of looking for creatures to eat.

After landing in the Giant's Hearth, the player character encounters Louie and Moss dragging away Yorke, shocking Olimar as he was unaware that Louie was on the planet. After defeating Louie and Moss in Dandori Battles in both the Giant's Hearth and the Primordial Thicket, Louie abandons Moss and flees to the Cavern for a King, pursued by the player deep into the depths despite Louie's assumptions that they will give up and go home. On the final floor of the cavern, Louie challenges the player while riding the Ancient Sirehound in the final boss encounter of the game. After defeating him, Louie will give the player a series of Side Missions, where the player needs to bring various enemies in caves back to the S.S. Beagle. For completing all the missions, the player receives the Extra Hand, which lets the player carry objects themselves with the power of one Pikmin.

In the Super Smash Bros. series
Louie appears as a trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U. In addition, both games give Olimar an alternate costume with a blue color scheme, resembling Louie's attire. He also appears as a sticker in Brawl.

In, Louie appears as a primary spirit. It can be acquired by Summoning with cores from Snorlax, Postman, and any Grab core

Smash 4 trophy

 * 3DS:


 * Wii U:

Pikmin Garden bio
Text

Translation {{transcript| Quiet New Driver

Louie

Home planet: Hocotate

A new employee of Hocotate Freight, he's {{color|2=#fab400|quiet}} and it's hard to tell what he's thinking. He is the embodiment of a {{color|2=#fab400|troublemaker}}, and a huge glutton who acts on instinct.

Related persons: grandmother in the countryside

Hobbies: cooking

Dreams: living as he wishes

ID Badge
Text

Hocotate Freight Employee

Louie

Home Planet

Hocotate The quiet new driver and the embodiment of the word "troublemaker". He has a ravenous and alarmingly adventurous appetite.
 * block=y}}

Naming
Louie's name is derived from Luigi's name, as Olimar's is derived from Mario's. The two bear other similarities as well, such as height differences.

Occasionally, Louie will mutter to himself "Olimar – ...Huh?...Olimar?", while idling in Pikmin 2. Luigi says "Mario... Uh... Mario?" occasionally while wandering the mansion in Luigi's Mansion.

Inside Pikmin 2's files, the name "Loozy" is very common, like the internal name for the King of Bugs. This name can also be found in some prerelease articles, and is mentioned in a developer interview.

Trivia

 * In Pikmin 3, Brittany states that she was surprised to hear that Louie eats meat, due to Koppaites thinking that Hocotatians usually stick to a vegetable-only diet.
 * In Pikmin 2, he only needs one Pikmin to carry him, when in Pikmin 3 he needs five.
 * Louie can somehow cook creatures that are not salvageable for the ship, such as Bulborb Larvae and Pellet Posies.
 * In the European version of Pikmin 3's Mission Mode, Louie refers to himself as Louis when being attacked by a creature ("Louis here... Waaah!"). As of now, it is unknown whether this is an alias of Louie, or simply the result of a misspelling or mistranslation.
 * Olimar's voice is higher-pitched than Louie's, as seen in-game, during cutscenes, and even in Secret Files. However, this is not the case in a few cutscenes of Pikmin 3: when Louie breaks out of the S.S. Drake in the Garden of Hope, or when he interrupts Olimar with "Food!" during the ending cutscene, his voice is higher pitched than normal.
 * In Pikmin 3, Louie uses the same whistle sound as all other leaders, and is still using his name call from Pikmin 2. This was later changed in Pikmin 3 Deluxe, where his whistle resembles the pea whistle from Pikmin 2, and his name call is a more generic grunt that vaguely sounds like his name. In Pikmin 4, he keeps his original whistle sound from Pikmin 2.