Reviewing Pokemon's Human Characters - Galar

Haven't really done one of these in a while. Back during the lull between the original release of Sword and Shield and the release of the DLC's, I reviewed all of the human characters from Pokemon, including the trainers. Mostly as a lark with Kanto, but as with any Pokemon-related article, it devolved into me just talking about how I feel about the characters in general. I never did one for Galar, nor did I feel like it, what with the DLC not coming out yet. 

This was supposed to go up in 2020, but things got delayed as I fixed image links and whatnot. 

Previous reviewing Poke-humans: Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos and Alola.

Anyway, Galar! Poke-Britain!

Victor & Gloria

• Position: Protagonists
• Japanese Names: Masaru & Yuuri

With our in-game avatars being more and more customizable with each generation, I feel like I don't even remember the default appearances of the Alolan and Galar protagonists in general. Like, not even the hair or the hat or the clothes can stay consistent between any two games! These two, I feel, look particularly generic. As usual, though, the default look for the girl, Gloria, is a lot more distinctive thanks to her neat jacket having a pretty cool little... bobble on top of her hat? Mostly I remember her from the many, many memes that set her up as a foul-mouthed Scottish lassie. 

Victor and Gloria get a surprising amount of official artwork, with the base Sword/Shield game giving us their default outfits and their sports uniforms that they enter the stadiums and gyms with. I dislike these with a passion, although I'm not sure how much of it comes from my own dislike of the tacky sponsorship labels in general. Isle of Armor's dojo outfits are a lot nicer on the eyes. The Crown Tundra's snow outfits are very reasonable, but not too fashionable.

Hop

• Position: Rival
• Japanese Name: Hop

Hop's your very first childhood-friend rival and... he initially seems too much to be a rehash of Hau. An overly friendly dude, kinda stupid, utterly outclassed by you, a bit of a Pollyanna, and has a relative that's this notable trainer in the region? Yeah. Even their names are three-letter words starting with H! It took me two games and a lot of discussion online for me to come over to liking Hau, and Hop... Hop takes a bit of a work for me to really care about him. But he actually does go through a bit of a character development where he goes through some despair after being beaten and bullied by Bede, and his confidence is so shattered that he even abandons his oldest and most beloved Wooloo in exchange for a constantly-rotating team as he tries to basically 'metagame' it. Which would be cool in any other context, but poor Hop's dialogue and body language is so depressed and frustrated. He eventually gets his confidence back and is probably one of the rivals to have the biggest role in the story, actually claiming the opposite-game legendary as you and Hop become the 'two heroes' or whatnot. He's more of a counterpart to N in that sense. Yeah, it took a while, but I warmed up to him. Design-wise he is kinda bland, but a lot of these newer characters do try to tone down some of the... unique fashion choices that the Hoenn and Sinnoh characters make.  

Marnie

• Position: Rival / Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Mary
• Specialization: Dark

Hop looking generic is all right, because the other two rivals we get have so much more memorable outfits! Marnie here has got a fun little goth-punk style going on, and the minidress and studded jacket combo works pretty well for her without going over-the-top. Unlike what her appearance might lead you to believe, she isn't actually some sort of too-tough girl, or a too-serious bitch, or a tsundere or anything. She's just sweet, shy, more serious than Hop... and uses a team full of 'badass' Pokemon that's mostly Dark-themed, but I love that whoever designed Marnie's team allowed her to have her aesthetic surround 'asshole-looking' Pokemon, which is why Toxicroak snuck its way into Marnie's party. Oh, and her primary Pokemon is a Morpeko. Neat!

Her story is perhaps nowhere as epic or as life-changing as Hop (or Bede's, let's be honest), and I felt like it was paced badly and too much surrounded the Team Yell stuff that was really more of a distraction, but I was pleasantly surprised by Marnie even though she didn't have a whole ton of screentime relative to the other rivals. It's mostly just a way for her to stake a claim at her own identity despite her overly-supportive brother, and I do like that. She eventually becomes a gym leader at the end! Kinda wished we got more of her, for sure, but eh. 

Bede

• Position: Rival / Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Beet
• Specialization: Psychic, Fairy

And Bede (pronounced like 'bead' or 'beet', but I always mentally call him like 'bidet') here is our final rival. He's a huge, egotistical jerkwad who relentlessly bullies anyone he views to be weaker, including shattering poor Hop's confidence, and goes around thinking he's the second coming of god. Or, well, of Chairman Rose. Also, half the fandom thought he was an old grandma when images of him first hit the internet. I mean, when you dress in like, a frumpy thigh-length jacket that looks more like a dress, and style your white hair like that...

I do like that Nintendo is finally recognizing that the fandom keeps demanding for antagonistic rivals, and while the 'main' rival will still be a friendly one like Hop or Hau or Bianca, we still get an antagonistic rival in some way shape or form. N and Gladion are a lot nicer to our main character from the get-go than Bede was, though, and I absolutely love just what a twit he is... and yet his story, when we learn the full extent, is pretty tragic. He lived unloved and unwanted in an orphanage, and he basically worships and idolizes Chairman Rose... only to be basically ignored, used by Rose's secretary and discarded as a tool. He thinks he's something big, but Rose doesn't even remember Bede exists half the time. Ultimately, while the pacing with Bede is a bit spotty (he disappears for like, half the game), one of the other gym leaders takes him under her wing and while it's sort of played for laughs in the 'ha ha, the jerk gets abused' way, when we do meet Bede again he's a lot more confident (while still smarmy) and ends up actually loving his new position as a Fairy-type gym leader. Bede's party is interesting because before his character development it's almost entirely Psychic-type, but coincidentally half his team evolves into Psychic/Fairy, and when you face him later on he swaps half his party for Fairy-types. Not my favourite character design, but my favourite story of the three rivals, actually. 

Professor Magnolia

• Position: Pokemon Professor
• Japanese Name: Magnolia

The Pokemon Professor for this generation is Queen Elizabeth! Or, well, some old lady that looks like her. I don't actually remember a single damn thing about her beyond the fact that everyone makes Queen Elizabeth jokes about her, because she literally disappears from the plot after giving you your starter. Mostly because she's sort of a decoy professor, and the actual character that fills the mentor slot for you is...

Sonia

• Position: Professor Aide / Professor
• Japanese Name: Sonia

Sonia! She's a fun big sister figure who has the most wacky looking hair with little heart ornaments on it. She is so fashionable, and she's Magnolia's granddaughter and student at the same time... but we get hints that she is sort of a wash-out among her generation of Pokemon trainers, with her being a counterpart to Leon and Raihan, until something unspecified caused her to draw out from the league. We never really learn what, but a good chunk of her character is basically being fired up when she sees her younger mentees get so energetic and stuff and it motivates her to help out and research and finds out that she actually enjoys it when she's not forcing herself, leading to a fun bit at the end when Magnolia finally gives Sonia her labcoat. I didn't really think I would care for her all that much since she's just an energetic happy girl, but when she got her labcoat I realized that the game actually did a decent job at making her likable. Also, she's got the most adorable Yamper ever. 

Milo

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Yarrow
• Specialization: Grass

Milo's physique still... makes me go 'bro, what?' because, well, he clearly lifts. As the first gym leader of Turrfield City, he sure makes a lot of impression, huh? Not his gym battle, it's utterly easy against a Gossifleur and a Dynamax Eldegoss and felt more like a tutorial more than anything. But his character design. What the hell. For a franchise that tended to mostly differentiate people with hairstyles or clothes, Milo's utterly stacked physique next to that utter baby-face is easily the most memorably different character design out of the game characters. He's a farmer, though, so it makes sense that he's jacked. 

Not much to say about him otherwise, he's a typical gentle friendly man. In rematches (like Alola, all the main characters can show up in the Pokemon League equivalent) he ends up being associated with either Giga Flapple or Appletun depending on the version. 

Nessa

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Rurina
• Specialization: Water

One of the characters that is very popular in the internet is Hulbury's Water-type gym leader and model Nessa. She's pretty cool, although I do like the little quirks of her design more than the obvious, er, fashion sense. I do like her hairstyle and the blue streaks in it, as well as the wacky little live-savers on her ankles. I actually really like what little we learn of Nessa from both the little 'league cards' (which is collectible and has blurbs about the characters) and from surrounding characters in her city. Apparently she exudes this badass, calm, confident persona as a gym leader and as a model, but is actually crazy competitive, particularly when it involves her rival Milo (who is too cheerful to be competitive) or you (she drops her façade and gets really frustrated when you beat her). That's neat. Kinda boring, but still, that adds a bit more to her. Her signature Pokemon is the main generation VIII Pokemon that can gigantamax, Drednaw, but in her stadium battles she has a delightful selection of some of my own personal favourite water-types, including Golisopod, Toxapex and Quagsire. She's got great taste in Pokemon!

Kabu

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Rurina
• Specialization: Water

Apparently the 'gatekeeper' for the league is Motostoke's Kabu, the third gym leader, who also rounds out the trifecta of starter types since he's a Fire-type gym leader. He's... yeah, at this point all the fashion senses will blur together for me since nearly all the other gym leaders sort of have the same 'sports outfit' aesthetic that I find oh-so-boring. It doesn't get as repetitive and they try to vary it up, but Kabu, unfortunately, has such a generic football/soccer uniform. His personality is that he's an older man that gets very fired up. He apparently comes from Hoenn and his signature Pokemon is the awesome Centiskorch, but I can't think of anything interesting to say about Kabu. Sorry. 

Bea

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Saitou
• Specialization: Fighting

The fourth gym leader varies whether you play Sword or Shield. I only have Sword, so I get to fight Bea, who is a fighting gym leader who is also a martial artist herself. Her personality is 'martial artist', the game literally talks about her almost seeming emotionless and she talks about honour and stuff. At least her sports outfit is tied up weird above an undershirt? That's literally the most interesting thing I can say about her, personality-wise or design-wise. I don't dislike her, but Bea is literally the same character we had for literally every single Fighting-type character in Pokemon other than Brawly, and that's because they swapped 'martial artist' for 'surferbro'. Her signature Pokemon is Giga Machamp.

Allister

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Onion
• Specialization: Ghost

If you get Shield, you get the infinitely more memorable looking Allister instead as the boss of Stow-on-Side gym... although the gym puzzle is still the same. The weird pinball machine makes so much more sense for a ghostly puzzle designed by a kid, though. Allister's design is kinda neat, albeit one that's been sort of repeated ad nauseam in anime as a whole. It's a little creepy kid with a porcelain mask and long hair and he's ooo so spooky. His actual personality, at least from what I can gather, is that he's actually super-duper shy and he is afraid of people, so he wears the mask to gain confidence in public. I can relate. Apparently, he can see ghosts after an 'accident' at the age of four, which is pretty interesting although like Bea, being a version-exclusive character means that they didn't put in much for any of them in the actual games themselves. Gotta CTRL+C and CTRL+V the dialogues of the other characters! Allister's got a selection of fun Ghost-types, but his signature one is Giga Gengar.

Opal

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Poplar
• Specialization: Fairy

Ballonlea's Opal is a grandma who waddles around in an utterly delightfully bright bubblegum blue and pink dress, with a fun hat, umbrella and little bangles around her wrist, as well as a huge purple... scarf... boa thing. She's an utter weirdo who's like that overly-friendly older lady who makes you kinda uncomfortable because of how over-the-top she is, but I kinda like her antics. She basically meets you over your journey through the four gyms, but actually has an eye out for a successor, and gets to make observations about your interactions with Bede and Hop. Ultimately, after you fight her in her gym (which is a hilarious little quiz segment) she ends up picking a depressed Bede as a student and successor. I felt like, again, more could be done about her, but I guess I just got spoiled with how much cutscenes Alola's characters got? Opal's a neat grandma. She throws her umbrella around when she gets excited in battle, I liked that. Her signature Pokemon is a Giga Alcremie, which is an interesting choice, you'd think it's Hatterene which actually sort of looks like her, but that's Bede's gigantamax. 

Gordie

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Makuwa
• Specialization: Rock

Eh. Circhester is another gym that has different leaders depending on your version, although in this case both are kinda... eh? At least for me? Gordie's got a fun set of hair and a neat set of sunglasses, but thanks to them needing the characters to literally be interchangeable in other sets of dialogue, they really didn't end up giving Gordie too much of a personality beyond being a bit of an arrogant-but-fun character... something that Raihan, Piers, Nessa and even Bede do much more successfully. His whole personality seems to be that 'he is popular' and 'he is kind of an idol'. The league cards hint at some sort of conflict between him and his mother Melony, but since neither of them can actually interact with each other, being game exclusives and whatnot, it's kind of a wasted opportunity. Despite priding himself as a super-fierce Rock trainer, I do like that Gordie's party is actually half-goofy, with Shuckle and Stonjurner next to the fearsome Tyranitar and Coalossal. Coalossal, of course, is his G-Max. 

Melony

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Melon
• Specialization: Ice

Melon is another one that I'm completely indifferent to, other than a vague bit of mother-son drama between her and her son Gordie -- apparently Melony wants Gordie to be an Ice-type gym leader but he went off and became a Rock-type expert. But, again, because we never actually see them interact, there's absolutely nothing to this until the anime or manga picks this plot thread up. She's super-nice to people, but ruthless in battle. Eh. Her signature Pokemon is G-Max Lapras. Also, that's, like, a giant ball of yarn or something, not hair. 

Piers

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Nezu
• Specialization: Dark (theoretically)

Hell yeah, Piers. I've been pretty indifferent about most of the gym leaders, but the last two are actually awesome! Piers is the Dark-type gym leader and the black sheep among Galar's gym leaders. He shuns the spotlight, unlike the rest of the gym leaders, and he is obsessed with being such a deviant in the rules of the league, refusing to dynamax anything in his party out of principle. His gym is not in a stadium, but in some underground rock scene, and you also can't dynamax, because Piers refused to move his gym to a place with a Power Spot, and made it a point in his life to be as anti-Dynamax just to prove he can stick it to the man. What an utter champ. I loved him for this simple reason alone (fuck dynamax, by the way)... and let's not get to the fact that Piers' utterly insane hairdo with spikes seemingly designed after a Linoone, plus his jacket, his utterly tired eyes and his ability to literally pull out a mic stand out of nowhere? Pretty damn awesome. 

And let's not forget his actual personality! Beyond being "100% tired about the world", which is always nice to have in any fictional piece, Piers actually secretly blames himself and his unpopular gym for the state of Spikemuth's disrepair. Which is why he's also secretly super-duper excited that his little sister Marnie is a rising star that he knows will be more successful than him... so he ends up basically sending his gang to essentially astroturf Marnie and be this huge fanbase. Both you and Marnie beat him up... and he ends up being surprisingly prominent in the final act and the original post-game of the story, essentially forming a quartet of heroes with you, Hop and Marnie. I really like him, he's very likable and his design is memorable. 

Just like his little sister, while technically a Dark-type gym leader, Piers turns out to be playing dirty and only three out of his five Pokemon are Dark-types. He always has his signature Obstagoon (of course), but not all his team are Dark-types. Malamar, Scrafty and Skuntank are part-dark, but between Skuntank and Toxtricity, he seems to have a bit of an affinity for Poison-types as well.Again, just like Marnie, his team's aesthetic is more based around badass punk Pokemon rather than an actual type. 

Team Yell

• Position: Marnie Fanbase
• Japanese Name: Team Yell

So might as well as go over Team Yell, who is marketed as the 'evil team'... they're soccer hooligans. The game doesn't even attempt to make them be threatening. And they are huge Marnie stans, running around with weird double-trumpets and Marnie posters. They're super-rowdy and they basically get in the way of other challengers and most of the time you just do the equivalent of beating up a few over-excited fans. Marnie herself alternates from being embarrassed to angry at them, and turns out that Team Yell are just basically Piers' gang and/or fans from Spikemuth, basically a bunch of gym trainers who he sends out to support Marnie and Spikemuth. I kinda like their design, but ultimately they felt like something the game developers were obliged to put in. They're neat.

Raihan

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Name: Kibana
• Specialization: Dragon & Weather Effects

The rival to the champion, Leon, is Raihan! We haven't had this sort of 'rivalry' outside of the main character since... since Flint and Volkner from Sinnoh! Raihan is the Dragon-type gym leader, but you'll be forgiven for thinking he is the dragon with all of the 'rawr' poses he does while on the battlefield, hunching forwards and waving his fingers like claws and showing off his sharp teeth. What an absolute ham. His hoodie also covers up the terrible dragon jersey, and I like his hoodie with the dragon tooth ornaments and his weirdo hair. The thing everyone remembers about Raihan, though, is that he's a giant selfie junkie, and every single time he's about to Gigantamax his pokemon, his floating Rotom-smartphone takes a selfie of him. What a dork. I like him. 

There really isn't much to Raihan beyond being super-energetic and being Leon's rival, and having some of the best animations in the game for a human. While identified as a 'Dragon' gym leader, his initial gym fight has you go through a gauntlet of trainers in double battle, all of whom specializing around a weather effect, and Raihan himself has a team built around Sandstorm with only two Dragon-types when you fight him initially. Hell, even when you face off against him in tournaments and he has Dragons as four out of his five Pokemon, his team's still built around weather to some degree, with nearly his entire team having some sort of weather synergy. Other than hail, fuck that, dragons hate that. His signature Pokemon is the hilarious Giga Duraludon. 

Leon

• Position: Champion
• Japanese Name: Dande

Leon is the unbeatable champion of the Galar region, and... and he has a pretty neat cape! I actually love how goofy he looks if you see him from behind, because his cape is plastered with sponsorship stickers. Ha! Leon himself is... an all right design. Neat purple hair, and while the design of his sword/shield T-shirt is neat I'm still not a big fan of the rest of his sports getup. His battle tower outfit is much cooler. Leon's whole thing is that he's the unbeatable champion, but he's also the biggest dork in the game. He's Hop's older brother, and I always get the sense that he really never felt the need to put up a front of being a badass in front of anyone, but simply be a badass in battle. He has an utterly terrible sense of direction, which is apparently so terrible that the Pokemon league association had to have a guide to escort trainers from the hotel next door to the stadium. 

He's a neat character trope, I suppose, but he mostly just stays kind of static throughout the game. I do like the idea that we're introduced to the champion from day one, which isn't something that I think Pokemon's ever done. I also do like (and hate) that Leon basically takes over a lot of the investigation legwork for the main plot -- something that makes sense, in-universe, because he is the undefeated champion and my character is just some kid. But from a gameplay perspective, it's more than a bit irritating. Leon's fun. I don't think I like him as much as I do Piers, Raihan or Sonia, but he's fun. 

Chairman Rose

• Position: Macro Cosmos President
• Japanese Name: Rose
• Specialization: Steel

President of the supercompany Macro Cosmos and the Chairman of the Pokemon League, Rose is just some dude with fancy hair in a suit. They literally pulled off the same plot twist as they did in Sun/Moon where the nice, older mentor and head of a huge company turns out to be the main villain, except Team Yell isn't even as as set up as baddies as Team Skull was. Rose is, on paper, a pretty interesting villain in that his plan really hinges on making Galar self-sufficient, and if it has to cause havoc in the short-term so that the 'Galar of 1000 years in the future' can prosper, he'll gladly be the villain to do so. Very interesting! On paper. In practice, he ends up feeling more like a dumbass who just can't wait for one or two more days to let the tournament play its course and secure Leon's help. 

Not the biggest fan of Rose, honestly. His monologues felt pretty bland, his 'nice guy' moments felt bland, and there was a bit of 'I go on holiday, look at how wacky I am' segment that fell flat on its face. He's got the single best track in the game as his battle theme song, though, and his plan of capturing the ancient slumbering titan beneath Galar (Eternatus) and use it as a source of energy is a neat one.

Oleana

• Position: Macro Cosmos Aide
• Japanese Name: Olive

Yes, yes, Olive's outfit is smashing and she's probably got the best outfit bar none in the entire game. Yes, yes, she's Rose's right-hand-woman and utterly obsessed and devoted to him, so much that she manipulates a lot of things (including Bede), and she's an interesting antagonist as far as these second-stringers go. Yes, her angry sprite is funny. Yes, she was great in Twilight Wings, and her cameo in Crown Tundra was delightful.

But what I love the most about Oleana? What I really like about her? The little implied story with Garbodor. Oleana has shown herself to be utterly prim, proper and haughty at anything she views to be 'beneath' her. And when you fight her, her team is a typical 'beautiful Pokemon' setup... Milotic, Froslass, Salazzle, Tsareena... yeah, all pretty and feminine looking Pokemon. Kind of blasé, but I'm not complaining, there's nothing wrong with loving beauty!. It fits her personality. Then it comes to the final Pokemon, her ace in the hole, her gigantamax. What was it going to be? Butterfree? Hatterene? Lapras? Something elegant and beautiful and noble? Nope. It's mother fucking Garbodor. And I actually cheered for good ol' Garbodor, and I found it so cool. Either Oleana really likes Garbodor or thinks it to be pretty; the storytwriters are going for a 'ugly beneath the surface' (no! Don't insult Garbodor!) or, as later material would reveal, Garbodor was her very first Pokemon that was with her back when she had nothing, and accompanied her until she was something. It's actually something that I thought to be utterly heartwarming, that Oleana would dedicate her entire team to  beauty but could not bear to part with Garbodor. Anyway, yeah, she's otherwise kind of a basic bitchy minor enemy, but that whole story with Garbodor just elevated her into something much more memorable in my mind.

Ball Guy

It's Ball Guy! Replacing Gym Guide Clyde, we get Ball Guy as a mascot going around wearing a huge Pokeball mask with an unsettling grin on his face. I like him. He's just so goofy. He gives free pokeballs. What more could you want?

Sordward and Shieldbert

• Position: Self-Proclaimed Nobility
• Japanese Name: Sord & Shildy

These two are the antagonists of the post-game story, apparently two descendants of the ancient king that partnered with Zacian and Zamazenta, and they also have a cult of illuminati-like people who are of all walks of life. Angry that two random peasants would be chosen by Zacian and Zamazenta, they set off a chain reaction to cause another dynamax apocalypse so they can be made to look good. Cool story, bro, but the actual characters are kind of shit, they're only really memorable for their terrible hair and even the in-universe characters mock their dialogue. I kinda like that their teams are themed around offense, defense and knights, but otherwise I genuinely don't care for these two at all. 

Mustard (and Honey)

• Position: Mentors
• Japanese Name: Mustard & Mitsuba
• Type Specialty: Fighting

The DLC doesn't add too many new characters, because, again, we haven't even gotten all the dang Pokemon yet. Isle of Armor is all about a dojo, though, and Mustard fills the role as the kooky older man with long eyebrows. For the most part he's a kooky stealth mentor, sending you out to do weird stuff while you raise your Kubfu, but at the top of a pagoda he sheds his hoodie and shows off his fighting gi underneath that jacket in a pretty cool move, and somehow the power of kung fu causes his eyebrows to rise up. I love that. His backstory is only told via cards, but I do like the idea that he's someone who could be a Champion but bowed out because he refused to fight in a rigged match. 

His personality is honestly kind of generic, but I like his energetic animations when fighting him. Obviously, his team is mainly comprised of Fighting-types (Mienshao, Kommo-o, the Urshifu you didn't pick) but in the original Isle of Armor fight half his team are randoms (Luxray, Lycanroc, Corviknight) and I really do appreciate that. I wished more trainers did that. 

Mustard's wife, Honey, for the most part ends up feeling like she's just a generic stay-at-home wife (and she doesn't even get art, the disrespect) that's just part of the Watt-sink feature. And then turns out she's the bonus boss with a full team consisting of the Kanto starter you didn't choose and Pokemon that are as high as her husband's in level. I liked that little subversion, although I did wish Honey had more of an active role in things.  

Klara

• Position: Rival
• Japanese Name: Klara
• Type Specialty: Poison

You get a new rival in the Isle of Armor, in the talented-but-lazy Klara. And she's also a total bitch, at least until you keep showing her up and she ends up actually having to put in effort. I feel like her redemption arc isn't quite as earned as Bede's, but the Isle of Armor story is honestly a lot more light-hearted so... whatever? I think the Poison-type jersey is my favourite of the existing jerseys, thanks to the colours, and Klara colour-coordinates it well with her mismatched stockings, her poofy jacket, and that Dustox ribbon. Ironically, she doesn't actually use a Dustox... her signature Pokemon is Galarian Slowbro. Apparently, she's a failed pop singer, and basically everything around her is that she just wants to get successful quick without putting in the effort. Not the biggest fan of her, honestly, but she's a neat design and I can approve of her choices in Poison-types. 

Avery

• Position: Rival
• Japanese Name: Savory
• Type Specialty: Psychic

Shield players get Avery, who looks significantly more like a dork than Klara. Those shorts don't go well with your otherwise posh outfit, my dude. Like, okay, I respect the top hat and the shoes and the tie and the magician's pokeballs you've got, but those shorts just make you look terrible. Avery seems to be the same sort of abrasive condescending prick as Klara, although his motivation is because he comes from a line of psychics and he merely has telekinesis instead of teleportation or telepathy. Yes, your son can only move items with his mind, such a disappointment. And he's kind of obsessed with gaining his family's respect. I guess he would be a more likable character because of how his backstory is a lot more dramatic, but I've been told that he and Klara are basically interchangeable assholes, who become lazy and end up being motivated after being rivals with you. Sure. He's so interchangeable that he even shares the same signature Pokemon as Klara!

Peony (and Peonia)

• Position: Mentor
• Japanese Name: Peony & Shakuya
• Type Specialty: Steel

Our final NPC with an artwork is Peony, who is the main NPC of Crown Tundra. He's supposed to resemble Rose, but I really didn't catch it until late in my playthrough. He's Rose's brother, but he's the unfavourite and according to his league cards, he was always second-best until a particularly bad loss caused him to disappear from public. Turns out he's busy living his best life, being a good dad to his daughter Peonia (or just 'Nia'). A good chunk of Crown Tundra's scenes has him and Nia basically bicker at each other, with Peony being one of those overly affectionate and suffocating parents, but you sort of give him a pass due to how much Nia bullies him, how good natured he is, and how it seems a lot of it stems from his own shitty childhood. There's not a lot to say about Peony, he's just an energetic ally character who alternates between grating and charming, and spends half the screentime being mind-controlled by Calyrex, the other main character of the story. He's neat, even if design-wise he does look kind of generic. 

_____________________________

Galar doesn't even have all the Pokemon, so it is understandably light on introducing new trainer classes, what with having to do new 3D models and all for the Pokemon. If you play the game, you'll notice that a lot of these are just repeated fashions from the protagonists. Basically, a lot of the game's generic trainers are extremely forgettable. 

Gym Trainer (Jimu Toreina; Gym Trainer): Particularly the gym trainers. The actual expressions on the face (which you can't customize) are different, but a lot of them share the hairstyle and fashion options that you have as a player character. At least they bothered using the in-game customization to make the gym trainers look different. And the looks and poses of the cross-game gym trainers (like the energetic Bea ones and the calm Allister ones) are at least customized. Out of all of these, I like Turrfield Stadium (the grass one)'s girl gym trainer's eyes, she looks so done with everything. Otherwise, these are all forgettable. 


League Staff (Rigu Sutaffu; League Staff): Ditto for these. I think some of them worked for Chairman Rose, either knowingly or unknowingly. They sure look like sports stadium staff. 


Postman (Posuto Man): Very British, very fun beard. Not much to say here, I actually like him. He's one of those occupational trainer classes.

Cabbie (Takushidoraiba; Taxi Driver): We've technically got 'driver' before in XY, I think? These ones dress up with pilot goggles and headgear because their taxis are Corviknight taxis. Neat! 


Model (Moderu): Identical to the Beauty class of this generation. Still kinda unsettling that they wear Liepard fur. 

Cafe Master (Masuta; Master): These guys sure do look like an old boss of mine! They work at the Poke-Starbucks and run the cafe in one of them repeatable battles. As I keep bitching about, Sword and Shield really tries its best to get the game out with the priority surrounding only a fraction of the variety these games usually have. Bit of a shame, that. 

Master Dojo Student (Masuta Dojo no Monkasei): Not much to say here, it's neat that they give the Isle of Armor some actual NPC's wearing the dojo uniform. At least there's an effort made here to make the trainers look different. Neither one of the DLC's added much in terms of any sort of trainers.