Reviewing Pokemon's Human Characters - Paldea

And now we talk about the humans in Paldea! I elected to release this first instead of waiting for both DLC's to come out, mostly because it'll take a couple of months before both DLCs are out, and I wanted to release this at around the same time with the Hisui one. Depending on the amount of new designs, I'll either release the Kitakami stuff as its own article, or re-release this one in a future date with the addendums. Some of these characters might get extra screentime in the DLC, too, though based on prior experience they usually feature a brand-new cast. 

There's... again, not much in terms of interesting designs this time around, because so much of the characters in the game wear the same Naranja (orange) and Uva (grape) Academy outfits. Even all the trainers. I really am of two feelings about this. On one hand, I do understand that the trainers in this game isn't the main priority of the game story, and it's very much possible to go through an area missing a good chunk of the trainers (which isn't as easy in the previous games) but all the trainers are just 'Student', y'know?

And... yes, I get it, there are numerous models ranging from pre-schooler models to teenagers to even adults. Of different body shapes, too. But other than the odd 'Courier' here and there, all other trainers are Students and I really don't care to talk too much about them. 

Anyway, here goes for the Paldean characters. 

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Florian & Juliana

• Position: Protagonists
• Japanese Names: Haruto & Aoi

Our main protagonists this time are called Florian and Juliana. They sure are brown-haired and wear school uniforms. I don't remember the previous generation, but I think this is the first Pokemon generation that you can use all hairstyles regardless of the base gender? That was something that I find a bit surprising. But these guys basically have more or less the same school uniforms as the other students and... I'm sorry, their uniforms really aren't the most interesting? The Uva Academy purple shorts are my preferred one, mostly because I find the Naranja striped shorts a bit more distracting. 

Also, unlike all the protagonist characters in the previous games -- XY, Sun/Moon, Sword/Shield and even Legends Arceus, we can't really change any of the clothing options in our characters. There are four (honestly all not really interesting-looking) outfits and a handful of others in the DLC. I've never cared all that much for the character customization, but it sure is something that I miss very much. Especially when I really don't like most of the options except for the default summer and the jacketed winter ones. 

Nemona

• Position: Rival
• Japanese Names: Nemo

We get three 'storylines', but the character that behaves as our traditional 'rival' is the 'champion'-ranked Nemona. And Nemona does have a simple but very well-defined character trait, and that is she is permanently very, very excited about battling and battling and battling and hey maybe you want to battle and battling and battling. She basically follows you throughout the gym challenge journey, and later on in the final arc and the post-game, we learn a bit more that Nemona, despite her insanely positive personality... has a couple of problems that cause her to find it difficult to make friends. She's so insanely powerful and has huge troubles with social boundaries (such as being insensitive at 'reading' the interactions with the Mirai/Koraidons, or accidentally pressuring another much weaker student who's not interested into battling) and that's why she's so... happy to have a friend in our protagonist, whose battling prowess is something that can catch up to her. 

Nemona has basically the same basic design as the generic student, but with stockings, some extra strands of green highlights in the hair, and a pretty cool anime-protagonist gauntlet on her right hand. Not the most interesting character design, honestly, but that's also my commentary of all the student-uniform characters. 

Arven

• Position: Rival
• Japanese Names: Pepper

Arven is another main rival, part of the 'Path of Legends' storyline where you hunt down giant Titan Pokemon, and eventually becomes essentially the main character involved with the final arc. Huge spoilers for the Scarlet/Violet plotline, but while Arven is introduced as this very prickly dude, he eventually befriends our protagonist in hunting for the legendary Herba Mysticas. Eventually, we learn that Arven has an ulterior motive... healing his sick dog Mabosstiff, who was gravely injured by a journey to Area Zero. 

Arven is also the son of the professor, and is extremely estranged with Sada/Turo who has been an extremely distant parent to him. So distant that Arven views his dog as more of his family than his dad/mom, which is extremely depressing. While the big dude is clearly very frustrated and pissed off at Sada/Turo, it's also clear from some of his dialogue that he's also... looking for a reason. Why his parent abandoned him so. Of course, there is a reason -- a tragic one -- and poor, poor Arven just really needs a hug, which the rest of the cast kinda gave him over the credits. 

His design is... okay. The rather epic hairstyle and the giant backpack does give him a more interesting silhouette, but just like Nemona, he's kind of a variation of the generic student model. Both Arven and Nemona do a decent job at making the designs look unique, I suppose. 

Penny

• Position: Rival
• Japanese Names: Botan
• Specialization: Eevelutions

Why can't more of the students dress like Penny? Like, at least the prominent characters? Penny's also a student enrolled in the Fruits Academy, but she gets to dress in a frumpy sweater with a transparent skirt over a shorts-and-stockings in addition to the big fluffy Eevee bag, and a hairdo that's multi-coloured. I know she's a hihikomori and hides away in her dorm room with her six pet cats (well, Eeveelutions) and giant stacks of ramen and gigantic computer walls, so maybe she just doesn't get out much, but I still wished that even Nemona and Arven had a bit more things about them that differentiate their designs from the generic student. 

Anyway, again, huge massive spoilers for the game's story, but you first meet Penny as one of the students being bullied by Team Star, a delinquent team that's an 'antagonist' of sorts in this storyline. Turns out that Team Star is being opposed by a person called Cassiopeia that only ever contacts you via phone. Penny is later revealed to be an alleged agent of Cassiopeia that helps to give you rewards in the form of illegally-hacked currency.

Until, of course, the major revelation that Penny is actually Cassiopeia. There are some interesting swerves on the identity, with Penny being the obvious red herring that the game almost tries to steer you away a couple of times, but she's Cassiopeia and the whole thing stems from what the game later kind of analyzes as Penny's own desire to take matters into her own hands and deal with everything herself -- which led to her handling of team Star originally, and then to her being needlessly duplicitous and antagonistic and leading to a well-meaning but convoluted plan. I do reasonably like her story quite a bit, too, even if I didn't care about her as much as I did Arven. 

Professor Sada & Professor Turo

• Position: Professor 
• Japanese Names: Olim (Sada), Futu (Turo)
• Specialization: Paradox Pokemon

Probably the biggest difference in NPC's between Scarlet and Violet is that the professor that hangs out with you is super-duper different. The original promotional artwork about these two kind of clued in a lot of fans about the real plot differences between Scarlet and Violet, where Scarlet had a lot of things themed with the past, whereas Violet was future-themed. Professor Turo is the more thematic but a bit more 'boring' of the two, being a futuristic man with a bodysuit that has Tron lines all over under his labcoat. In addition with his facial hair, he does look like Mr. Fantastic from the Fantastic Four, doesn't he?

Meanwhile, Sada is basically wearing a cavewoman outfit, with a more revealing slant. It's kind of an interesting dichotomy where she still wears a labcoat over her Shanna the She-Devil cosplay, although I do like that her hair has some weird ornaments that make her look like she has dinosaur horns or something. A lot of people got super excited about Sada and Turo, and the two are obviously drawn to be pretty attractive and be fanfiction 'bait'. 

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE STORY, though. Skip down to the next entry if you don't want me to spoil the story!

Anyway, whichever version professor you have will be the single parent for Arven, with the implication that in Scarlet, Turo's a deadbeat dad and in Violet, Sada is a deadbeat mom. Whichever parent you get ends up having the exact same personality of being a rather distant parent to Arven... and also being dead and turns out that he/she is replaced by an A.I. robot clone. Which is, I keep reiterating in my playthrough, is something that works a lot better with Turo since he already looks robotic. I honestly wish that they had perhaps gone for a different twist with Sada. The main plot of both games turns out to involve time machines (which turn out to be more dimensional travel machines) and there's some degree of futuristic technology involved, but I really did feel that playing through Scarlet, it feels so freaking weird that the cavewoman professor turns out to be a robot. 

Anyway, decent designs, but the execution of them being robot professor clones doesn't really fit the 'two games, one story' idea. As you might expect, A.I. Turo and A.I. Sada use their respective versions' Paradox Pokemon, with Sada using past paradox Pokemon and Turo using future ones. 

Clavell

• Position: Director of the Academy
• Japanese Names: Clavel

Another important NPC that shows up a lot in our journey, particularly the "Starfall Street" storyline is Director Clavell, the newly-appointed academic director in whichever academy your main character enrolls in. Very basic design, some old dude in a suit with a goatee. Like our main player character, his outfit changes between versions. I said newly-appointed, because the plot of Starfall Street has a lot to do with bullying and adults in charge being completely ignorant and passive about bullying.

Now Clavell has to be likable because he's one of the characters that's involved in our main story, but it does lead into a rather ridiculously convoluted cover-up where Clavell had no idea such a huge bullying case happened literally before he took over. He just ends up feeling slightly incompetent because of that, and there's a bit of a weirdness where there's a "this is a venerable school with a timeless history" and the random revelation that all the teachers are apparently brand-new. I feel like it could've been better solved by having a villainous director that Clavell exposes and supplants during the course of the story? I dunno. 

You do fight Clavell at the end of the story and as a possible encounter in the school tournament, and Clavell takes the third starter that isn't picked by either you or Nemona. I love that this is basically becoming the standard practice since Pokemon Sun/Moon, that the third unloved starter gets a role! He swaps around some members of his team based on the starter he has, but I think the only theme is that he uses previous-generation Pokemon? I do know he has Oranguru because it's a teacher ape, and Polteageist because he's a sir. 

Oh, and as part of the Starfall Street storyline, Clavell decides to assist our main character in figuring out the circumstances behind Team Star (which I think I covered enough in my playthrough, but basically they got falsely accused with bullying, when they are the victims standing up for themselves) and while doing this, Clavell adopts the guise of the blonde, pompadoured cool-looking student called Clive. Which... I really shouldn't find hilarious, transparent disguises has been a staple running gag in the franchise, but I just find something super-funny about pompadours, and the fact that they dedicated an animation to have Clavell pose and fix his pompadour. 

The funny thing is, not only can you roleplay your character as being completely unaware of what Clavell is doing, Penny up above actually has no idea that one of the students she recruits to 'crush' Team Star turns out to be her principal! 

Katy

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Names: Kaede
• Specialization: Bug

There are a couple other characters in the school, but we'll blaze through the gym leaders first. The gym leaders in this game can technically be challenged in any order, but they don't actually level-scale, so you can still more or less see the order that the game designed them to be challenged in. Katy lives in Cortondo City, and she's a baker... and that's honestly about it for her. Her hat looks like a bread, I guess? The post-game rematch has a funny scene where she decides she's going to stop taking it easy against the new trainers, implying that she's going to start using her level 65 Pokemon against the new trainers. 

Her team has a bunch of new bugs -- the Nymble and Tarountula lines. But her ace (I don't think any of the gym leader aces are Paldean Pokemon, either, which is weirD) is a Teddiursa (later Ursaring) that Terastralizes into a Bug-type. And... I get that bears eat honey from bug nests and all, but this is something I am not a huge fan of. I think I ranted enough about how maybe only two or three of the gym leaders have a thematic 'let's take a Pokemon that's not normally X type and make it X-type', and Teddiursa doesn't really fit either the theme of a Bug-type leader or a baker. 

Brassius

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Names: Colza
• Specialization: Grass

Brassius looks overworked, tired, and generally prickly. And I do mean literally -- his clothes has triangular spikes on them, his hair is styled up and drawn to look like thorny vines, and he even has a big-ass thorny vine whip like he's about to be a supervillain fighting Batman or something. He's a pretty typical over-excited artist in almost all the dialogue he has, going AVANT-GARDE and stuff, although we do get a bit of a nice moment between him and his teacher Hassel if you go through the classes. It's not particularly enough, I think, to make him super interesting, but it sure is something. I also do like that he litters all of Artazon City with his Sunflora sculptures, and there's a bunch of fun dialogue about trying to figure out the meaning of his sculptures.

Brassius uses the Smoliv line in addition to a bunch of older Grass-type Pokemon... which does not include Sunflora for some reason. Okay? His ace is a Sudowoodo, which he Terastralizes into Grass type. Brassius is one of the few that I think has a thematic Terastralized ace, since he does give a short blurb about how he is going to make Sudowoodoo into "Truleewoodo" with the power of art and Terastralization. That's kinda neat! 

Iono

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Names: Nanjamo
• Specialization: Electric

This lady, however, is everyone's favourite gym leader, it seems, and I don't think it's hard to see why. Compared to literally everyone in the gym leader lineup, Iono's design and colours just pop out. I absolutely love the pastel pink and light blue colours of her hair and stockings, and pairing it with the oversized yellow hoodie with poofy sleeves is a great choice. Now the idea here is that Iono is a streamer for the Pokemon world's equivalent of Twitch or YouTube, and they actually do a surprisingly great job at highlighting the gimmicky looks of some of these gamer streamers while making Iono... not irritating! Which I felt is a pretty good accomplishment. She looks quirky and wacky, but a lot of her jokes and her in-game characterization seem to revolve more around portraying her as a streamer that sometimes 'breaks character' when she talks about high views, whether something is okay to 'stream' or getting money from her subscribers... though I do know a fair amount of streamers do 'pretend' to break character.

Anyway, she's got a fun design, and just the giant oversized hoodie (with a fake Youtube sticker) and ice cream hairdo would be enough to make her memorable, but she also comes with a voiced character trailer (something they never do for the video games!) and two tiny little mascots -- these bizarre, tiny Magnemites coloured pink and light blue with tiny, itty-bitty magnets on them. Iono only ever calls them as 'hairclips' and never as Magnemites, so they're not actually a regional variant... but Iono does argue with the tiny clips and they have some expressions on them!

...and, of course, they don't let Iono have any member of the Magnemite line on her party. She does have Bellibolt, the Pokemon she was introduced alongside in promotional material, but her 'ace' is Mismagius... and the only reason that the overly-excited Twitch streamer is paired with a witch hat ghost is... uh... Mismagius learns Shock Wave and has Levitate? Eh.

But anyway, Iono's got a lot of care and thought put into her, and I definitely do think that she appeals a lot to a lot of the streamers and the people who watch video game streams. 

Kofu

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Names: Haidai
• Specialization: Water

And Kofu here is our obligatory 'happy old man' character, which I honestly feel we already got many, many times in Pokemon's history. Wulfric, Chuck, Wattson... it's a trope, I guess. Kofu does have some really interesting hairdo. Either he really puts effort into dyeing half of his facial hair, or he naturally has hair that splits into white and blue on his eyebrows and beard. Kofu's job is a chef, he's loved by his entire town, and instead of a 'trial', the gym staff assigns you to return Kofu's wallet to him, and he begs you to help him win an item in an auction. His job is a chef, though he insists he doesn't cook his fishy friends. Vaultin' Veluza!

His team is comprised of new Paldean Water-types Veluza and Wugtrio.... and a Terastralized Crabominable. I get it, Crabominable is a crab that's not Water-type. It's... it's somewhat thematic, I guess. I just really don't like how Crabominable looks. 

Larry

• Position: Gym Leader / Elite Four
• Japanese Names: Aoki
• Specialization: Normal (as gym leader), Flying (as Elite Four)

Everybody's favourite one, Larry is an interesting Pokemon trainer because he's... well, he's presented as being just a long-suffering salaryman. I kinda wished they gave him a more regular hair instead of the one with light-blue highlights, just so that his clouds-and-sky tie (which foreshadows his later role) is the only thing that stands out from his salaryman look. I love this. Larry is just a guy on a job, who you meet in the middle of a restaurant that transforms into a gym and it's implied that Larry's also working for the restaurant! The poor, poor guy just feels like he needs a break, and I do believe that a large majority of the older Pokemon fans, which would be around my age, are all Larrys. 

Sigh. 

Anyway, as a gym leader, Larry is a Normal-type gym leader, viewing 'being normal' as something that's nice and comfortable for him. His Paldean Pokemon is even Dudunsparce, and I would say that Dudunsparce does make for a very good showcase as a Normal-type creature, right? But Larry, against all odds, is the only gym leader that, I think, Terastralizes a Pokemon into its own type. His ace is a Staraptor, which is Normal/Flying. 

And then Larry makes a surprise appearance as the third member of the Elite Four, grumbling about how he's overworked and how his boss, Geeta, forced him to choose a more intimidating type than Normal. So he picks Flying-type, and has a very respectable party of Tropius, Oricorio, Altaria, Flamigo and Staraptor... and the implication, I think, is that he just wants to use his buddy Staraptor in both of his parties. The ace that he terastralizes as an Elite Four is Flamigo, though. 

When you rematch him as a gym leader, I think Larry has found a nice balance between his two signature types, where he still clearly prefers the Normal typing, but he's also added another Normal/Flying Pokemon into his party in Braviary. 

Ryme

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Names: Lime
• Specialization: Ghost

Now Iono might be the funniest gym leader concept, but Ryme, the M.C. of R.I.P. has the best drip. An older-looking lady that raps in a snowy mountain village, Ryme's dialogue is truly fun and I love just how much effort the translation teams must've put into Ryme's puns as she completely destroys some chump in a rap battle right before she fights you. Her design is... a bit too simple for my taste, though I really love her fancy mic and her shoes, which look like a combination of a lower jawbone and a sacrum. Just... not the biggest fan of her hair, which I know is meant to resemble a skeletal arm, but it just kinda looks goofy. But Ryme's just got so much drip in her personality and her animations, I don't really mind. 

Oh, and she's actually got a cool-ass lore and a book in the school library implies that her rapping was so powerful that it transcends the border between life and death, resurrecting her dead dog Pokemon into a Houndstone! She's a rapper and a necromancer! Did I forget to tell you that Ryme is a Ghost-type specialist? She has a smattering of Ghost-types, including a small army of Houndstones that acts as her groupies that help out around her stage, and she actually uses a Houndstone! Her non-Ghost Tera ace is... a Toxtricity. A guitarist Pokemon that helps to strum music for her so that she can rap better!

Yeah, Ryme's a cool rapper. Big fan of her! 

Tulip

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Names: Lip
• Specialization: Psychic

Tulip, meanwhile, is only notable because I went to her gym as like, my fifth gym or something because I did the gyms out of order. She, uh... she sure is a purple lady in a nice dress? She's got those weird little... butterfly-things. Or are those supposed to be hands clapping together? They sure move. It's one of those things that people add to 'innovate' on a fashion show that just makes them look weird. Tulip is a model and a makeup artist, and... that's honestly about it for her personality? The post-game rematches added a fair amount of depth to the more boring leaders like Katy, Grusha and Brassius, but for the life of me I can't remember if Tulip really got anything. 

She has an Espathra, a Farigiraf and a Gardevoir, and a Florges that she turns into a Psychic-type. I... eh. Honestly, I wonder if she was originally conceptualized as a Fairy-type gym leader before they realized they had more Psychic-types to show off? I know they don't want to double up on types with the Team Star admins, but you'd think a 'psychic fashion designer' would allow the game designers to go a bit more... a bit more Valerie or Olympia instead of just some lady in a dress you could buy in a mall. 

Grusha

• Position: Gym Leader
• Japanese Names: Grusha
• Specialization: Ice

Another boring one, Grusha is a character that just seems tired of his life, until you learn a bit more of his backstory in the post-game. Grusha is an expert snowboarder, but he was very severely injured and basically was forced to retire. And now all he has is Pokemon battling, but he's not really willing to show any kind of emotion beyond 'being cool', at least until he acknowledges the player character as a rival. A bit simple, but I think it's relatively well-executed because I really felt like Grusha had nothing to his character during the first battle until I realized that it was intentional, and you ended up helping him to 'find his groove' later on. Nice big scarf, and like Iono, I appreciate the more pastel colours for his jacket and jeans. 

Grusha has a Cetitan as his main Paldean Pokemon, as well as Frosmoth and Beartric, and his ace is an Altaria that he turns into Ice-type. Because, uh... Altarias are cloud-birds and the cloud looks like snow or something I guess? Wait, why fuck did he not get a Gholdengo as his non-Ice ace? That's a Pokemon that surfs around on coins, and I get that it's not quite snowboarding, but that would work, right? Failing that, Alolan Raichu? 

Rika

• Position: Elite Four
• Japanese Names: Chili
• Specialization: Ground

And now we go to the Elite Four, and we get to meet all members of the Elite Four at different parts of our gym journey. Rika is... a girl! That is the whole crux of her design, really, she's one of those girls that dress up as very handsome-looking boys. Rika rocks the look, though, and the suspender-tie thing she has does help to make her stand out just a bit more instead of just being 'a girl with a baggy suit'. Despite her aloof personality, Rika's actually reasonably friendly, and acts as the 'only sane woman' next to Poppy (a literal child), Larry (who's depressed and tired) and Hassel (who's overly emotional).

I guess the joke is that she's the most 'grounded' of the Elite Four members, that and she wears brown clothes and shoes, because Rika is a Ground-type specialist with a Whishcash, Camerupt, Donphan, Dugtrio and her ace being a Clodsire. The Elite Four are allowed to use Paldean Pokemon as their ace, and Rika being partnered with a Clodsire is hilariously adorable thanks to the contrast between them. 

Poppy

• Position: Elite Four
• Japanese Names: Popii
• Specialization: Steel

There is a bit of a question being asked, specifically because Paldea is a region where your main character explicitly goes to school in a region that has formal education. But Poppy is a tiny kindergarten girl with an adorable little dress and a giant key necklace, and she somehow gets a job as an Elite Four member? Eh. She's got a couple of cute scenes being a cute little child that has a bunch of fun interactions with her 'big sister' Rika. 

As the metal key implies, Poppy is a Steel-type specialist, with her party being comprised of pretty intimidating Steel monsters. Magnezone, Copperajah, Corviknight, Bronzong... and her ace, Tinkaton, who is also a small tiny child-like figure holding a big scary weapon. I guess that's the whole joke, both Poppy and Tinkaton are tiny little small girls with giant weapons of mass destruction. 

Hassel

• Position: Elite Four / Art Teacher
• Japanese Names: Hassaku
• Specialization: Dragon

Hassel does double duty as being an Elite Four member, and also one of the teachers whose classes you can take in school in a rather fun but rather not-the-best-executed mechanic. I really love that there's a school that teaches you lore and stuff, but there's perhaps a bit too many classes, and too many class sessions to get to the interesting backstory and dialogues. Hassel does get a story once you talk to him outside of class. Turns out that he's the successor of a Dragon Tamer clan, but he refuses to take his role as the clan's successor and would rather teach art in school. I'm not sure why he can't be both, but I do like the whole 'chase your dreams' message. I also really do like that Hassel has this character quirk of blubbering inelegantly any time he gets a bit too emotional, which he does every time. 

Not too much to say about his design. I like that his suit flares out to a cape at the back, but that's about it. They're not trying to go too over-the-top for these teachers, I suppose. 

Hassel, being a dragon tamer, has a dragon team comprised of Noivern, Haxorus, Dragalgle, Flapple and his ace, Baxcalibur, the region's pseudo-legendary. During my Violet playthrough, accidentally hitting Baxcalibur with a Fire-type attack ended up activating his Thermal Exchange ability and it allowed Hassel to entirely wipe me out, the first time an Elite Four member has even came close to defeating me since Cynthia. It's pretty refreshing, because...

Geeta

• Position: La Primera Champion
• Japanese Names: Omodaka

Well, the hyped-up 'La Primera', the prime champion among all the champions in Paldea, is... her bark is much, much, much worse than her bite. I do think that they were trying to do another Cynthia, giving us a demure but terrifying champion. I do like Geeta's shoes, but her hair ends up feeling overly poofy and ridiculous in the in-game model. And for all her talk about finally finding someone that she can test out her full strength upon, she doesn't even act as the final boss of the 'Elite Four and Champion' storyline, since Nemona ends up being your final opponent after you get the champion title from Geeta, and that fight was treated with more gravitas and epicness than Geeta. I dunno. She just has a typical 'ufufufu' personality that isn't the most interesting thing in the world. 

It doesn't help, either, that her Pokemon party is extremely underwhelming. Espathra, Gogoat, Veluza and Avalugg aren't the most threatening Pokemon in a 'meta' sense, but I feel like Gogoat is particularly easy and the two Psychic-type Paldean Pokemon could've been swapped into... literally any other Paldean Pokemon that hasn't gotten adequate spotlight as a gym leader's Pokemon, like Rabsca or Gholdengo or someone. Her two final Pokemon, Kingambit and her ace Glimmora, are all placed in the wrong spots for their respective abilities to function. I don't know... I don't expect these champion battles to always be Cynthia-tier, but after having a respectable Elite Four, it's rather odd that Geeta's honestly a bit of a cakewalk to get through. 

I think the most insulting thing is that they didn't even try to fix and swap out some members of her party in the post-game rematches. I can get that the designers didn't want the champion's first battle to be too hard, but, oh well. 

Team Star

• Position: Truants
• Japanese Names: Team Star

I don't really have too much to say about Team Star itself, actually. Their 'grunts' barely have any presence thanks to how the game treats trainers, and they're basically just wearing variations of their regular uniforms, just with the sleeves rolled up and the pants scrunched up. Fancy star glasses, motorbike helmets... and they have a star symbol gang sign animation that they do. As with the past couple of teams that's not called Team Yell, however, Team Star's grunt music is amazing... which, again, is a bit of a shame that you really barely get to listen to any of it. 

Anyway, the backstory is a bit more complex but these guys are basically well-meaning bullies that got back at their own bullies with the help of the massive gangster-style Star-mobiles that the five admins created. There's a bit of an ambiguity on just how much chaos the Team Star characters are doing, with arguments easily being made either way, but eh. 

Mela

• Position: Team Star Squad Leader
• Japanese Names: Meloco
• Specialization: Fire

Team Star has five gang leaders, each specializing in one of the types not already covered by a gym leader or a Titan Pokemon, just so that we have a representative of each type in the game. I'm not sure how accurate it is to the Iberian Peninsula and gangsters there, but the Team Star bosses all have gigantic pimped-out cars based kind of on the ones that some yakuza gangs use. These giant Starmobiles are covered in my Pokemon reviews for Revavroom, but suffice to say that each Team Star leader uses one of these super-Revavrooms, which are somehow 'modified' to be mono-type corresponding to the Team Star leader, and have a signature move that's also tied to the type. 

Again, you can fight them in any order, but Mela is the weakest of the five and we're going up with the levels to rank them. She's the expert in Fire-types, using a Torkoal as her ace. I definitely like her outfit the most out of the five Team Star members, with the fancy bodysuit that trail off into flame markings, the giant explosive fiery hair, and gigantic goofy boots that reach all the way above her knees. The game actually pokes fun at this, and has Mela walk in a stilted, robotic fashion because she can't bend her knees. I think that adds so much goofy charm to what's otherwise a pretty cool but 'standard' cool anime design. 

Each of the Team Star bosses have a bit of a story going on as your character and Fellow Youthful Student Clive talk to them, and with Mela, she ends up being reunited with a Charcadet that used to play with her in school. Unlike some of the other gym leaders that don't get to use Pokemon they interacted with in the overworld (Katy's Vivillon, Brassius' Sunflora, Hassel's Gible, Tulip's Medicham) Mela actually uses the evolved version of Charcadet, Armarouge, as her ace Pokemon, alongside a smattering of previous-generation Fire-types. Cool! 

Giacomo

• Position: Team Star Squad Leader
• Japanese Names: Pina
• Specialization: Dark

Giacomo is the interim leader of the team while their big boss Penny is MIA, but he's actually only marginally more powerful than Mela. His design is... pretty basic. There's enough details there to keep him from being boring, but he's ultimately just a guy with a jacket, some headphones and a killer baseball cap. Some interesting animations, and he's also a DJ that constantly does DJ poses as you fight him. Presumably, he's responsible for the badass background theme when you fight the Starmobiles!

Giacomo's backstory is that he used to be the student council leader or something, but the policies he implemented were so strict that he got bullied for it. But meanwhile, Team Star are happy to have his policies, though mostly it does seem like he's much more motivated to make these new policies for his friends for their good. It's the other four's steadfast obedience to Giacomo's policies that actually make them disband as you tear your way through them. 

Giacomo's a Dark-type user, which... doesn't particularly strike me as fitting with his personality or design, but I guess you could make an argument for his chosen ace Pokemon, the Pawniard line, to be following 'rules' since it's a chess creature. 

Atticus

• Position: Team Star Squad Leader
• Japanese Names: Shumei
• Specialization: Poison

Oh, I like Atticus. What a fancy design! Atticus is a ninja, but he lives in the Tangtree Thicket, a forest where the trees are all spray-painted with street art markings by Grafaiai. And Atticus's ninja garb is positively oozing, with bright neon pink and green, and I absolutely love the vibe of his hood and the trailing parts of his coat to look like paint dripping off the walls. Very fancy outfit! (He's also surprisingly handsome under that hoodie, surprising Penny who thinks he's just a dork). 

The thing is, Atticus is actually a gigantic LARP-er instead of being an actual ninja. This is in a setting where actual ninja like Koga, Janine, the Shadow Triad and Beni all exist. The translation for English has him speak like an old-timey knight, but you know a proper translation would have Atticus yell gloriously embarrassing quotes form Naruto and Rurouni Kenshin in the midst of fighting. Of course, like other members of the Team Star five, Atticus is accepted without question by his peers, and he ends up designing personalized outfits for his friends... I guess except for Giacomo? 

Atticus's signature Pokemon is Revavroom, so much that your initial battle has him fight with a regular Revavroom before he whips out his pimped-out giant Revavroom. Again, most of his Pokemon are from older generations, though I can definitely see Muk, Skuntank and Toxapex being particularly 'tricky' ninja-like Pokemon. It is a crime, though, that neither one of his parties have Grafaiai in it!

Ortega

• Position: Team Star Squad Leader
• Japanese Names: Ortiga
• Specialization: Fairy

Ortega's whole deal is that he's a rich, pampered brat, and has that personality you'd expect from an anime character that is presented as that. Pretty fancy outfit, too -- again, I'm a big fan of the more muted pastel colours, which I don't think I see a lot in Pokemon designs in general. He looks like a dude version of a Sailor Moon character, and I mean that as a compliment. Do like his pimped-out golden cane, too. Interestingly, the game, once more, presents Ortega as a bit of a pariah despite his well intentions. He does have the option to just ask daddy and mommy for a billion-Pokedollar loan, but while he is tempted several times in the flashbacks, he ultimately refuses to and he's the one behind upgrading the Revavrooms into the Starmobiles. While the previous three typings still make sense for a giant car monster, I really am curious to find out how Ortega managed to make a giant steel car channel the power of Fairies.

Also, as the post-game cutscenes show, you'd think that Giacomo would be the 'sane man' out of the five... but it's actually Ortega that continually gets dragged into escapades by his other wackier, over-the-top friends. 

His party is made up of Fairy-types, with Dachsbun being the only Paldean Pokemon among them. The rest are all previous-generation ones, like Azumarill and Wigglytuff, and later on he adds Klefki and Hatterene.

Eri

• Position: Team Star Squad Leader
• Japanese Names: Biwa
• Specialization: Fighting

Our final member of Team Star is Eri of the Fighting-type, and she dresses up as this gigantic over-the-top wrestler. Very... interesting outfit for sure, and at first I wasn't sure what that face paint is supposed to be. A KISS groupie? Naw, those are in Galar. A World of Warcraft Darkspear troll? I think it's meant to be a Toxicroak-themed face paint, though, which I found delightful! Her outfit has a bit too much going on for it, I think, but the loudness of the outfit and Eri's own 'I will break you!' mentality does contrast nicely against her true personality, which is very overprotective over not just the named Team Star members, but also the generic Team Star goons under her command. 

Eri's bullying story is more or less what you'd expect from high school students. Eri is super-athletic, super-talented and super-pretty under that makeup... and she got bullied relentlessly by the next-in-line in the super complex hierarchy and politics of high school girls. But when Eri befriended her bully Carmen, they both became targets of bullying. Basically don't think too much about what the haters say, and Carmen ends up being Eri's staunch supporter even when you assault Eri's Team Star base. 

Eri's ace Pokemon is Annihilape, and her team is comprised of Lucario, Passimian and Toxicroak. In her rematch, she adds a Primeape to the lineup... I guess she really likes the Mankey line, then? I do like the idea that Eri kind of represents a more positive side of an 'angry' warrior, where she gets outraged and angry because she's trying to defend her friends. 

Jacq

• Position: Biology Teacher
• Japanese Names: Zinnia

This went a bit longer than I expected, but man, we still have the teachers to go. Not all of them receive official Sugimori artwork, but they all received individual models and individual stories. Least interesting of them all, however, is Professor Jacq, the biology teacher. He is the one that invents the Pokedex app in Paldea, is in charge of the whole 'fill up your dex' stuff... and then really nothing. All the other teachers have their own little stories going in the background if you keep talking to them, but Jacq has his role as 'Pokemon Professor' basically split up with Sada/Turo and Clavell. He doesn't even get to be the 'mentor' or the one that gives you your starters, reducing Jacq to just a guy with a very fancy purple outfit. 

And it's a rather fancy outfit! I like purple and I approve of Jacq's shirt and pants. But I am stretching to find anything else to say about him. Uh... he's called Zinnia in Japanese, making it a bit of a clash with Zinnia from Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire? His team is... uh... it's sure a random assortment of Pokemon? Arcanine, Slowbro, Swalot, Mudsdale, Lurantis and Farigiraf? Eh. I appreciate that he's not mono-typed (you don't have to be mono-typed to have a thematic team) but there's no real rhyme or reason to his team, I think? 

Dendra

• Position: Battle Studies Teacher
• Japanese Names: Kihada
• Specialization: Fighting

Dendra is a bit more fun of a character, being over-the-top in her osu's and being a bit of a klutz both in and outside of class. She also makes a brief role being shanghai'd by Tulip into doing some exercise minigame for her gym, and generally just feels like a well-meaning but clumsy lady. Her out-of-class story, which you unlock by progressing through her classes, basically has her try to be good at cooking and other non-fighting activities, so she can do something nice for her buddy Miriam. 

Dendra is one of the two teachers to have a signature type, which is Fighting. While she's much more associated with Medicham, which accompanies her everywhere, and the ace Pokemon in her battle is a Hariyama (for some reason), she also wields both variants of Paldean Tauros in her party. 

Raifort

• Position: History Teacher
• Japanese Names: Raifort

Raifort is an interesting character. She teaches history, and as such is actually my favourite teacher out of the ones that have classes in that her classes aren't just gigantic piles of tutorial (or fluff, in the case of Saguaro and Hassel). She actually gives us lore about Paldea's history, which I absolutely adore. There's a somewhat sinister bent to some of her lines, and I really was fooled into thinking that she might have some sinister motive to what's going on, but she does ultimately is just a history teacher that's a bit too creepily excited about the Treasures of Ruin. In fact, she sends you out to collect the stakes and unleash the Treasures of Ruin to capture them, though she's content to leave them 'with you' for now. 

Her design is all right. She has some cowboy-esque frills on her person, and I do like that her glasses and eyebrows does make her feel somewhat more sinister. Her party also feels like a bit of a grab-bag, comprising of Zoroark, Seviper, Grumpig, Scizor, Lumineon and a Gengar that she terastralizes. And... I dunno. I expected her to have some more 'ruin' or 'history' based Pokemon? I dunno. I know as a newer region Paldea has one of those frustratingly incomplete pokedex rosters, and we can't just give her like a Golurk or an Aegislash or whatever, but wouldn't the 'cursed sword' Ceruledge be a perfect ace Pokemon for her? That's a Pokemon that hasn't been spotlighted elsewhere among the trainers either.

Saguaro

• Position: Home Economics Teacher
• Japanese Names: Saguaro

Saguaro is the home economics teacher, and the whole joke about the character is that he's got a buff physique, a manly mustache... but he wears pink and he teaches kids about home cooking. His side-story involves him trying to hide -- and later embrace -- the fact that he has a sweet tooth, but keeps up the appearance of Manly Saguaro in front of the students by eating super-spicy food. Uh-huh, very simple. I guess we should be thankful he's not shown to be acting over-the-top like Tucker from Emerald?

Again, while having a party comprised entirely of cooking or food-related Pokemon, the only 'thematic' Pokemon in his party is Vespiquen, who makes honey. Everyone else is Pachirisu, Alomomola, Froslass, Goodra and Hatterene. I guess the idea is that his party reflects his inner 'cuteness', though, so there's at least some theme going on here. I can respect there. 

Salvatore

• Position: Language Teacher
• Japanese Names: Sage

Bonjour, ni hao, hola, konnichiwa! Salvatore is the language teacher, and I actually do like that he's teaching proper languages across the world. It's pretty basic stuff that you'll pick up from watching any television, but it's cute. He also shows off the game's ability to modulate 'angry' and 'happy' cries, I guess. Salvatore's whole side-story has him adopt a mute Pawmi, who he bonds with the power of actions instead of words, or something like that? He is also unique in that he gives you a Galarian Meowth as a reward. All these regional variants do really seem like they could be the basis of a cool, thematic, party, right? Galarian Meowth and original-flavour Wooper are already in the game and you can adopt them. You'd think those are the Pokemon that Salvatore would use, right? It doesn't have to be the whole party...

...Honchkrow, Persian, Palossand, Glaceon, Gothitelle, Raichu. Yeah. Nothing that really stands out as being themed around the personality of the trainer. Honestly, I don't know if I just have pretty high expectations, but the whole point of this franchise is to pick out the coolest Pokemon that are your favourites, right? I dunno.

Tyme

• Position: Maths Teacher
• Japanese Names: Thyme
• Specialization: Rock

Tyme is our maths teacher, and it's actually lampshaded that maths is easily the most boring of all the subjects. Her actual classes is about the maths of critical hits and damage multipliers, which is hilarious but I can't really be arsed if a damage multiplier goes x2 or x2.5 or 50% or whatever. As long at that super effective sound effect sounds, I get the dopamine rush, you get what I mean? Tyme's story deals with a fan of hers that's disappointed that she gave up her old gym leader career... because Tyme is the sister of Ryme up above! Was that why Ryme's gym is a double battle? Did the two sisters go full Liza & Tate in the past? Tyme uses Rock-types, which is a hilarious stealth pun to how her sister is a musician, too. 

She's got both versions of Lycanroc, Drednaw, Stonjurner, Coalossal and her ace is a Garganacl. Okay!

Nurse Miriam

• Position: Nurse
• Japanese Names: Mimosa

And the last character we're covering here before we come back for the DLC is Miriam, a nurse that doesn't hold classes, and is just there for you to talk to and basically motivate her to take the tests to become a fully certified instructor. I like the message of you being able to change your career and improve yourself even at an age where you should be working, which is a message that a lot of people my age kind of needs to hear. Her design is pretty simple once you take away the bubblegum ice cream hairdo out of the way, though.

I think her team is kinda thematic for healing, actually, although it's not the most obvious! Hypno is for hypnotherapy, Pincurchin is for acupuncture, Toxapex is acupuncture and toxicology, Sawsbuck is herbology, Glalie is cryosurgery, Eelektross can represent defibrillation. I mean, they actually do have Pawmot, but I guess they wanted to make Pawmot a bit more unique to Nemona.

___________________________

And, yeah. This took a bit longer than I thought to finish up, mostly because I really didn't find a lot of the NPC's in Paldea super-interesting, and I was working on both this and the Hisui one simultaneously. There's still a bunch that remained here, but I actually did cut out a huge batch of me bitching about Pokemon parties and how they really should do better to fit the trainers. Anyway, DLC soon, hopefully!