(This will be the final article until November 29th, as I will once more be participating in NaNoWriMo! Looking forward to seeing you all again then!)
I’m a huge fan of Pokémon. From my childhood growing up with Pokémon Snap and Pokémon Stadium, to actually playing a mainline entry in high school with Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Black 2, I’ve always enjoyed the world of collectible pocket monsters.
However, one aspect of this franchise tends to go overlooked, and that’s with the trainers themselves. From gym leaders, to rivals, to champions, to evil team leaders, there’s a lot of super memorable and compelling human characters in this series. Maybe it’s because I play a lot of Pokémon Masters EX (a mobile game focused around the trainers), but I’ve always loved the human characters of this universe. Well, in this Top 10 article, we’ll be looking at my ten favorite trainers. Plus, to make it a little more fun, I’ll include each character’s theme for you to listen to and enjoy!
(Also, just to note, this ranking is based on each individual’s characterization, role in the game, and Pokémon team. I know I love music, but solid themes are really just complimentary to my enjoyment of these characters. That being said, if I had ranked by music, the #1 spot would’ve easily gone to Penny, so here’s HER THEME while we’re at it!)
Let’s jump in!
10) Ghetsis (THEME LINK) – Pokémon Black/Black 2 and White/White 2
A lot of Pokémon villains don’t make a terrible amount of sense. They have these grand ambitions to rule the world or destroy society (or make a lot of water or land, whatever those goobers were on about), but then they just fight our protagonists with a team of Pokémon and give up when those allies are defeated. Ghetsis isn’t like that. You beat his team? Well, then he just tries to stab you to death with his giant scepter! Also, the man deserves credit for being the main villain in two whole games, having escaped at the end of the first game and finally defeated for real at the end of the second. He’s also pretty infamous for his powerful team and tricky techniques.
9) Volo (THEME LINK) – Pokémon Legends Arceus
Volo is already a pretty cool character with how he puts on this act of being a suspicious assistant who is super obviously evil that he circles around to not seeming to be evil. Of course, he is evil, and boy does he put on a show at the end of the game. Also, like Ghetsis, he cheats, battling against you not only with a full team of six Pokémon, but then a surprise seventh member who also has two entire health bars! Pretty fitting considering he’s the ancient ancestor of one of the most noteworthy characters in all of Pokémon history…or may or not make not their own appearance on this list. Here’s hoping more Pokémon main villains take cues from Volo as the series moves further.
8) Malva (THEME LINK) – Pokémon X and Y
Malva’s got a lot of things going for her. For once, she’s got an excellent and stylish design, and I’ve always been fond of fire-types. Secondly, she’s a famous newscaster in the region of Kalos, and you often can check in on her broadcasts during the game long before you reach the Elite Four where she’s stationed. But more than anything, she’s actually a top ranking member of the evil villain team, Team Flare. When you meet her at the Elite Four, she straight-up threatens your life, annoyed that you took down her allies, all while putting on a façade when the other members of the Elite Four are around. And while she doesn’t take revenge in the games, she’s got an elevated plot role in the manga adaptation of X and Y that pushes her into the spotlight as a consistent and major villain.
7) Geeta (THEME LINK) – Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
Geeta gets a lot of flack for her lacking battle considering she’s the champion of the Paldea region, though to be fair she does get a significantly tougher team in the post-game, and then a rematch even harder than that in the DLC. But regardless of her practical strength, in-universe she’s an absolute monster of battle who also manages to be very considerate and kind in how she manages affairs. She’s a boss of sorts, and I like seeing her interactions with both the player during the course of the game, and also with her employees (the Elite Four and the Gym Leaders). Scarlet and Violet are filled with fun and memorable character moments, and I always cherish every time Geeta shows up. Also, she’s got a visual similarity to a ancient Pokémon who only exists in the forbidden area of the region, so that’s some interesting tease at some more layers she might have tucked away.
6) Courtney (THEME LINK) – Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire
Full Disclosure: Half of the reason Courtney made it onto this list was so that I had an excuse to attach the GIF below. Even beside that, though, Courtney is a lot of fun. She’s a minor villain, which readers of this blog will know is something I love a lot, and her battles are a lot of fun. I like her robotic and unsettlingly inhuman manner of speaking and acting, and the fact that even when her team’s leader is defeated she still shows up to cause trouble in the post-game storyline. She ends up feeling more fleshed-out than your typical evil team admin, and that’s especially true with regards to her presence in the manga and anime. Also, in the mobile game, she’s a a very funny and useful support unit who helps make your other ground-type characters even better, and I’ve had fun including her in teams. Her unique personality is still intact too.
5) Lusamine (THEME LINK) – Pokémon Sun and Moon
Lusamine, to this day, is still an extremely surprising character to be included in the Pokémon series, given its nature as mostly being for an all-ages crowd. She’s a toxic and abusive mother who wavers between neglecting her children and meticulously trying to control their every action, punishing them for stepping out of line. And this subject matter is covered with surprising sincerity and no punches pulled, some of her scenes are genuinely rough to watch. I suppose that makes it all the more satisfying to take her down as the twist villain of the game, especially the memorable moment where she fuses with a giant alien jellyfish thing. There’s a reason why a lot of people tend to say that Sun and Moon had the best story in the franchise, and most of that has to do with Lusamine.
4) Zinnia (THEME LINK) – Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire
For a pretty long period of time, Zinnia was my favorite character in the Pokémon series, and while others have surpassed her, she still ticks just about all of my boxes. She’s a cool-designed female character who primarily dresses in dark colors, acts as the antagonist in the post-game story, and has an amazing theme song. She practically carries a giant neon sign with my name on it. But, that aside, yeah, Zinnia is awesome. Her sympathetic plight of trying to save lives even if that puts her against the protagonist is really neat, and I find her depth refreshing in the often simplistic Pokémon series. Her battle atop the mountain is a fantastic clash, her theme (and its more emotional variations) are a perfect leitmotif, and I also love how much attention she gets in the mobile game through various alternate versions (I’m a particular fan of her Halloween get-up). For being a character added exclusively to this 3DS remake of Ruby and Sapphie, Zinnia’s made a big impact on the franchise.
3) Carmine (THEME LINK) – Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
I don’t think it’s a secret that the more time you spend with a character, the more you’ll grow to like them (assuming you don’t hate them for whatever reason, of course). Carmine, despite only being introduced in the DLC to Scarlet and Violet, plays a major role in both story expansions, spending quite a bit of time with you. She’s all the better for it, as you can now see that she’s risen up the ranks to place so high on this list of my favorite trainers even in the face of her relative newness.
Carmine’s character arc is something we’ve seen before, but never quite as entertaining as this. She’s a smug and haughty girl who gets humbled in a battle with you and slowly but surely thaws out of her icy exterior to become a genuine friend. But, even all the while, she’s still got this tendency to have an outburst of annoyance whenever something ticks her off, and she still talks before she thinks. It toes the line of being over-the-top while still being endearing, and I loved getting to know her and her village across the two DLCs. You expect her to just be a one-note rival-type, only to find out that she’s so much more than that. Also, when she gets brainwashed in the epilogue and forced to do an embarrassing chicken-dance by a prankster Pokémon? Iconic.
2) Nemona (THEME LINK) – Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
Pour one out for my main man Hugh, because with Scarlet and Violet the Pokémon series finally got a rival to surpass him. There’s something to be said for the hateability of Gary Oak back in the OG games, but Gary’s as flat a character as possible, and really doesn’t do much. And Hugh, for as much as I love him (and will never forgive him for ambushing me two steps in front of the Pokémon Center at the end of Black 2’s Victory Road), is still held back by the more simple storytelling of the older games. Nemona doesn’t have anything holding her back in that regard, and she really shines because of that.
Nemona is your rival in Scarlet and Violet, but she’s also already a Champion (the rank can be held by multiple people in Paldea, though it’s rarely handed out). So, in order to make things fair, she builds up an entirely new team right alongside you, simultaneously helping you grow as a trainer while also learning new things from you too. She fights you constantly during the game, and after you become Champion, she challenges you to a final duel, no-holds-barred. She’s the strongest trainer in Paldea, and she puts up one heck of a cinematic fight. I genuinely don’t think there’s a cooler battle in the series in terms of set-up and context, buoyed further by great cutscenes.
But Nemona’s also just a fantastic character even outside of battling…well, I mean, in a way. Nemona’s absolutely obsessed with battling, and the game goes to great lengths to poke fun at how Pokémon battles are just about all she seems to be able to care about. She’s still a great friend though, extremely supportive, and more than strong enough to back you up in any encounter. This becomes even more apparent with her stronger team in the post-game, and then her elite battle as the final boss of the DLC. She’s a fiery and passionate girl who, despite Scarlet and Violet‘s lack of voice acting, still seems to effuse off the screen with every shouted word. Also, banger theme, of course.
1) Cynthia (THEME LINK) – Oh So Many Pokémon Games
This is a cliched pick, I’ll admit it, but there’s a good reason why Cynthia is the single most memorable character to come from a Pokémon game, and one of the most infamous and recognizable figures in the franchise even taking the anime into account. I think she’s appeared in more games than any other character in the Pokémon franchise, and her theme song has been remixed a million times across the games, outside sources like the Smash Bros series, and even for her own villainous ancestor, Volo. She’s iconic. Just ask any fan what their reaction was when they walked into a certain nondescript beach house in the Unova region…
From her very first appearance, Cynthia made a bold statement. She was probably the hardest champion battle ever designed by the series creators at that point, really pushing players to their limit to overcome her Garchomp. She then continued to lead a reign of terror in the subsequent games as she appeared over and over as a secret boss across the Gen V and Gen VII games, and she’s most recently made her strength known to younger players in the Switch remakes of her debut games. When those piano notes start kicking in, you know you’re in for a rough time, but also a good time.
The creators of the Pokémon franchise also know full well the reputation of Cynthia, and leverage it when they can. All of her anime appearances portray her as a nigh-unstoppable deity, and the majority of other characters are terrified of her (while Cynthia herself is usually blissfully unaware of her own reputation). In the mobile game, there’s a boatload of Cynthia versions, with many of them being monstrously powerful. In fact, she just recently got a new version in celebration of the app’s fifth anniversary, and it might be her strongest yet!
The Pokémon world knows to fear this woman, and so does any player who has ever battled her.
But hey, that’s just my opinion!
The Contrarian Corner 