Trip (Shooti)

Voiced in Japanese by: Akeno Watanabe

Voiced in English by: Jamie McGonnigal

• Adorkable: Has shown signs of being one but most of this is suppressed by his aloof attitude, but once certain people (Alder) are around him though, that side of him is gone almost instantly, with his voice suddenly getting childishly high in the process.
• Always Someone Better: Played straight at first, but ever since he tied with Ash during their third battle the writers have thankfully made his strength more evidently balanced.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: A classic case, what with his obsession with gaining greater strength than other challengers.
• Ascended Fanboy: Wanted to be a trainer after watching the Champion Alder battle. While he promised himself that he would become a trainer so he could face Alder one day, it's to be noted that his overall cheerfulness as a child is gone by the time he starts as a trainer.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Conkeldurr
• Barrier Warrior: Frillish's Protect.
• Berserk Button: Trip hates being called a "kid" or getting called out for being childish. Iris doing it gets to him twice.
  • Getting rejected also doesn't seem to faze well with him, especially when it's by his idol.
• Break the Cutie/Break the Haughty: BW052 shows shades of this, especially when Trip leaves the group. It's not surprising though: the person you idolized not remembering you, demonstrating to you that the idol you love has apparently grown senile and unserious and then your idol not wanting to battle you after refusing to finish the battle with your rival will shatter your view of things even if you don't show it, and with the other tropes shown below, it might be more serious than we think.
  • In fact, in recent episodes, seeing Alder again doesn't bring up his Adorkable nature and he only gets irritated showing that the case might have taken a tole on his view of things as a whole given that he's become more distant than usual.
  • He gets another one when Bianca defeats him in the Clubsplosion tournament. He leaves afterward like he did in the Club Battle....only this time, he's doing it because he's depressed, not because he thinks he's too good to watch anyone else's matches.
  • He gets one more minor example after he loses to Alder. He doesn't flip out as one would expect but is extremely conflicted, but luckily, Alder manages to talk some sense into him.
• Brick Break: Conkeldurr's Rock Smash.
• Broken Pedestal: Alder, as stated above. But once he battles him, he goes back to idolizing him.
• The Bully: In his first two appearances, pre-Character Development.
• Camera Fiend: A minor example as it's not to the extreme of Luke's obsession with filming. Trip is always seen with his camera though before he puts it away.
• Canon Immigrant: Though he's been given the Ace Trainer's sprite and class, he and his team are available in a download for the World Tournament (along with the other three anime-origin rivals).
• Catch Phrase: Trip seems to be really fond of "the basics of Pokémon training".
• Character Development: Trip finally understands that strength isn't everything after his battle with Alder and finally gets it into his head that he should appreciate his Pokémon and his journey more. He even speaks to Ash on even terms (even if it's short) without throwing any insults at him and actually looks forward to battling Ash at the Unova League. He still keeps his distance though and doesn't join up with Ash and his rivals.
• Characterization Marches On: Started off as a rival that seemed to enjoy making fun of Ash and the Kanto region but quickly mellowed down to a quiet, aloof rival that gives advice to Ash despite still being annoyed by him.
• Character Tics: Apparently when he's really happy (which is rare), he holds his arms in front◊ of him when he's talking◊. It's almost similar to a certain spirit channeler◊ from a certain lawyer game.
• Cheerful Child: As a really young boy, and it's still there at his current age. In fact, you can tell he's happy by the tone of his voice.
• The Comically Serious: Frequently when around Ash and Alder.
• Crossdressing Voice: Only in the Japanese version.
• Deadpan Snarker: Mainly toward Ash.
• Death Glare: Serperior's Leer.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Conkeldurr's Stone Edge and Rock Tomb.
• Doppelgänger Spin: Tranquill's Double Team.
• Eagleland: When you consider that Unova is based on New York, Trip comes off as a Type 2: arrogant, condescending and quick to insult Ash and his home region Kanto. However, recent episodes have him of a mixture of type 1 and 2 but he prefers to hide fact that he is type 1.
• Expy: Of Cheren.
  • Many members of the fanbase at first believed that he was going to be one of Paul after his first appearance, but then his Hidden Depths and the rest of his personality traits came about and revealed they share little in common at all.
• Glass Cannon: Trip's Serperior seems to be one as it can unleash the powerful grass attacks and one-hit KO almost all the Pokémon in the Junior Cup, but it only took one hit from Alder's Bouffalant to defeat it.
• Graceful Loser: To Cilan in the Club Battle tournament. He is upset about losing, but claims that he'll use that disappointment to help make him stronger rather than dwell on it.
  • Slightly less so to Alder, at first, but after a talk with his old idol he takes it alright. And when he loses to Ash, he calmly accepts his defeat and they (kind of) start becoming friends.
• Gray Eyes
• Green Thumb: Serperior.
• Hidden Depths: The Sugar and Ice Personality rival was actually a Cheerful Child when he was much younger and an Ascended Fanboy. Whatever happened from the time that Alder told him that he would wait for him to be a trainer to him getting his starter Pokémon is where this trope comes in...and there are speculations of something happening in that time frame.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: How Trip ends up losing to Bianca. Not only underestimating her, but his Conkeldurr leaves himself wide open for attacks when Bianca's Emboar gets through his Rock Tomb. Bianca basically orders her Emboar to take those pillars that Conkeldurr uses in battle and throw back in his face.
• Hypocritical Humor: He calls Ash immature but is shown to be equally immature when it comes to certain subjects like getting Alder's attention.
• An Ice Pokémon: Vanillite
• Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: Serperior's Dragon Tail.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As of his third appearance, we learn that he's not actually that bad of a guy. It takes convincing but he does help Ash herd the Venipede to Castelia main square. And he also uses his Tranquill to save Ash's Pidove when one of the Venipede attacked.
• Jerkass Façade: His fourth appearances shows that he isn't really a jerk. For some strange reason, he would rather be a jerk towards Ash than be nice to him. However, he fails to even be that, and he ends up helping Ash realize why Oshawott isn't hitting its mark with Aqua Jet (by pausing their battle and explaining it to him, not even trying to take advantage of it). He also volunteers to help Iris overcome her fear of Ice Pokémon (but she refused, because...well, she's afraid of Ice Pokémon!)
  • And after he loses to Alder, the facade is almost completely gone as he's able to speak to Ash without insulting him once and admits to wanting to battle Ash at the Unova League.
• Letter Motif: Ash's first two main rivals are Shigeru (Gary) and Shinji (Paul).
  • And to an extent, Shuu (Drew) and Jun (Barry). *
    Shi and Ji share the same kana in Japanese, but the latter has a dakuten. Also, Shu is written as Shiyu in kana
• Loners Are Freaks: He's well-noted for his anti-social behavior, as he apparently thinks interaction with others interferes with one's own personal growth.
• Made of Iron: His Vanillite took two direct Flame Charges and an Ember from Ash's Tepig and still managed to get a tie with him.
• Making a Splash: Frilish
• Mood Swinger: According to Alder and from what the audience sees, there are some hints that his personality does go 180 as shown in BW052 when he's quiet one moment and then rather hyperactive the next only to swing right back to his serious self near the end, only this time with actual anger rather than sulleness.
  • In recent episodes he does smirk when he beats Burgundy and actually makes it past the first round but then at the end of the episode, he's glaring daggers.
• More than Meets the Eye
• Name's the Same: Not just the name, actually.
• Non-Elemental: Tranquill
• Out of Focus: Most of his team despite his semi-frequent appearances. In fact, to date only Serperior, Tranquill, and Conkeldurr have appeared in more than one episode so far.
  • Trip himself gets the least amount of focus out of all the rivals introduced despite being the main rival, which is usually contributed by his leaving a tournament whenever he loses and thus feeling more like a background character.
• Playing with Fire: Lampent
• The Power of the Sun: Serperior's Solarbeam.
• Punny Name: Shooti coming from "photo shoot", and Trip possibly coming from "tripod".
• The Quiet One: Even when sitting with everyone else in the Club Battle, he prefers talking to himself than with others.
  • In the Clubsplosion (the Club Battle's sequel), he doesn't even sit with the others, he just stands in a shady corner and comment on Ash's battle (which he is watching rather intensely.)
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The blue to Ash's red of the "Best Wishes" series.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: His Vanillite. Ironically, Iris, who is scared of Ice Pokémon, thinks the exact opposite, which seems to disappoint it.
• Smug Snake: His Serperior mainly, and he himself until his third appearance taught him some humility.
• Soul Power: Frillish, Lampent
• Sugar and Ice Personality: It only takes mentioning Alder or for Alder to be in the area for him to start talking a lot with a high pitch voice. (In the English version, his voice while not as high started to sound like Barry given that they share the same voice actor). Conversely, his cynicism is taken to its max when directed toward Ash; following the incident in BW052, he appears to have become more withdrawn than before.
  • Taken up a notch (from its usual display) in BW039, where Ash is trying to get his attention. Trip obviously sees Ash but decides to turn the other way. Ash's expression is priceless.
• Speedrunner: Seems to be his way of doing things.
• The Strategist: What makes him a good battler, in general, isn't that he has powerful Pokémon (though this does help contribute to it). It's that he's a very good strategist, making very good use of basic techniques and common sense (his Tranquill and Frillish's abilities are the reason he pummelled Ash so badly in their 5-on-5 match). However, this is also his Achilles Heel — he thinks things through so logically and by-the-book that unexpected results and outside-the-box strategies catch him by surprise, which tends to lead to his defeat. This is how Ash and Pikachu defeat him — by powering up Pikachu's Iron Tail with Electro Ball, they not only match but surpass Serperior's Dragon Tail and defeat it.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: What happened to the happy little boy in the flashback that made him the aloof rival now?
• The Worf Effect: Poor Conkeldurr - every time it appears, in each stage of its evolutionary line, it's purpose is to look tough and imposing so that it's opponents come off impressive for defeating it.
  • When Trip finally loses to Ash, it's in the preliminaries of the Unova League. Ouch.
    • To sum it up, despite being the main rival of the BW series, he loses the first round in three of the four tournaments to Cilan, Bianca (who Took a Level in Badass) and Ash respectively. He only wins in the third one because of his strategy, which largely involves one hit KOing his competition.
• Wind From Beneath My Wings: Tranquill

Bianca (Bel)

Voiced in Japanese by: Shizuka Ito

Voiced in English by: Bella Hudson

• Aside Glance: She waves to the audience upon introducing herself.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Emboar, Excavalier's Quick Guard.
• Barrier Warrior: Shelmet's Protect.
• Big Creepy Crawlies: Shelmet. It is later traded for Professor Juniper's Karrablast, Excavalier
• Break the Cutie: A minor example in BW049. She looks ready to cry when it seems like she'll have to stop her journey, but she gets better by the end of the episode.
  • Her loss in the Unova League does cause her to cry, but she gets over it — to the point of buying Cameron, the very same trainer who defeated her, an ice cream cone.
• Calling Your Attacks: Regardless of whether the Pokémon belongs to her, or even knows the attack!
• Character Development: Starting with BW049, she's becoming a much more likeable character (her personality hasn't changed that much, but her attitude about things such as her journey and her Pokémon sure have).
  • More obvious during her first round in the Unova League, where she stays calm under pressure and acts very strategically.
• Cloudcuckoolander
• Color Failure: Minccino in BW025 after his Attract failed to hit Emolga.
• Crash into Hello: A running gag with her, with Ash being knocked into water every time.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: She might not look like it, but she has three badges despite her childish nature.
  • Also worth noting is that she won her first two badges using only her starter Pokémon, since she only had Pignite prior to BW013.
  • Finally, her breakthrough comes in the form of the Clubsplosion, where she defeats both Trip and Georgia with her newly-evolved Emboar.
  • And by the time BW103 rolled around, she had enough badges to participate in the Unova League (at least eight).
• Cuteness Proximity
• The Cutie
• David Versus Goliath: Her Emboar vs. Cameron's Riolu. Riolu turned out to be too fast for Emboar to keep up.
• Demoted to Extra: Her role was already reduced from the games, but things got even worse during Season 2. See Out of Focus below.
• The Ditz/Dumb Blonde
• Extra Ore Dinary: Escavalier.
• Expy: Of Barry, even moreso than she was in the games.
• Flanderization: As mentioned above, her hyperactivity and ditziness are much more extreme than they were in the original video game.
• Frickin' Laser Beams: Escavalier's Hyper Beam.
• Genki Girl
• Green Eyes
• Green Thumb: Shelmet's Energy Ball.
• Guest Star Party Member: She's travelled with Ash and Co. a couple of times (BW023-BW025, and BW062-BW063).
  • An important note on the above, for casual viewers. "A Fishing Connoisseur in a Fishy Competition!" was originally meant to air as BW025, before the 2011 disasters led to it airing - officially - as BW037. Ostensibly a Filler episode, it was meant to end with Bianca temporarily joining the group for a couple more episodes - specifically, the official BW023 and BW024 (she officially joined off-screen). But if one discounts the edits made to the episode, then it: a) is technically BW023, not BW037; b) features Castelia City rather than a random town; and c) pushes up the official numbering by one numeral for every episode, until Luke's introduction (it finally aired directly before BW038). It's not a necessity to consider things this deeply, but adds a nice extra dimension of depth to what appears to be merely a fun Filler episode to most who watch it.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Coupled with the innocence, naivity and immaturity that this trope entails, and she's definitely pretty as well.
• Hartman Hips: A rare anime and non-mature example, but Bianca◊ does have it going on.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: How Minccino was caught. When Bianca pulled out a dirty Poké Ball, Minccino (still wild at the time) was so desperate to clean it that he scuttled right up onto her shoulder and started dusting it with his tail...which caused the ball to open and suck him in!
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: Especially in her earlier episodes, especially especially in the Club Battle arc. She dials it back in her later appearances after her character development, though.
• Jobber: The primary reason for poor Bianca's inclusion in the Unova League appears to be to show off how talented Cameron is.
• Luminescent Blush: When she meets Elesa.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: Minccino's Hyper Voice.
• Nice Hat
• Non-Elemental: Minccino
• No Sense of Personal Space: She can't stop touching the other female competitors, but this is due to her thinking that they're all Zorua.
  • And then in the Clubsplosion arc, she can't stop obsessing over (and touching) the various Fighting Pokémon's muscles.
• One Steve Limit: Averted in the dub. Bianca from Pokémon Heroes has the same name as her.
• Out of Focus: Sort of - she appeared fairly prominently in Season 14, but after the midway point of Season 15 (the Clubsplosion), she didn't reappear until 30 episodes later in BW103, in early Season 16.
• Overly Long Gag: Searching for things (Ash's badge case, a Pokéball) in her bag. It took so long that Ash and Cilan's clothes have already dried up and they were changing into them by the time she found what she's looking for. Even in a meta sense, it lasted 22 seconds.
• Overprotective Dad: Just like in the games. She mentions that it took forever to get her dad to let her start a journey on her own. Said dad tries to take her back home in BW049 and almost succeeds, fortunately Ash and the group interferes.
• Playing with Fire: Emboar
• Plucky Girl: In her own words when pursuing Emolga, "I'll NEVER give up!"
• Poisonous Pokémon: Shelmet's Acid.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Minccino and Shelmet. She doesn't seem to have any others though (much to her dismay).
• Running Gag: Is usually a part of or facilitator of a different one per arc of appearances, but the one constant recurring gag is knocking Ash into a body of water (plus Cilan the first time it happened). Perhaps you could call it a gag about running?
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Energetic Girl to Luke's Savvy Guy.
• The Smurfette Principle: Ash's very first female rival (sort of...she's more frequently a companion than a rival.)
• Ship Tease: The Clubsplosion tournament features her fangirling over Sawk and clinging to Stephan.
  • The Unova League has her giving ice cream to Virgil and his Eevee, watching fireworks with him, cheering him on during his part of the finals and after he wins, tries to give him a "special present" to him and his team for winning the tournament.
• Shock and Awe: Minccino's Thunderbolt.
• Spoiled Sweet: Seems to insist on having things her way, but isn't really mean about it.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: When she's present, she's the Girly Girl to Iris' Tomboy.
• Took a Level in Badass: Her Pignite has evolved into Emboar by the time of the Clubsplosion, and they defeat Trip and Georgia in the respective first and second rounds.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: She's far from mean, don't get it wrong, but compared to the super-nice and humble Bianca from the games, her selfish, clingy streak in the anime is jarring. In particular, a lot of fans did not take kindly to her obsessing over Zorua so badly, she even tried to trade her starter away for it! Not to mention how she foregoes helping Luke in favour of filming Zorua. It was supposed to be funny. Then again, the dub makes it obvious that it's not funny given how Luke retorts her.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After Ash risked his journey in a battle with her father in BW049, she's become less clingy and selfish in all subsequent appearances - notably, she's taken to apologizing profusely whenever she knocks him into a body of water these days, and is less obsessive over obtaining "cute" Pokémon than she used to be.
• Volumetric Mouth: She often gets one when she's excited.
• The Worf Effect: For a while, she had never won a battle on-screen, even though both her Pignite and Minccino have either been shown or implied to be decent battlers.
  • Though not quite victory, in BW063 she and Professor Juniper face Ash and Cilan in a tag battle — using their newly traded and evolved Escavalier and Accelgor - and manage to co-ordinate well enough to defeat Boldore before Crustle seals a victory with Rock Wrecker.
  • She finally breaks through in BW072 where she beats Trip and Georgia with her Emboar.
• YankTheDogsChain: She shows major signs of improvement during the Clubsplosion, and even makes it into the Vertress Conference. Right as it looks like she's going to give a repeat performance...she loses (barely) to new rival Cameron in round 2. In the Top 64. The saddest thing is that the writers didn't at least let her get further before pulling the rug out from under her feet.

Burgundy (Cabernet)

Voiced in Japanese by: Ikumi Hayama

Voiced in English by: Suzy Myers

• An Ice Person: Dewott's Ice Beam.
• Always Someone Better: In an interesting role reversal (for this series), she's the one on the receiving end, while the main character she's The Rival to is the "Better" in question.
• Arch-Enemy: Sees Cilan as this after he defeated her in a Gym Battle.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Dewott's Revenge.
• Big Creepy Crawlies: Dewott's Fury Cutter, and Sawsbuck's Megahorn.
• Big Friendly Dog: Stoutland, toward her at least.
• Biting the Handkerchief: Does this while insulting Cilan's Pokémon food for Snivy in front of him. Needless to say Snivy isn't pleased with her comments (see Butt Monkey below).
• Butt Monkey: See Too Dumb to Live below.
  • Also, during the Club Battle, Ash's Snivy literally Vine Whips her in the butt.
• Catch Phrase: "Alors! It is Evaluation Time, s'il vous plaît!"
  • One could also make the notion she has a second catch phrase in "I HOPE YOU ALL LOSE!!!"
• Character Development: Throughout the Club Battle, culminating in actually coming to respectful terms with Cilan. When she returns in the Clubsplosion arc, she's shown to still find his attitude annoying — as a bonafide Tsundere, she's quick to return to antagonism when he asks her if she's advanced her Connosseuse ranking (she's still only C-Rank). Listening to her dialogue indicates that the respect has stuck somewhat, but that she: A) still has a ways to go before being fully civil with the guy; and B) seems unwilling to admit yet that she looks up to him.It reverts back to her original character by the time the Junior Cup begins.
• Curtains Match the Window: She has purple eyes and hair.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: Stoutland's Fire, Ice and Thunder Fang attacks.
• French Jerk: Downplayed since she's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
  • She's also not really French - in the dub, at least, where she gives the impression of trying to put on a French accent to make herself look more impressive and glamourous (explaining away her atrocious accent).
• Gratuitous French: Has more of this in the English dub (presumably because the Japanese voice actress is less skilled at speaking French).
• Green Thumb: Sawsbuck
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: Quite literally during the last round of the Club Battle.
• Hot Blooded
• Humble Pie: Cilan gives her a rather cruel one when he defeats her Pokémon without taking any damage. To add to the insult, he was toying with her Sawsbuck with his Pansage when all he had to do was one-hit KO it with a SolarBeam. Though in his defense, he really was trying to teach her a meaningful lesson.
• Imagine Spot: ...which has Cilan evilly taunting her and her Oshawott, then doing an Evil Laugh while Pansage cackles in the background.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Rival
• I Warned You: Tells Cilan during the Club Battle that he wouldn't make it past the second round. Needless to say, she's very pleased when this comes true.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She may be crazy, snobby and judgemental, but she really loves her Pokémon, even to the point of a very literal Pet the Dog during the Club Battle tournament.
  • Also, she's getting to be on better terms with Cilan now too, only getting angry at him as a reaction to something he unwittingly says or does, rather than trying to actively antagonize him.
• Large Ham: Like Cilan, she has her moments of this.
• Making a Splash: Dewott
• Non-Elemental: Stoutland, Sawsbuck
• Obfuscating Stupidity: In her battle with Ash, she has Stoutland use Thunder Fang on the ground-type Palpitoad. This turns out to be a ruse to make Ash drop his guard, and she immediately swaps for Ice Fang.
• Playing with Fire: Darmanitan
• Plucky Girl: Gotta give her one thing; skilled or not, she never gives up.
• Pride
• Purple Eyes
• Slapstick Knows No Gender: She is constantly under the abuse of Ash's Pokémon as well as the people around her. Bianca for instance, glomps Georgia, tackles Iris, but with Burgundy? She tramples her.
• Small Name, Big Ego: She believes she's always right when it came to criticizing Ash's Pokémon. Cue them all attacking her and she declaring that they all suck.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: With Georgia (she's the girly-girl, albeit a rather crazy one).
• Too Dumb to Live: She continues to negatively criticize all of Ash's Pokémon even after they attack her.
  • Granted, during their "Connoisseur duel" in the Club Battle arc, she conceded defeat to Cilan early on, realizing that her skills hardly even compare to his. This appears to have helped her mature a little more.
• Tsundere: Type A to a ridiculous extreme at first, but mellows out into a Type B, albeit a fiery Type B (Example: In the Clubsplosion, she yells at Cilan to WIN his match against a one-shot character...but when he does win and celebrates it, she gets annoyed by his attitude and says she was wrong, he should have lost!)
• Unknown Rival: To Cilan.
  • As of BW042 not anymore. He accepts her as his rival, which shocks her so much that she begins to actually appreciate him a little more.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: According to her at least before Cilan defeated her, complete with an innocent white dress in her Imagine Spot.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Georgia at the Clubsplosion and Junior Cup. The two snipe at each other often, yet are constantly hanging out together regardless.
• You Gotta Have Purple Hair
• Woman Scorned: No kidding.
• The Worf Effect: She can't seem to get past the first round in any of the tournaments. Then again, she hypes herself up as a competent trainer, but might not be as good as she claims.

Stephan (Kenyan)

Voiced in Japanese by: Tomohiro Waki

Voiced in English by: Darren Dunstan

• Badass: While he loses his first battle with Ash, subsequent episodes have shown he's actually a pretty competant trainer overall, and he's defeated strong opponents before.
  • Sawk himself qualifies — he defeats a powerful Throh during the Clubsplosion, and gives Ash a hard time at the Vertress Conference — Leavanny lost despite activating Swarm, and Krookodile's new secret weapon Aerial Ace was required to eventually win. Neither trainer nor Mon can be considered pushovers.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: The new Best Wishes opening implies that Stephan is a martial artist. Fitting given that he's always seen with Sawk now.
  • His attire lends credence to this as well.
• Berserk Button: Whenever someone mispronounces his Japanese name as "Keniyan", which is often to his dismay. Semi-subverted in that he's (usually) more exasperated with it than "berserk" about it.
• Big Eater: Rivals Ash in this regard.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: His Sawk. Arguably Stephan himself, as he's a big guy with an eagerness for battle who is nonetheless quite kindhearted.
• Canon Immigrant: Though he's been given the Black Belt's sprite and class, he and his team are available in a download for the World Tournament (along with the other three anime-origin rivals).
• Catch Phrase: Some variation of "Why won't anyone get my name right?!"
• Casting a Shadow: Liepard
• Charles Atlas Superpower: How does he get around the fact that his Sawk (part of an all-male species) would be targeted by moves like Attract? Train him really hard to develop defensive techniques, of course! There's a Hard Work Montage/Training Montage superimposed over his explanation, too!
• Cool Horse: Zebstrika
• Fauxshadowing: His Japanese name (Kenyan) and early use of Blitzle (later Zebstrika) would have you believe it's his main Mon. It later turns out that his key battler and closest partner is really Sawk.
  • With the reveal of his Liepard, his name becomes a Meaningful Name (All of his Pokemon are African themed) though Sawk's reason for being on the team now has shades of Unfortunate Implications.
• Fiery Redhead
• Gentle Giant: He's a big guy, but outside of battle, he's very laid-back.
• Guest Star Party Member: From BW069-BW073, travelling with the group just prior to the Clubsplosion.
• Hot Blooded: Especially during battles.
• My Name Is Not Durwood: In a manner similar to Butch.
  • In Japanese, it's Kenyan, not Keniyan or Kaniyan.
  • In English, it's Stephan, not Stephan or Steven.
  • Finally starts averting it with the beginning of the Unova League, when everybody starts pronouncing his name right.
• Playing with Fire: Zebstrika's Flame Charge.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: When he's present, he's the Manly Man to Cilan's Sensitive Guy.
• Shipper on Deck: For Cilan/Burgundy apparently.
• Ship Tease: With Bianca.
• Shock and Awe: Zebstrika
• Signature Mon: Sawk. It looked to be Zebstrika at first, but as has been shown Sawk is his closest partner.
• Skintone Sclerae
• Sugar and Ice Personality: His Sawk is this — during the Clubsplosion, after defeating Throh he bows respectfully to his opponent before Throh faints...then he does a one-eighty, and he and his trainer begin hugging the life out of each other in glee.
• Took a Level in Badass: His Sawk. Though it never seemed weak, the only time we saw it in battle before the Clubsplosion was when it lost to Iris's Emolga. Come the Clubsplosion, it takes down a Seismitoad, Cilan's Pansage, Bianca's Emboar and Montgomery's Throh, a Pokémon that was built up throughout the tournament as an enormously powerful opponent. This is lampshaded with a montage showing his and Stephan's intense training regime, as well as regular practice sessions in the Pokémon Center. This is proven even more in the Vertress Conference; despite being immensely weakend by Ash's Leavanny, Sawk still manages to win.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: He had to dress up as Nurse Joy in a contest.
• Worthy Opponent: Considered this by Montgomery after Stephan defeated him in the Clubsplosion finals.

Georgia (Langley)

Voiced in Japanese by: Misato Fukuen

Voiced in English by: Brittney Lee Hamilton

• An Ice Pokémon: Beartic and Vanilluxe.
• Antagonist In Mourning: Not a death example, but in the final ED of Best Wishes, Georgia is shown looking up a the sky wistfully after learning that Iris has left Unova to visit Kanto. She clearly misses her rival.
• Arrogant Kung Fu Girl
• The Battle Didn't Count: Georgia claims this if she's beaten with a non-Dragon Pokémon.
• Badass: Georgia's own credentials are debatable, but her Beartic definitely counts - he fought Iris' Excadrill to a standstill twice, and though the second was called as a draw he was the last to collapse.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Beartic's Rock Smash.
• Bears Are Bad News: Beartic
• Between My Legs: How she's introduced.
• Big Eater: She can wolf down a breakfast for three people and still have some appetite left. Pity it happened to be Ash and co's breakfast.
• Casting a Shadow: Bisharp
• Character Development: She Took a Level in Kindness during the Clubsplosion, and carried it further in the Ferroseed research facility episode.
• Crippling Overspecialization: She devotes her life to to craft a battle style designed specifically to take down Dragon type Pokemon. Unfortunately, she ends up losing quite a fair bit in battles that aren't against Dragon Pokemon or share similar weaknesses to them (the only exception is a Joltik, which she still struggled). Unlike most cases of this trope, she still manages to put up a very good fight.
• Curbstomp Battle: Received one from Iris's new Dragonite, who took everything Beartic hurled at before utterly demolishing the bear. She was more disappointed, however, by the fact that she hadn't lost to Iris since Dragonite was disobeying her at the time.
• David Versus Goliath: Her Beartic versus Sylvester's four inches high Joltik. "Goliath" wins, crushing "David" under his weight when he collapsed from Thunderbolt.
• Disproportionate Retribution: She once lost to a Dragon trainer and has now made it a goal to go around defeating all Dragon trainers she comes across. Can you say "overreaction"?
  • Then again, her reaction to watching Axew using Outrage might indicate the loss was more serious than initially thought.
• Extra Ore Dinary: Bisharp
• Fiery Redhead
• Gratuitous English: "Bye!"
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Not in the romantic way, obviously. Georgia is one of the shortest trainers, yet her Beartic is an eight feet tall giant.
• Hypocritical Humor: Her feud with Iris is based around this on both sides.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When she lost to Iris in the Junior World Cup, she argued that she lost to Dragonite, not Iris. Given that Dragonite was disobeying Iris's orders, she's completely right. Iris acknowledges this at the end of the tournament and promises Georgia that she'll have Dragonite under control by the next time they meet, so that Georgia can have the battle she wants.
  • Also the case when she blames her loss against Ash on the battlefield. While she's clearly a Sore Loser, Ash didn't win by some miraculous turn-around strategy, but because of sheer dumb luck that had to do with the battlefield (Pawniard getting a rock stuck on her head, as well as her getting stuck in the ground were both lucky breaks that Ash did in no way plan, and they very much decided the battle).
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Started off as a straight-out Jerkass, but started to get better during the second Don George tournament, and her heart of gold status is solidified in the Ferroseed Research Center episode.
• Kick the Dog: One might be able to let her bitchiness slide, but eating three other peoples' breakfasts? And then proceeding to say it that could have been better cooked?
  • The insult doubles for Cilan who has technically been running a gym that is a restaurant for most of his life, and is very proud of his skills.
• Large Ham: If someone goes around declaring themselves a "Dragon Buster", they're a Ham.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: Bisharp's Metal Sound.
• Meaningful Name: Her dub name "Georgia" is derived from St. George and the Dragon, a famous English tale of a crusader who...well, slayed a dragon. Her Japanese name refers to Asuka LANGLEY Soryu, another female red-haired Jerkass who is implied to have deep insecurities and an inferiority complex (along with Hidden Depths).
• Mighty Glacier: Beartic is slower than all his opponents so far, and so relies on big, heavy blows. It caused him some trouble when facing Joltik, the smallest Pokémon there is...and a fast one to boot.
• Nice Hat
• Not So Different: From Iris, as evidenced by their Club Battle tournament interactions. Georgia even points this out.
• One-Hit Kill: Bisharp's Guillotine.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: When Burgundy vows revenge against Iris for a loss, Georgia tells her to butt out because Iris is her rival.
• Pet the Dog: Shows some actual respect toward Iris after Iris wins the Club Battle tournament, and flat out encourages her to become a Dragon Master. She also shows a notably softer, more reasonable side around Bianca.
  • She actually doesn't get angry when she loses to Bianca in the Clubsplosion, and thanks her Bisharp for its effort when recalling it.
• Red Baron: Self proclaimed "The Dragon Buster" and she backs it up. She defeats most dragon pokemon she faces.
• The Rival: For Iris.
• Slapstick Knows No Gender: Similar to Burgundy, she's the main victim of abuse during the Club Battle arc with Zorua constantly turning into her and then running away from Bianca who often causes her problems as a result.
• Sore Loser: Said a tie didn't count since it wasn't a dragon she tied against, and blamed her loss against Ash on the battlefield.
  • Says her loss to Bianca in the Clubsplosion doesn't count either as it wasn't against a dragon, but this time she's saying it directly to her Bisharp as a comfort, so she doesn't come across as badly.
    • Says that her loss to Iris in the Junior Cup wasn't to Iris, but rather Dragonite. See Jerkass Has a Point above.
• Tsundere: Like her buddy Burgundy, she started out Type A, but become more of a Type B once she started reserving her tsun side exclusively for her rival (in this case, Iris.)
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: With Burgundy (she's the tomboy, albeit a rather crazy one.)
• Took a Level in Kindness: In the Clubsplosion tournament. Took it even further in the Ferroseed Research episode.
• Use Your Head: Bisharp's Iron Head.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Burgundy at the Clubsplosion and Junior Cup. The two snipe at each other often, yet are constantly hanging out together regardless.
• Wolverine Claws: Pawniard's Metal Claw.
• Worthy Opponent: In the Club Battle, she says that she's actually pleased that Iris is getting stronger, since as a Dragon Buster, she'd rather defeat strong Pokémon than weak ones.
  • She was also disappointed when Iris used Excadrill in the last stage of the Club Battle, and outright pissed when it continues into the Clubsplosion tournament — since she wants Iris to be a real Dragon Master and a worthy foe for a Dragon Buster such as herself, she expects her to continue strengthening Axew and any other Dragon-types she might obtain.
• Zettai Ryouiki: A Grade.

Cameron (Kotetsu)

Voiced in Japanese by: Kouki Uchiyama

Voiced in English by: Rory Max Kaplan

• Anime Hair
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Riolu->Lucario
• Canon Immigrant: Though he's been given the Youngster's sprite and class, he and his team are available in a download for the World Tournament (along with the other three anime-origin rivals).
• Casting a Shadow: Hydreigon
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Despite his dull-wittedness, he still manages to defeat Marlon without that much difficulty.
  • His team — or what we see of it, anyway — is pretty impressive. He's trained a Lucario, Ferrothorn, Samurott, Hydreigon, and Swanna (plus a Watchog, shown in silhouette on the board during his match with Virgil).
• Curbstomp Battle: Not excessively so, but the battlescreen shows that Virgil still defeated him 6-on-3 - meaning Virgil had half his team still active when he won. Not totally invincible after all.
• David Versus Goliath: His somewhat small Riolu vs. Bianca's bulky Emboar. Riolu wins by using its own speed and size to its advantage.
• Ditto Fighter: Riolu's Copycat.
• The Ditz: Didn't realize that he needed eight badges to enter the Pokemon League when he only had seven, and took out a remote control instead of a Pokedex to scan Pikachu.
  • He also thought the league was going to be in Ecruteak City, which is in an entirely different region. Put bluntly, Ash looks smart when he's placed next to this kid! Even he finds himself frustrated at Cameron's dimness.
  • He also thought that the quarter-final match was 5-on-5 rather than 6-on-6 — Ash had to inform him that he'd accidentally handicapped himself, much to his chagrin.
• Extra Ore Dinary: Ferrothorn and Lucario.
• Foil: He and Ash get along so well because they're so similar. Like Morrison from the Hoenn League, he rather resembles a less experienced and more juvenile Ash, albeit with a more evolved team line-up. On the flip-side, he's even more of a ditz than Ash is!
• Genius Ditz: Despite being even dimmer than Indigo-League Ash, he's demonstrated that not only can he train a powerful and well-balanced team, but he's a fairly solid and strategic battler as well.
• Green Thumb: Ferrothorn
• Guest Star Party Member: Joins the group briefly for a trip to Humilau City, where he can challenge Marlon. He leaves afterwards.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: In Japanese, Cameron is Roxas!
• Invincible Incompetent: At first. Then Virgil defeated him in the Top 4 matches, subverting it. Seeing Curbstomp Battle.
• Keet: Right from his introduction.
• Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: Hydreigon.
• Lightning Bruiser: Samurott and Lucario.
• Making a Splash: Samurott and Swanna.
• Meaningful Name: Shares his Japanese name with Nagasone Kotetsu, who was a swordmaker. It fits in that one of his Pokemon is Samurott, which uses said weapons.
  • Also, "Tetsu" means "iron" in Japanese — another reference to Samurott's swords, but also to Lucario and Ferrothorn's Steel-typing — while "ko" can mean either "small" or "child".
• Mighty Glacier: Hydreigon's speed (while not pathetic) pales compared to its phenomenal Attack and Defense.
• Noodle Implements: One has to ponder as to why he had a TV Remote in his bag on a Pokemon Journey.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Riolu, until it evolves into Lucario and becomes a full-on Lightning Bruiser.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: After Dawn leaves in his introductory episode (BW093=), he and Riolu take her and Piplup's places (respectively) in the Japanese opening credits starting with [=BW094.
• Samus Is a Girl: His Samurott succumbs to Bianca's Emboar using Attract, and since Emboar is a guy...yeah, with those whiskers and such, it's unlikely anybody saw that coming.
  • Action Girl: Which places Samurott into this by proxy given the gender reveal.
• Signature Mon: Riolu/Lucario.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy/Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: With Riolu, who serves as the Straight Man to Cameron's Wise Guy.
• Underdogs Always Win: He really had to pull that victory away from Ash - both Riolu/Lucario's need to defeat half Ash's team, as well as Lucario's struggling towards the end against Pikachu, strongly indicate this.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Sorta. His Riolu is clearly annoyed at his sheer ditziness, but still considers him his best friend. It's made much more apparent given Riolu evolves into Lucario (which it does) because of said bond.
• Wind From Beneath My Wings: Swanna

Virgil

Voiced in Japanese by: Yuuki Kaji

Voiced in English by: Tom Wayland

• Action Girl: His Eevee is female — this is revealed by Virgil when he uses a female pronoun talking to her.
• An Ice Person: Glaceon. Vaporeon's Aurora Beam.
• Canon Immigrant: Though he's been given the Pokemon Ranger's sprite and class, he and his team are available in a download for the World Tournament (along with the other three anime-origin rivals).
• Casting a Shadow: Umbreon
• Curtains Match the Window: Gold hair and gold eyes.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Eevee's Dig.
• Generation Xerox: He and his older brother, Davy, are both involved in the Rescue Team business, just like their father Jeff.
• Green Thumb: Leafeon
• Light The Way: Umbreon's Flash.
• Living Prop: Leafeon — comparatively, the rest of his team has either participated in said episode's conflict and/or were seen battling in the Vertress Conference. It does, however, appear as a silhouette on the display screen showing the teams he used in the 6-on-6 battles, so at least we know he used it.
• Luckily My Shield Will Protect Me: Eevee's Protect.
• Making a Splash: Vaporeon
• Merchandise Driven: His Eevee team exists to advertise a whole bunch of Eevee merch in Japan.
• Non-Elemental: Eevee
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Eevee.
• Playing with Fire: Flareon
• Psychic Powers: Espeon. Umbreon's Psychic.
• Red Herring: Played with in that many expected him to be the one to face Ash and beat him, then go on to win the whole league. He never battled Ash, but he did battle and defeat Cameron (who did beat Ash), and Virgil did go on to win the entire league.
• Shock and Awe: Jolteon
• Signature Mon: Eevee and the "Eeveelutions", all seven of them. They appear to comprise the entirety of his team.
• The Smurfette Principle: Eevee's his only female Mon on a team of eight. This is a Justified Trope - only 1/8th of all Eevee are female in the games, so proportionately this is accurate. More importantly, she's the most powerful member of his team to begin with.
• Soul Power: Umbreon and Vaporeon's Shadow Ball.
• Talking to Himself: By coincidence, he shares the same English actor as the League announcer Freddy O'Martian and his opponent in the finals, Dino.
• The Unfought: Due to Ash getting knocked out of the tournament by Cameron, Virgil is the only rival Ash never faces, and one of two (the other being Bianca) he doesn't battle in the Unova League.

Professor Aurea Juniper (Dr. Araragi)

Voiced in Japanese by: Naomi Shindo

Voiced in English by: Khristine Hvam

• Big Creepy Crawlies: Karrablast. It is then traded for Bianca's Shelmet, who then evolves into Accelgor.
• Brainy Brunette
• Character Tics: Seems to be fond of that weird salute that her game counterpart is also prone to doing.
• '80s Hair
• Frickin' Laser Beams: Accelgor's Hyper Beam.
• Green Thumb: Accelgor's Energy Ball.
• Healing Factor: Accelgor's Recover.
• Hot Scientist
• Straight Man: To Fennel.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Not to an extreme, but she's definitely a lot less odd than her father, and seems exasperated by some of his behavior.

Don George

Voiced in Japanese by: Hisao Egawa

Voiced in English by: Marc Thompson

• Badass Moustache
• Big Ol' Eyebrows
• Distaff Counterpart: To Jenny and Joy. To the degree that he has dozens of identical brothers.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals
• Manly Tears: Makes you wonder if he's a Gentle Giant if pressed enough...
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: In the dub, he sounds like Randy Savage!
• Small Name, Big Ego: Each one is certainly a nice guy, but they're also often egotistical - entire tournaments with "Don" in the name and giant statues of Don George at the stadium(s), anyone? Downplayed in the dub with the "Club" tournaments.

Luke

Voiced in Japanese by: Minami Takayama

Voiced in English by: Billy Bob Thompson

• Adorkable
• All Webbed Up: Larvesta's String Shot.
• Berserk Button: Not really "berserk" for say but he gets irritated when a good battle isn't filmed or when he's told that he can't be a good film director. Bianca pushes both of these buttons.
  • In the dub however, it's more of a berserk button due to his tone of voice and how he calls her out on the first one.
  • Interestingly, for the latter Bianca deliberately pushed it, and for the purpose of helping him (essentially, convincing him to come closer so he can get a clearer shot of the battle taking place). It works...surprisingly well, despite the inherent risk from being inside the battle zone.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He doesn't look it, but he is actually very effective in battle.
• Big Creepy Crawlies: Leavanny and Larvesta.
• Brainy Brunet
• Camera Fiend: He is obsessed with filming battles and it gets to the point that he gets mad at Bianca who filmed his Zorua instead of his battle with Iris.
• Casting a Shadow: Zorua
• Combat Pragmatist: His Zorua.
• Doppelgänger Spin: Golett's Double Team
• Dishing Out Dirt: Golett
• Elemental Punch: Golett's Shadow Punch.
• Extra Ore Dinary: Golett's Gyro Ball.
• Green Thumb: Leavanny
• Guest Star Party Member: During the Club Battle Tournament arc.
• Master of Disguise: Zorua, but since it's a girl, it prefers doing female roles.
• Meaningful Name: See Shout Out below.
• Megane
• Nice Guy
• Playing with Fire: Larvesta.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Savvy Guy to Bianca's Energetic Girl.
• Shout Out: To George Lucas — he's a bespectacled, brown-haired film director with a fondness for the Cliché Storm elements of classic storytelling, and manages to make them work in a way which appeals to filmgoers and critics.
• Skintone Sclerae
• Soul Power: Golett, Zorua's Shadow Ball.
• The Bus Came Back: In the recent PokéStar Studios episode, Luke returns to shoot another movie with the gang as a nod to the PokéStar Studios in Black 2 and White 2.
• The Trickster: His Zorua, who often turns into Georgia or someone else altogether to have Bianca continue to search for her tirelessly.
  • Screwy Squirrel: Zorua really has no motive for her tricks other than to have fun at anyone's expense (sometimes even Luke's!).
• Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: In the dub, Luke almost says this word per word to Bianca when she says that he only told him to film but not who to film. He calls her out saying he clearly told her to film him and not his Zorua. She just ignores him.

Cedric Juniper (Dr. Araragi)

Voiced in Japanese by: Kenyuu Horiuchi

Voiced in English by: Stuart Zagnit

• Anime Hair: Has what looks like a massive cowlick just above his forehead.
• Badass Beard
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Just watch some of his bizarre antics in BW064. The man's a borderline Troll with how much he screws with the party on purpose.
• Casting Gag: Professor Oak's original actor voices him in the dub.
• Cloud Cuckoolander
• Cool Old Guy
• Eyes Always Shut
• Verbal Tic: He has a habit of leaving his sentences hanging midway, which leads to miscommunication whenever someone thinks he's done speaking.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Not to an extreme, but he's considerably odder than his daughter, who seems exasperated by some of his behavior.

Meloetta

Voiced in Japanese by: Megumi Nakajima

Voiced in English by: Megumi Nakajima (speaking voice), Bella Hudson (as Erica Schroeder, singing voice)

• Action Girl: Especially in Pirouette Forme. It ends up as a Badass in Distress though.
• Actor Allusion: Megumi Nakajima playing a green-haired girl with a talent for singing...
• Ambiguous Gender: Although it's meant to be genderless in the games, it has always had a very feminine appearance; plus it appears to have a crush on Ash, and the very male Oshawott and Piplup have both developed crushes on it, so it's likely meant to be female in the anime.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Knows Close Combat, which it uses in Pirouette Forme.
• Crucified Hero Shot
• Curtains Match the Window: In Pirouette Forme, it's hair and eyes are both red.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: Inverted varient of it — Ash was the one who took care of Meloetta, and as a result it appears to have developed a crush on him.
• Guest Star Party Member/Recurring Character: After its first episode, it follows Ash and friends around until someone from its village comes by to guide it home again.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Meloetta is Gumi!
• Innocent Blue Eyes: In Aria Forme.
• Invisibility
• MacGuffin Girl: Its song is required by Team Rocket to fulfill their latest scheme — "Operation Tempest".
• Magic Music: Its song and voice has the power to soothe the souls and minds of Pokémon listening in. It is also the key to unlocking the Abyssal Ruins and the Reveal Glass, which can be used to control the Kami Trio.
• Shrinking Violet
• Transformation Sequence: From its Aria Forme into Pirouette Forme, whenever it uses Relic Song.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: Knows Hyper Voice.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: It's light green normally, and orangeish-red in its Pirouette Forme.

N

Voiced in Japanese by: Yuuichi Nakamura

Voiced in English by: Nicholas DiMichele

• Anti-Hero: This version of N is, when we first meet him, a former Team Plasma member and disillusioned by their actions. However, at this time he's still strongly-spoken about his opposition to Pokémon trainers and battles. He also opted to snatch the Light Stone from Cedric Juniper in order to try and keep it out of Team Plasma's hands.
• Badass Pacifist: He never enters battle, yet proves his Badass credentials early on.
• The Empath
• Foil: To Ash, by all indicators. He's even hinted, in their first appearance, to be the Hero of Truth in parallel to Ash being the Hero of Ideals.
• Friend or Idol Decision: Twice, involving the same friend (Ash) and the same idol (the Light Stone). In BW120, when the floor of the White Ruins has collapsed below them, N has a grip on the ledge with his right hand but the Light Stone in the other, while Ash and Pikachu are about to fall; he only hesitates a moment before dropping the contained with the Stone inside to grab Ash's hand (they both fall afterwards though, and the Light Stone is nearby when they come to). Then in BW121, Pikachu falls under the control of Colress' controlling-machine again and this time Ash's attempt to get through to him fails, the machine being too powerful now for willpower alone; N surrenders the Light Stone to Team Plasma in exchange for Colress freeing Pikachu from the machine.
• Feels No Pain: See Made of Iron, below.
• Friend To All Pokémon
• Guest Star Party Member: He travels with the group from BW114-BW118.
• Made of Iron: See Taking the Bullet, below.
  • Not so much anymore as of BW114, where he recieves several injuries over the course of the episode while trying to rescue a Pokémon from Team Plasma. However, he never seems to notice them until somebody points it out.
  • Completely subverted when he's hit by Dragonite's Flamethrower and Haxorus's Hyper Beam in BW117, while trying to talk them both down from their Brainwashed and Crazy states. This would've gotten him killed had Anthea and Concordia not appeared and taken him to get healed.
• Motor Mouth: When N gets worked up about something important to him, he starts to monologue at a breathless pace. Still, it's not as frequent (or his voice as incomprehensibly fast-paced) as in the games.
• Nice Guy: While he obviously likes Pokémon best, this incarnation of N is reasonably good with people and remains polite and friendly towards Ash and co. at all times. Even in spite of his discomfort at learning Ash's dream to be a Pokémon Master, he states he doesn't hate Ash for the worlds they seek being different.
• Nice Hat
• Sixth Ranger: Literally for "Episode N", if you're count Pikachu and Axew as well as the human protagonists.
• Speaks Fluent Pokémon: He communicates with them in their unique language, and even considers it superior to the human language. He's actually baffled by Team Rocket's Meowth for this very reason.
• Taking the Bullet: In BW110, he takes a Shadow Ball meant for Axew and Snivy directly In the Back. It doesn't seem to do much damage, but it's the thought that counts.
• You Gotta Have Green Hair

Anthea (Verbena) and Concordia (Helena)

Voiced in Japanese by: Saki Fujita (Anthea) and Miho Arakawa (Concordia)

• Adaptation Name Change/Named By The Adaptation: It's been revealed that, instead of being called "Goddess of Love" and "Goddess of Peace" (as in the games), the Japanese version of the anime is giving them actual names. Besides avoiding the obvious silliness of addressing them by their long-winded "titles", this has likely been done also so that lip-flaps don't become a problem when the dub comes out.
• A Wizard Did It: Actually subverted by their teleportation ability, but it's All There in the Manual - specifically, the mist is created by Gothitelle's illusory powers, while Gardevoir's ability to warp between space is used to enable them to travel long distances. In tandem, this enables them a degree of strategy (such as getting Team Rocket lost in the woods when they try to follow), but it doesn't defend the girls' Pokémon from Colress' machine one he's pinpointed them.
• Big Damn Heroes: Show up in time to take the grieviously injured N to safety and heal his injuries.
  • They try to do similar in BW122 when Reshiram is summoned, but their Pokémon are quickly controlled by Colress' machine.
• Composite Character: They keep their core personality traits from the games (what they have, anyway), but have inherited some of N's inherent distrust of humanity in his place. In addition, they'd absorbed Rood's B2W2 characteristic of taking care of Pokémon in a secret location, only without Old Team Plasma supporting them.
• Cool Big Sisters: To N, bigtime.
• Curtains Match the Window: Both of them.
• The Empath: Like their foster brother, they have the ability to hear the voices of Pokémon.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Concordia has demonstrated this trait.
• Luckily My Shield Will Protect Me: Both Gardevoir and Gothitelle know Protect.
• Meaningful Name: Along with their dub names, their new Japanese names are quite apt:
  • Anthea's name in the Japanese version, "Verbena", comes from the flower genus of the same name; in the language of flowers, it symbolises "tender love". In the games, Anthea's title is "Goddess of Love".
  • Condordia's name in the Japanese version, "Helena", refers to a species of olive; in the language of flowers, it symbolises "peace and wisdom". In the games, Concordia's title is "Goddess of Peace".
• The Medic: Both are skilled in treating Pokémon, albeit without any powers - they simply tend to them and help their recovery. They even have a secret refuge in the woods where they protect injured Pokémon.
• Psychic Powers: Anthea owns a Gothitelle, and Concordia owns a Gardevoir.
• Rose-Haired Girl: Anthea.

Tropes that apply to multiple members:

• Casting a Shadow: Multiple members have Liepard, and at least one is shown commanding a Bisharp.
• Cats Are Mean: As indicated above Liepard seems to be the Mon of choice for most Plasma grunts, with even Angie having one. At least three or four Zangoose have been separately shown under their command as well, including Bianco's.
• Cool Mask
• Dark Is Evil: Their uniforms.
• Extra Ore Dinary: Multiple Magnemites (along with Brad's Magnezone), and a Bisharp.
• Laser-Guided Karma: At the end of Episode N (and thus, Season 16), Looker successfully arrests Ghetsis and Colress, as well as Angie, Brad and all the Grunts at the White Ruins. No word on whether any agents are actually active anymore under Team Plasma's banner, although the TRio at least seem to believe the organisation is now defunct.
• Poisonous Pokémon: Multiple Golbats and at least one Muk. Not to mention Nero's Seviper.
• Shock and Awe: Magnemites
• Shout Out: All the Pokémon they use are from families which Team Plasma uses in the games.

Ghetsis (G-Cis)

Voiced in Japanese by: Masaki Aizawa

Voiced in English by: Bill Rogers

• Archnemesis Dad: BW118 reveals that: a) he is N, Anthea and Concordia's stepfather, like in the games; and b) they all oppose his goals and actions.
• Badass Longhair: Some shots in the anime reveal his current ensemble includes having his long green hair tied in a ponytail, usually not visible thanks to his robes.
• Badass Longrobe
• Big Bad: Of the "Episode N" arc.
• Black Cloak
• Composite Character: The cool, collected personality of his original B&W persona is combined with the clothing and more open goals of his later, B2W2 counterpart.
• Dark Is Evil: He wears his black outfit from B2W2.
• Japanese Honorifics: In the Japanese, he refers to Colress/Achroma as "Achroma-kun". He is in turn called "Ghetsis-sama", as a sign of his superiority.
• The Man Behind the Man: To Colress. In his first episode, he contacts him briefly through a hologram at Colress's current base of operations. Ash's group initially mistakes Colress for Ghetsis on their first meeting (having briefly heard the latter's name from Angie) before being corrected.
• Orcus on His Throne: Ghetsis hides away in secret while his agents do his dirty work across Unova. BW117 even shows him literally sitting on a throne-like chair (the colouring of the roon strangely resembles the Relic Castle from the postponed two-parter). He finally takes the scene in the three-part finale.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Both his visible left eye and the red visor covering his right eye, or possible lack of one.
• You Gotta Have Green Hair

Colress (Achroma)

Voiced in Japanese by: Hiroki Tochi

Voiced in English by: Eli James

• Adaptational Villainy: While his goals and allegiance are unchanged, anime-Colress is more psychotic and openly antagonistic than his game counterpart (who only revealed his allegiance to Team Plasma at the end, and was technically more neutral towards the player). He also reformed in the game, whereas in the anime he's arrested along with Ghetsis and the on-scene grunts.
• Affably Evil: He addresses the heroes with laid-back cordiality, and speaks to them pleasantly (in contrast to Angie and the other grunts' professionalism).
• Badass Labcoat/Badass in a Nice Suit: Both of these, as in the games.
• Blond Guys Are Evil
• Combat Pragmatist: Once his machine is advanced enough, he can simply use it to take control of any opposing Pokémon and turn them against his enemies (with alarming swiftness, too). He doesn't need any Pokémon of his own...until it backfires when Pikachu fights back, again, and together with Reshiram destroys the machine, leaving him powerless.
• Curtains Match the Window: Yellow eyes that match the tone of his bright-yellow hair.
• The Dragon/Evil Genius: To Ghetsis.
  • The Heavy: Colress is actually much more active and responsible for the evil done in Episode N than his boss.
• For Science!
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul
• Large Ham
• Mad Scientist
• Manipulative Bastard: In BW119, he convinces Meowth to let him try out his machine on him to increase his strength, all in the purposes of testing its increasing power. Even though Meowth had trained his mind to resist its mind-controlling powers, he fell under Colress' control and had to be snapped out of it by Jessie and James - leaving them with nothing (they'd hoped to convince him to join them), and him with the satisfaction of knowing that his machine is getting more powerful. (Though Jessie and James do manage to plant a tracking device on Colress' machine which they make use of in the following episode.)
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to Angie's Blue - while it's not hyperactive, he shows delight at seeing Pikachu's willpower overwhelm his own technology. Angie needs to remind him that this is a setback to Team Plasma's plans.
• Scary Shiny Glasses
• Villainous BSOD: In BW122, when his mind-control machine is destroyed. He gets over it in his last scene, though.
• We Can Rule Together: Team Rocket offers him a chance to quit Team Plasma and join them instead. He declines.

Grunts

Angie

Voiced in Japanese by: Akeno Watanabe

• Ascended Extra: The Episode N opening depicts her, in one shot, as the only coloured Team Plasma grunt, making her stand out above the rest. True to that, she so far appears to have a more distinct role than the others.
• Canon Foreigner: Her design already existed in "Black 2 & White 2", but only as that of the generic female grunts. Angie appears to have her own distinct personality and rank within Team Plasma, similar to the Team Rocket trio.
• Casting a Shadow: Liepard.
• Cats Are Mean: She owns a Liepard.
• The Comically Serious: Frequently, especially when around Colress.
• Evil Redhead
• Icy Blue Eyes
• Mook Lieutenant: Though she wears the same uniform as the rest, she's also the only female Plasma grunt seen and the others seem to defer to her, even Brad.
• Name's the Same: Her name is the same as the English dub name of a "Diamond and Pearl" supporting character.
• Number Two: She's rarely seen away from Colress and seems to be his direct subordinate.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to Colress' Red, being more straight-laced and serious and scolding him when he gets too excited (specifically, when he was pleased at Pikachu's willpower breaking his control over it, since the Good Things it spells For Science! are bad for Team Plasma.
• The Smurfette Principle: So far the only female Team Plasma agent yet seen in the anime - but as stated, she holds rank over the other Grunts, so it all events out.

Brad

Voiced in Japanese by: Kensuke Sato

• Ascended Extra: Depicted in the Episode N opening (on the Plasma helicopter with Angie and her Liepard), he's given a distinct role and persona in the series proper.
• Canon Foreigner: His design already existed in "Black 2 & White 2", but only as that of the generic male grunts. Brad appears to have her own distinct personality and rank within Team Plasma, similar to the Team Rocket trio.
• Everything's Better with Spinning: Magnezone's Gyro Ball.
• Evil Redhead
• Extra Ore Dinary: Magnezone's secondary type.
• Icy Blue Eyes
• Japanese Honorifics: In the original Japanese, he refers to Angie as "Angie-sama", indicating that he defers to her despite otherwise ranking above the other grunts.
• King Mook: His Magnezone is more powerful than either the Liepard or Muk his underlings in BW118 use - it takes on Pignite and Oshawott, defeats the former (which has a type-advantage), and finally needs to be taken down by Pikachu himself.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: Magnezone's Supersonic.
• Mook Lieutenant: Of a lesser rank than Angie.
• Name's the Same: His Japanese name matches that of a "Character Of The Day", from way back in Johto (a Brad Pitt Expy). The One Steve Limit may or may not apply.
• Shock and Awe: Magnezone's primary type.

Nero and Bianco

Voiced in Japanese by: Yukito Sōma (Nero) & Naoki Koshida (Bianco)

• Blond Guys Are Evil: Bianco.
• Casting a Shadow: Seviper's.
• Cats Are Mean: Zangoose, being based off the cat-like mongoose.
• Dual Boss: Ash's Pikachu and Iris' Excadrill faced down Zangoose and Seviper, respectively.
• Extra Ore Dinary: Zangoose's Iron Tail.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: Seviper's Screech.
• Meaningful Name: Nero and Bianco mean, respectively, "black" and "white" in Italian. Their Mons also sort of match them based on colour (Nero has the dark Seviper, Bianco the mostly-white Zangoose).
• Mon Bites Mon: Seviper's Bite.
• Nominal Importance: Having their names revealed gives them a competence level most grunts don't have, making them fairly capable adversaries - additionally, having trained two Pokémon who are normally mortal enemies into being capable battle-partners (Zangoose and Seviper) indicates some level of distinctive personality.
• Odd Friendship: These are the first Seviper and Zangoose seen in the anime to fight together, let alone so well.
• One Shot Characters
• Poisonous Pokémon: Seviper.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Both Zangoose and Seviper.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Seviper.
• Those Two Bad Guys

Chili (Pod) and Cress (Corn)

Voiced in Japanese by: Masakazu Morita (Pod), Makoto Ishii (Corn)

Voiced in English by: Lucien Dodge (Chili), Tom Wayland (Cress)

• Alphabetical Theme Naming: Their English names (and Cilan's) all begin with a "C."
• Badass: Cress has, to date, no reported losses in contrast to his brothers (he even beat Pikachu without taking a single hit in return, though to be fair he had an excellent strategy in place for Electric-type opponents).
• Big Eater: Chili, whose solution for resolving stress is to stuff his face. His Pansear also has the ability "Gluttony".
• Birds of a Feather: Non-romantic, but Cilan determines that Chili and Pansear are perfect partners due to the many traits they share.
• Bowties Are Cool
• The Bus Came Back: Chili in BW058.
• Can't Catch Up: This is acknowledged in BW058, when Chili is revealed to be suffering an inferiority complex, percieving himself as the weakest of the brothers due to having suffered a losing streak, expecially when Pansage circumvents his type disadvantage against Pansear with more balanced attacks. The gang helps him out by training Pansear to learn Solarbeam.
• Curtains Match The Windows
• Doppelgänger Spin: Cress' Panpour's Double Team.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Cress, to a degree - also see Third-Person Person below. Ironically, in the English dub he has the deepest voice of all the triplets.
• Edible Theme Naming
• Elemental Hair
• Elemental Powers:
  • Single type Pokémon
    • Making a Splash: Cress' Panpour.
    • Playing with Fire: Chili's Pansear.
  • Pokémon who know moves of a different type
    • Dishing Out Dirt: Pansear's Dig and Panpour's Mud Sport.
    • Green Thumb: Pansear's Solarbeam.
• Everything's Better with Monkeys
• Eyes Always Shut: Cress' Panpour.
• Fiery Redhead: Chili
• Freudian Trio: With all three brothers.
  • The Kirk: Cilan
  • The McCoy: Chili
  • The Spock: Cress
• Frickin' Laser Beams: Pansear's Solarbeam (taught to it by Pansage).
• Hot Blooded: Chili to the extreme. Shared by his Pansear.
• Large Ham: Chili, at times. Ironically, his brother Cilan can sometimes be even hammier.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Cress' advice to Chili about his battle style, while necessary to help him improve, probably could have been delivered a little more delicately, something Cress guiltily admits to. Thankfully, Cilan manages to deliver the advice better and rectify the situation.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Chili and Cress respectively.
  • Meanwhile, Cilan himself is blue to Chili, but red to Cress.
• Sharp Dressed Young Men
• Sibling Team: Along with Cilan (until he elects to travel awhile), the three of them share their duties at the Gym (which also doubles as a restaurant), allowing the challenger to select his or her opponent in a one-on-one Gym Battle.
• Take a Third Option: Ash requests the opportunity to battle all three Gym Leaders. Cress suggests a series of 3 one-on-one matches to determine whether Ash earns a badge (he beats Chili, loses to Cress, and then beats Cilan).
• The Stoic: Cress.
• Third-Person Person: Cress in the original Japanese version - culturally and grammatically, doing so is regarded as a mannerism of femininity.
• The Worf Effect: Of the triplets, Chili appears to lose the most battles - he was beaten by Trip using a disadvantaged Servine, for goodness sake, not to mention being (incidentally) the only person on record to have been defeated by Burgundy. Deconstructed when he develops an inferiority complex and runs away from the Gym, and it got even worse when Cilan and Pansage defeat his Pansear in BW058.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Cress.

Lenora (Aloe)

Voiced in Japanese by: Atsuko Tanaka

Voiced in English by: Norma Nongauza

• Adventurer Archaeologist: Implied to be one.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Watchog's Low Kick.
• Barrier Warrior: Herdier's Protect.
• Big Damn Heroes: Shows up just in time to resolve the conflict in BW014
• Happily Married
• Meaningful Name: Lenora, as in normal types.
• Non-Elemental: She specializes in Normal types
• Shock and Awe: Watchog's Thunderbolt.
• Soul Power: Watchog's Confuse Ray, and Lillipup and Herdier's Shadow Ball.
• Stealth Mentor: She takes this approach when battling Ash, treating her battle with him like a test he needs to pass.
• Token Minority: The only "black" Gym Leader, and fits the mammy stereotype pretty well - much of her artwork even features a matronly apron.
  • The apron is meant to (at least in part) represent her occupation as an archaeologist - it has pockets for tools and everything. Unfortunately, Political Correctness Gone Mad required it being digitally removed in the English dub, as the censors still found found it somewhat offensive.
• You Gotta Have Dark-Green Hair

Burgh (Arti)

Voiced in Japanese by: Tohru Furuya

Voiced in English by: Billy Bob Thompson

• All Webbed Up: Leavanny's String Shot.
• Ambiguously Gay
• Badass Cape: As part of his Dynamic Entry.
• Barrier Warrior: Leavanny and Dwebble's Protect.
• Big Creepy Crawlies: He specialises in Bug types
• Big Ol' Eyebrows
• Dishing Out Dirt: Dwebble's secondary type (Rock).
• Early-Bird Cameo: In BW018, similar to his in-game first appearance.
• Extra Ore Dinary: Whirlipede's Iron Defense.
• Green Thumb: Leavanny's secondary type.
• Frickin' Laser Beams: Leavanny's Hyper Beam.
• Green Eyes
• Meaningful Name: His English name sounds like bug.
• Nice Guy
• Performance Artist
• Poisonous Pokémon: Whirlipede's secondary type.
• Real Men Wear Pink: His signature Pokémon, Leavanny, is from a species reknowned for its sewing ability. Burgh himself is a talented artist.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He does his best to both stop and help the Venipede in BW022, and manages to convince the mayor to give him a chance, while even talking Trip into assisting.
• Scarf of Asskicking

Elesa (Kamitsure)

Voiced in Japanese by: Yumiko Kobayashi

Voiced in English by: Eileen Stevens

• Bare-Fisted Monk: Zebtrika's Double Kick.
• Bare Your Midriff
• Cool Horse: Zebstrika.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Has a gym full of (only) female fans that blush at the sight of her, cosplay as her, and constantly scream her name.
• Everything's Nuttier With Squirrels: Her Emolga is a flying squirrel.
• The Fashionista
• Fragile Speedster - Emolga (not based in raw power, but tricky and tough).
• Genki Girl
• Glass Cannon - Tynamo (can be defeated with a well-powered offence, but one must first survive its raw power and speed).
• Let's Get Dangerous: Once she sees how powerful Pikachu is (taking out her Emolga with a single Quick Attack), the gloves come off.
• Lightning Bruiser - Zebstrika (a test to see whether her opponent can last in the battle).
• Meaningful Name: Elesa as in electricity.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Tynamo.
• Playing with Fire: Zebstrika's Flame Charge.
• Shock and Awe: She specialises in Electric types
• Talking To Herself: Shares Iris's VA in the dub.
• True Beauty Is On The Inside: After Ash beats her, Elesa admits that she'd gotten so caught up in showing off and dazzling with her Pokémon that she forgot about the importance of trainer and Pokémon being in sync with each other's feelings.
• Wind From Beneath My Wings: Emolga's secondary type.

Clay (Yacon)

Voiced in Japanese by: Tsuguo Mogami

Voiced in English by: Sean Schemmel

• Bare-Fisted Monk: Palpitoad and Excadrill's Rock Smash.
• Berserk Button: Goes into a rage when Ash has Snivy use Attract, securing an easy win against Palpitoad. See Cynical Mentor for details.
• Brown Eyes
• Casting a Shadow: Krokorok's secondary type.
• Cynical Mentor: Towards Ash - among other things, he didn't take the usual route of criticising Ash's usage of a type-disadvantaged Pokémon, and was ultimately impressed when Boldore defeated his Excadrill. Also see Self-Made Man.
• Dishing Out Dirt : He specialises in Ground types:
• Extra Ore Dinary: Excadrill's secondary type.
• Frogs and Toads: Palpitoad
• Horn Attack: Excadrill's Horn Drill.
• Iconic Item: His treasured pickaxe.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He brushes off Ash's challenge the first time, and the second time he criticises Ash for not knowing about Revival Herbs. Yet despite his doubts about Ash's worth, he keeps his word to battle him, acts as a Cynical Mentor with good intentions, and encourages him in the end to keep climbing upwards to reach his dream.
• Let's Get Dangerous: To really test Ash's resolve, he sends out his strongest Pokémon, Excadrill, in the final stage of the match.
• Making a Splash: Palpitoad's primary type.
• Mon Bites Mon: Krokorok's Bite.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: Krokorok.
• Nice Hat
• Not Now, Kiddo: He appears briefly in BW057 and BW059, twice refusing to battle Ash due to varying circumstances (first time it's work; the second, he doesn't have Revival Herbs, which would guarantee the Pokémon working at his mines stay healthy). He finally accepts Ash's challenge in BW061.
• Poisonous Pokémon: Palpitoad's Sludge Bomb.
• One-Hit KO: Excadrill's Horn Drill. Less than useful against Roggenrola's "Sturdy" ability, however.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He really did need those Revival Herbs, and so when Ash brought them from Milos Island he kept his word that he'd battle him. This is despite seeming grouchy and not believing Ash would be worth battling.
• Self-Made Man: Clay reflects that when he was a child, he worked really hard to get where he is, but most contemporary youngsters expect to attain everything with shortcuts and cheap tricks. This is precisely why he considers Ash's Snivy using Attract to be unfair rather than strategic.
• This Is a Drill: Excadrill

Skyla (Fuuro)

Voiced in Japanese by: Kana Ueda

Voiced in English by: Sarah Natochenny

• Ace Pilot
• Arrogant Kung Fu Girl: While not an outright Jerkass, she's very arrogant about the accuracy of her Air Battles, getting nasty if someone challenges her convictions. Even when Cilan gives her a hard time in battle, she declares she "was bored" and predicted everything (though she hadn't exactly).
• Bare Your Midriff
• Blow You Away: Swoobat's Air Cutter & Gust, Unfezant's Air Slash and Swanna's Hurricane.
• Bubble Gun: Swanna's Bubble Beam.
• Dark-Skinned Redhead
• Defeat Means Friendship: After Ash defeats her, she humbly admits she was wrong and vows to be a proper Gym Leader from then on. Tranquill's evolution in particular helped her realise that her belief in predictable outcomes is skewed.
• Early-Bird Cameo: A rather unusual one, in that she made her first anime appearance in the English opening of Season 15, the weekend before her first episode even aired in Japan.
• Fiery Redhead: She's more passionate than quick-tempered.
• Gender Flip: Her Unfezant is male in the anime, contrary to the female version in other continuities - noteworthy because of the gender dimorphism that already exists between female and male Unfezant.
  • This may be justified as Ash has a female Unfezant.
• Genki Girl: She's very energetic. Just watch her entrance to Ash's battle with her! And the more the battle goes on, the more excited she gets!
• Hair Decorations: A propeller-like one which forms a bun on the side of her head.
• Healing Factor: Swanna's Aqua Ring.
  • It allows Swanna to take Pikachu's electric attack so it seems to have been upgraded A LOT compared to the games.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: BW068 shows that she's not a bad person, but needed to realize that what was best for her wasn't necessarily best for everyone else. Even before then she was mostly a Nice Girl, being consistently polite and expressing delight at getting to battle another Gym Leader.
• Making a Splash: Swanna's primary type.
• Non-Elemental: Unfezant's primary type.
• Psychic Powers: Swoobat's primary type.
• Smug Gym Leader: Though she's less flat-out boastful than utterly self-assured.
• Talking To Herself: Shares the same actress as Ash in the dub.
• Wind From Beneath My Wings: She specializes in Flying types.

Brycen (Hachiku)

Voiced in Japanese by: Nobuo Tobita

Voiced in English by: Benjamin Becker

• Action Hero: In his movies, but also in "Real Life".
• An Ice Person: He specializes in Ice-types.
• Badass Normal: Shown by his training regiment with Beartic in BW078.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Not only was he an Action Hero in movies, he's an accomplished martial artist — the man can shatter boulders with his bare fist, for Heaven's sake!
• Bears Are Bad News: Beartic, his strongest Pokémon, though only in the Gym battle.
• Curtains Match the Window
• Dynamic Entry: See Establishing Character Moment.
• Establishing Character Moment: He and Beartic leap down from a higher altitude, destroying a pair of boulders endangering Ash and his friends, and land in perfect martial arts poses. Then he simply expresses relief that nobody is hurt, showing his sense of humility.
• Everything's Better with Spinning: Cryogonal's Rapid Spin.
• Extra Ore Dinary: Vanillish's Mirror Shot.
• Humble Hero
• Luckily My Shield Will Protect Me: Cryogonal's Reflect.
• Making a Splash: Beartic's Brine.
• Mask of Power
• Noodle Incident: The accident on the set of his fourth movie, which convinced him to quit making movies and go back to training with his Beartic.
• Psychic Powers: Crygonal's Reflect.
• Soul Power: Vanillish's Astonish.
• Warrior Monk: Dresses the part, and he's also a genuinely tough guy.
• Worthy Opponent: For Krokorok, who was psyched to battle his team.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair

Roxie (Homika)

Voiced in Japanese by: Eri Kitamura

Voiced in English by: Alyson Rosenfeld

• Adaptational Badass: She's only the second Gym Leader in the games, whereas in the anime Ash earned his final badge from her. In addition, she allows Ash to use six Pokémon against three of hers, and she justifies her confidence by defeating five of his team during the battle.
• Badass Adorable: Apparently, she puts herself on a 6-on-3 disadvantage regularly...Yikes!
  • Even before Ash is headed towards the Gym for his match, a lot of Pokémon were being admitted to the Center in Virbank City specifically because she was kicking their asses.
• Big Creepy Crawlies: Scolipede.
• Combat Pragmatist: She utilizes attacks with a good chance of poisoning the opposition, making up for her lesser numbers in the battle. In fact, a lot of the poisoning attacks are aimed at the face to assure poisoning with the added bonus of throwing them off.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Scolipede's Rock Tomb.
• Early-Bird Cameo: She made her anime debut in a two-part special which aired in Japan the week prior to the release of Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 (her first game appearance).
• Everything's Better with Spinning: Koffing's Gyro Ball.
• Frickin' Laser Beams: Garbodor's Hyper Beam.
• Hair Decorations
• Honor Before Reason: She doesn't take advantage of Pignite's poisoning by Scolipede, giving it a Pecha Berry before sending out her strongest Pokémon, Garbodor. It just shows how she's both a good sport and a tough opponent.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: Scolipede's Screech.
• Nobody Loves the Bassist: Subverted — being a Gym Leader has its merits, and it helps that she's also the vocalist.
• Playing with Fire: Koffing's Will-O-Wisp.
• Poisonous Person: She's a Poison-type trainer.
• The Rockstar
• The Southpaw: She plays the bass with her left hand, and even gestures with the pick between her fingers.
• White-Haired Pretty Girl
• Youthful Freckles: Though they're only visible close-up.

Marlon (Shizui)

Voiced in Japanese by: Yuji Ueda

Voiced in English by: Ted Lewis (as Ed Paul)

• Anime Hair
• Casting Gag: Both his Japanese and English voice actors have played a Gym Leader before...ironically, both of them specialized in a type weak against Water.
• Curtains Match the Window: Blue eyes and blue hair, natch.
• Elemental Powers: He specializes in [[ Water types]].
• Green Thumb: Mantine's Bullet Seed.
• Making a Splash: He specializes in Water types.
• One Shot Character: The first Gym Leader to suffer this fate since Chuck (way back in Johto!)
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Jellicent.
• Psychic Powers: Mantine's Psybeam.
• Surfer Dude: In the dub.
• The Unfought: Well, for Ash who already has 8 badges. He was Cameron's opponent instead.
• Walking Shirtless Scene
• Wind From Beneath My Wings: Mantine's secondary type.
• The Worf Effect: Cameron defeats him without much difficulty, despite Marlon being a powerful Gym Leader. This is presumably to display just how powerful Cameron's team (especially Samurott) is.
• You Gotta Have Blue Hair

Drayden (Shaga)

Voiced in Japanese by: Masaki Terasoma

Voiced in English by: Mike Pollock

• Badass: He handed Iris and Excadrill their first ever defeat, breaking their 99-battle winning streak. In their 2-on-2 rematch in BW101, he wins again — despite Excadrill tying with Haxorus, Druddigon was still standing despite Dragonite's best efforts.
• Badass Beard
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: Sort of - while nobody was surprised that Iris battled Drayden again, everyone expected Ash to win his 8th Badge at Opelucid Gym rather than at Virbank Gym.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Haxorus' Rock Smash.
• Cool Old Guy
• Early-Bird Cameo: Made his first appearance in Iris' flashback during BW034.
• Extra Ore Dinary: Druddigon's Flash Cannon.
• Fauxshadowing: The final slot in Ash's Badge case is at one point seen to be shaped to hold the Legend Badge, the badge which Drayden gives out. But Opelucid Gym turns out to be closed on short notice, and Ash battles Roxie for his final Unova Badge instead. Then the 2nd Japanese opening featured Drayden, and he made a two-episode appearance.
  • What's amusing about this is how Ash's Badge Cases (both Sinnoh and Unova) have slots shaped specifically for certain badges - despite the fact that in the anime, there are more than 8 Gyms and therefore no specific selection of badges to be earned for League participation.
• Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: He trains Dragon-types.
• Me's a Crowd: Druddigon's Double Team.
• Token Motivational Nemesis: Non-villainous variant — his presence played an important role in defining who Iris and Excadrill became. He and Iris have a rematch at the Opelucid Gym, and he wins a 2nd time (although this time, Excadrill pulls a tie against the Haxorus which originally defeated it.
• The Unfought: Ash has not fought him and has no reason to, because he obtained his 8th Badge from Roxie instead.

Cheren

Voiced in Japanese by: Takuya Eguchi

Voiced in English by: Todd Haberkorn

• Adorkable: His bashful attitude is meant to be sympathetic and endearing. It succeeds, tremendously.
• Anime Hair: Maintains his ohage, as in other media.
• Badass Teacher
• Chekhov's Gunman: A minor case. He's mentioned in BW109 by Professor Juniper, who tells Ash and friends to meet him in Aspersia City. He appears in person two episodes later.
• Cool Teacher
• Curtains Match the Window: Black hair, black eyes.
• A Day in the Limelight: Which mostly makes up for his lack of a presence beyond the Gym Leader role in the anime.
• Demoted to Extra: Considering his noteworthy role in the games.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Throughout the episode, he's unsure of himself and his worth as a Gym Leader due to being new to the business. Yet his students absolutely ''adore and look up to him''.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Despite training Normal Types, he shares the same VA as the Fire Dragon Slayer.
• Hot Teacher
• Nice Guy
• Non-Elemental: Herdier.
• One Shot Character
• Shock and Awe: Herdier's Thunder Fang.

Alder (Adeku)

Voiced in Japanese by: Unsho Ishizuka

Voiced in English by: Scottie Ray

• And Then What?: He tells Ash and his friends that once they fulfill all their dreams, they must then find meaning in life beyond them, too.
• Anime Hair: Spiked upwards with a large wolf's tail.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: In his older age, he's less focused — he falls asleep during his battle with Ash! Then comes the Junior World Cup where he shows why he is still the Champion by curbstomping Trip's Serperior with his Bouffalant.
• Broken Pedestal: In Trip's opinion but then Trip changes his opinion back to his original one once he battles him.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Stops a rampaging Gigalith with his bare hands.
• Chivalrous Pervert: He's like Brock when it comes to the ladies (or at least with the Jennys, Joys and Cynthia).
• Cool Old Guy
• Friend to All Living Things: He has a deep understanding of Pokémon — he helped the aforementioned Gigalith by removing the nail in its foot which had caused it pain, and then fed it minerals. This is also a Call Back to when Bruno of the Kanto Elite Four calmed a rampaging Onix by pulling out a Sandslash firmly lodged between its joints - Pokémon champions require the in-depth foresight, compassion and understanding of life (and living) that must be largely self-taught only with experience.
• Gentle Giant
• The Hedonist: Alder's philosophy is that a person should enjoy life with their friends rather than focusing so much on accomplishments.
• A Load of Bull: His Bouffalant.
• The Mentor: Tries with Trip, is more successful with Ash's group. He does manage to talk some sense into Trip the next time he gets to talk to him.
• Multicoloured Hair: His hair similarly colour-coded in a style similar to Yugi Motou - red at the front and centre towards the scalp, with light-brown colouring along the outer spikes and towards the wolf-tail at the back.
• Running Gag: Not remembering either Ash or Trip's names — he calls the former "Ashton" (Santaro) and the latter "Tristan" (Shootaro).

Caitlin (Catteleya)

Voiced in Japanese by: Miyu Matsuki

Voiced in English by: Miriam Pultro

• Badass Adorable: Despite being insecure about her skills, she still manages to hold up against Cynthia until the timer runs out.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Gothitelle's Brick Break
• Casting a Shadow: Gothitelle's Flatter
• Flower Motifs: She makes her entrance onto the battlefield by emerging from the inside of a giant frickin' blooming flower.
• Nice Hat
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: In constrast to her counterparts from other media, anime-Caitlin is a gracious, collected individual with a sweetly pleasant demeanour. Complete with Flower Motifs.
• Lady of War: Her battle style is focused on elegance.
• Older and Wiser: According to Cynthia, she's mellowed out and become more mature than when she was younger.
• Proper Lady: She conducts herself with grace and poise and her sportmanship is superb.
• Rapunzel Hair
• Shock and Awe: Gothitelle's Thunderbolt
• Took a Level in Badass: In-Universe examples - if Cynthia's reaction to her fighting ability is any indication, she's gotten stronger with time.
• Woman in White
• Worthy Opponent: To Cynthia, despite being only an Elite Four facing a Champion.