Do you feel that BW stays away from having signature Pokémon for recurring trainers?

[Trainer Yusuf]

Or the better title would be "Do you think that BW is staying away from having signature Pokémon for recurring characters?", but unfortunately there is such thing as a character limit.

Ever since Original Series, many characters had main battlers. While main Pokémon were mainly strictly left for Gym Leaders, eventually recurring characters ended up having such Pokémon, such as Gary's Eevee and later Umbreon. There were also some cases of Characters of Day, who usually have a single purpose, have a Pokémon for that purpose and some have character designs fitting for that purpose or their Pokémon, ended up appearing more than once, such as Duplica, whose reappearance was likely to reference Gen I NPC Copycat's return in Gen II games.

This became much more increased in other series, with various characters having signature Pokémon. Even in some cases, their designs were made to match-up with their signature Pokémon, such as Harley(whose appearance might be justifiable as TVTropes suggest he was intended to be done in Hoenn GF) and Ursula(with her purple ribbons that reference the stripes on Gabite's head bulbs and her scaled GF outfit). However, in some cases, this went out of control, as eventually the signature Pokémon got more appearances and development than rest of their team mates. This was not unnoticed, as seen with Barry and Kenny's Empoleon and how their team mates compared to them, or rather couldn't compare to them due to lack of training, experience and strength.

However, while all of the rivals have a stronger battler, the amount of appearances all of their Pokémon get seems just about the same and while their teams' themes are fitting for either their design, personality, proffession or both, none of their designs is a direct reference to a certain Pokémon, except Stephan who has spiky hair, just like his Zebstrika.

What do you think? Do you think teams that are more balanced in terms of appearance are a result of the overexposure of previous signature Pokémon? Or is it because Unova have more Pokémon that are unconnected to previous generations, as such they should appear in some format? Or is it because it is still very early? Or is it because of lack of rivals' appearances?

 

[Ampharos King]

Re: Do you feel that BW stays away from having signature Pokémon for recurring traine

It's hard to say that the recurring trainers in BW have a "main pokemon" on their team considering that many of them have not appeared very often, much less actually participate in battle during the very few episodes that they are featured.

Out of all of the recurring trainers in BW, Trip and Bianca have made the most appearances, and were the only ones who have been seen after the end of the Club Battle tournament. Naturally, one would say that Trip and Bianca's starters (Servine and Pignite, respectively) are their signature pokemon, considering that they had been used the most times in on-screen battles.

However, both Trip and Bianca were seen using their other pokemon during some of their most recent appearances. Trip's starter pokemon had not been seen in an episode since BW031, and the pokemon on him that had actually been used most recently in battle was his Gurdurr. The same also applies for Bianca, as she tends to use her Minccino almost as often as she does her Pignite, and she had also obtained a new pokemon just recently. Furthermore, neither Pignite nor Servine were featured in their trainer's latest two episode appearances.

The opposite appears to be true for Luke; his signature pokemon is a Zorua who has appeared alongside him, but he has never used it in an on-screen battle so far. Luke appears to be much closer with two of his other pokemon, Golurk and Larvesta, since they were used in his most important on-screen fights.

In Burgundy's case, we know for a fact that her Dewott is her starter pokemon, yet it had been used by its trainer for just one battle. In fact, all of Burgundy's pokemon, including the starter, were only used for one on-screen match. Therefore, we really cannot say that Burgundy's Dewott is her signature pokemon.

Georgia and Stephan were only featured with two pokemon, one that has appeared alongside them in their debut episode, and the other that had debuted during an important match in the Club Battle tournament. The first of their pokemon had been used in two battles so far, while their other one had only been used in on-screen battle. It is hard to say that Zebstrika and Beartic are their signature pokemon just because they were the first pokemon belonging to their trainers to have been featured on-screen.

To answer the question more directly, I believe that we really cannot say that BW has steered away from providing a recurring trainer or rival with a main pokemon unless we see these characters more often. However, I believe we can make a conclusion about Bianca's current team of pokemon, considering that she appeared enough times where she was prominently seen alongside her pokemon. Bianca doesn't appear to have a "signature pokemon" currently, as she tends to use her Pignite and Minccino equally when they need to be sent out to do something.

 

[L-05308]

Re: Do you feel that BW stays away from having signature Pokémon for recurring traine

Besides, Trip and Bianca, the BW rivals have not appeared much, however the way their pokemon are featured has changed.

In DP we saw 3 episodes of Barry and we could already name Empoleon his go to guy, same happened with Kenny's.
Just the same, we have seen 3 episodes where Stephan's pokemon are featured in battle and althoungh Zebstrika has been showed in two battles, Swak's battle amounts to both of them, leaving it very unclear which is his sig.

Back in Dp we had Nando's sig as Roselia for his first two appearences and BAM suddenly its Kricketune he uses in his final battle at the GF, his star player at the league, gets the cameo in the middle of his huge absence and appears with him in the credits of M13, when his Roselia was so redundant that its evolution was revealed in a cameo, making it seem as out of the spotlight as Zoey's Lumineon. However the same can't happen this series as no pokemon can even be labbled a rival sig yet.

Bianca is simaliur to Paul in this sense, her Pokemon get equal focus (Trust me, that was not Escavalier's last appearance before the league) so we are left wondering who her sig is; Pignite or Minccino? Like we were with Paul; Is it Torterra, is it Honchrow or is it Electabuzz? though it later turned out to be Electivire. We may never really know for Bianca, same as it is hard to judge for Ursula, sreentime points a bit towards Gabite, but in the credits of M13 when all the rivals are appearing with their sig, she is with Plusle and Minum.

Burgundy is very confusing, her starter pokemon that must be her sig, no she has just called this one her vintage, oh wait now this one is her vintage. Next time she appears we could assume what ever pokemon she brings out is her sig, but the same thing happened with Conway, his Slowking appeared at the tagbattle and summer school but then it seemed to vanish at the league, completly over shadowed by Shuckle and Dusknoir. In the credits of M13, he didn't appear with a pokemon, probaly because the writers knew he didn't really have a sig.

Georgia could be Beartic but it could easily be Pawniard, they revealed her gender and gave her a lil personality so why not. Beartic had two appearences but its second battle was like watching Gary battle with Nidoking, its just battling to get them to the next battle with a main character where the star can shine.

Trip, like Paul has already been shown with numerous pokemon but their appearences are fleeting with only 3 of them getting more than one appearance. Servine has been used three times but in its last two battles he was not the almighty last one to beat like in true rival sig fashion, whille the one who who actually appeared to be a trial was his Gurdurr, if they intended Servine to be his sig, don't u think it would have at least cameoed in BW052, eating food or somthing?

Luke has his Zorua, however Zorua acts more like a character of her own, interacting with Iris, Bianca and Georgina more than luke, where as Gollet seems like it could be his sig.

I'll conclude by saying the writer are purposly avoiding rival signature pokemon, we have seen in the past with Drew and Harley that they know how to make a pokemon stand out, even when its getting pretty much equal appearence as its team mates like Zoey' Glameow did early on with Midreveus and Glameow