>>16068975Personal preferences aside, anime Misty was meant to be canonically ugly in the sense that she was a complete tomboy. Game Misty, especially Gen 2 game Misty I find to be quite beautiful though. Even anime Misty had her moments, although sadly most involved her trampling over her tomboy charm to conform to a feminine look.
>>16069071She had some exposure. She had a best friend, plus she was quite close with the village matron. She pretty much feared the only male figure in her life, Drayden though, and despite trying honestly to make friends at that school, the students shunned Iris for her wild personality, which only furthered her troubles in dealing with people. At the beginning of Best Wishes, Iris's hair was basically made of spaghetti and she hid behind her prodigy trainer status to cover that up and survive in a group of two men that were hard to handle at times.
Iris didn't have as much growth as a character as I would've liked, but she did call people kids less as the series went on, got over her fear of Ice types, and slowly began to advance towards her goal as a Dragon Master instead of simply relying on her childhood Pokemon Excadrill to get her through everything. Axew never evolved, but it learned new attacks and even both Cynthia and Claire praised her on it. Don't let the technical real life reasons that the plot was written how it was stop you from seeing that Iris did grow.
