>>51647400>older gym leaders were underdesigned and looked more generic than even some of the trainers in their gymPerhaps, this is true for Pryce, Morty and Whitney after all. But on the other hand they still resembled the people around them as well as real life people (not counting the ocassional ninja and dragon wierdo), which gave it a more immersive, slice-of-life quality that added to the worldbuilding. Most of them weren't cosplaying their types either which gave them a minimum of agency (i.e. "I'm using this type because I like it not because my appearance locks me into using it")
New designs look like a bunch of lunatics in cosplay trying to outclown eachother in competition for the fotm spotlight. Not to mention how many of them clash and look like they belong to entirely different franchises. But I guess from a worldbuilding perspective, the new clown design philosophy works well with the new regions, that feel more like theme parks and parodies of real life countries than it's own world in which people live.
