>>48497031As far as design goes, I'd argue that Gen 1, 2, 3 and 5 have the best designed male protagonists; Gen 3 Brendan is great but as far as I'm concerned May and Kris are objectively the best-designed female protags in the series, who actually sport the look of someone going on an very outdoorsy adventure. Kris just has the misfortune of being paired with the second best male design in the franchise; May > Brendan, to me at least. And it goes without saying that Gen 3 Red > Leaf.
Leaf, Dawn, and Serena do not strike me at all as adventuring characters. Leaf looks like a supporting side character and the latter 2 look like they should be super contest competitors. Lyra is a plain downgrade from Kris; she looks like she should be en route to school in a big city rather than out in the wilderness. Hilda has and always will look like some redneck biker girl to me, which isn't far off from canon, but she looks like she is better suited to be a mini boss battle for a biker gang than a protagonist. Rosa looks like she's about to go do those obnoxious thot exercises at her local gym, or play a couple of rounds of tennis. May's remake is is atrocious, stripping the character of that sense of confidence and wanderlust that her original design is comprised of. She has been made into a girly-girl. Selene is terribly bland; given the game's location and GF's track record, I'm surprised she isn't wearing a bikini.
Then we have Lucas, who is passable as an adventurer, but looks like a bit of a fop. Hilbert outclasses Hilda by a country mile and looks like a throwback to Red. Nate looks like some kind of unwashed hippie. Calem looks like a faggot. Brendan's redesign is passable, not nearly as bad as May's. Elio looks fine, given his game's location.
As far as icon status is concerned, yeah, the girls are more iconic because they got adapted to the Ashime and the boys got zilch - say nothing of all the porn that exists of them too. No comment on the rest.
