Game Freak really did the “diversity characters” pretty bad on purpose, ok hear out my tin foil hat grade theory, We all know that the GF employees (and basically every Japanese salary man) are represented by Larry, he needs no introduction, we all know the Japanese are very nationalistic, now imagine an overworked Japanese man being told to add a non vaguely white/Japanese character just to appease the westerners (investors), yeah they would eventually snap, but they wouldn’t be able to just refuse the boss’s orders so they mocked their boss’s demands by making the ugliest and most stereotypical character, same thing kinda goes to Geeta, but she has the added point of having the most disappointing champion team since Diantha, this will also fall into the plan on making them pretty ugly will make the people say they don’t like these characters, making the black character the least popular one with the people will show on the analytics that the people do not like black characters and the top dogs at TPC won’t be the wiser, this may also work as a sort of damage control from SS
On a side note I’m actually with the GF employees, if I want to play a Japanese game I want to play a Japanese game, not a this globalised goop, same goes for games from other regions, I think that regional identity is also an important part of videogames