>>58751563>KogaDark didn’t exist yet, and poison seems like something a ninja would use. His gym is the only one to effectively use the poison walking damage gimmick with all the ninja tricks like ninja transformations/ disguises and a hidden wall maze.
>JanineKoga 2.0 since she’s the original give the old character a child in the sequel baby
>RoxieUnova didn’t have a poison user in the first go around, and they need someone to use the venipede line as an ace. Also wanted to show off the new gym song gimmick in a fun way.
>PlumeriaWalking salazzle expy but more tame with team skull grunts being her salandit. Exists because they needed a poison specialist. The plant she’s named after/ has her hair colored after is popular with tourists/ landscapers, so it’s advertised all over Hawaii. It also has poisonous sap, which is one of those fun facts that gets regularly brought up about it.
>KlaraToxic personality I guess. She’s the first one who’s just a bad person. They also needed her to share g-slowpokes typing with Avery. In game, she picked the type because it was unpopular/ nobody was specializing in poison types, so she thought it’d be easy to scoop the poison gym leader spot. Her name in Japanese is sophora, which is another poisonous plant. Weirdly, means that she and Sophocles share a name origin.
Koga and Janine by extension had a gimmick, but it seems like poison specialists are kind of leftovers from then until maybe Corbeau
