The OBJECTIVE Pokémon Rivals Tier List 

Anime was like “fuck you XY games”and gave Tierno a Ludicolo.

The entire Scarlet DLC I wore the Dipplin glasses so every cutscene looks like the player character is intentionally messing with Kieran to drive him to madness

Honestly, my favorite fan-explanation as to why there are so many Best Friend type of Rivals is that these guys aren‘t Nice-guy Rivals to us the player, they are the Nice-guy Protagonist while we the Player are THEIR Asshole rivals, taking all the victories and recognition from their family members.

Your description of Hop being Hau at home really hit the nail on the head

I don't know what it is about Hau but he just felt the most like a friend to me. Dude wanted to have fun, hang out with and eat malasadas and I respect that. Same with Nemona just really liking battles. I think I just like the rivals who are very simple to the point and are fun to be around. Also sidenote, Tierno does have a small dance animation in XY. Spins and everything. Doesn't save him from F for me though.

Imma disagree with your take on Hugh Saying that he shouldn't get worked up over purrloin just because its a common pokemon in unova is wrong because it ignores the emotional attachment his sister might have had to the purrlion. You can't just replace it because it wouldn't be the same

I am not the biggest fan of Hugh, but I think it's worth mentioning that his sister's Purrloin was a gift from their late grandfather. He cares deeply about his younger sister, and even though it's not technically his purrloin, he probably also misses his grandfather a lot. It makes a lot of sense to me that this kid, traumatized by his grandfather's passing and team plasma's schemes, would go to such lengths to find purrloin.

In all honesty, I think ORAS Wally is one of the most hyped up rivals in the series. Was he improved in ORAS? Yeah totally, but I still wouldn't consider him A tier material. He still has the problem of straight up disappearing after Mauville and I feel like that gap's way too large for me to feel his growth.

Cant wait to see all the wholesome comments that respect your opinion :)

Literally everything Shauna needed to become an A or B tier rival was having a full team and a harder battle. She's a good character, her design is fine, but she's so weak that she becomes extremely forgettable (and she's still the most memorable XY rival lol), but yeah, I'd personally put her on C tier but I get your point of view

18:37 Arven and Kieran are my favorite characters of Gen 9

Respect for putting hau in B teir. I love his snarky comments too and how chill he is

I hope the rival in Pokemon Legends Z-A will be like Miles Edgeworth. I would love to see a rival who thinks they are better than you only to begrudgingly become your friend.

09:15 I know these cats are common but that Purrloin was his sister's companion and unique. If your pet went missing, you'd look for them rather than buying another pet from the pet store due to how special that specimen is to you. I respect your opinion on the Purrloin.

Pretty spot on. I was worried when you ranked Brendan and May in B tier, but seeing how few rivals you ranked higher, i think it's fair.

This is a pretty on-point tier list. The only thing I'd change is moving Kieran up to A tier alongside Wally. To me, Kieran feels like Wally but taken to extreme. I found it interesting how Kieran's personality at the start of the DLC mirrors Wally's personality, being timid and nervous. However, unlike Wally, Kieran becomes actively frustrated as he loses to the player more and more. It becomes so bad that he literally aspires to become the champion of the Blueberry Academy and changes his character completely because of it. But he's not aspiring to become the champion because of how cool the player is but rather out of vengeance. It's not just because of how many times he lost to the player but also because they took away Ogerpon, a legendary Pokemon he genuinely cared about. Much more compelling than Hugh going after Team Plasma because of a Purrloin.

Can you rank all the moms in Pokemon

I feel the best formula for a memorable rival is for them to have a direct impact on the story, engaging battles, and witty/snarky dialogue

Honestly, this is a solid tier list. Wasn't expecting Wally to rank so high up, which was a neat surprise. Pretty cool to see my favorite rival sitting at the top of A tier. But if we were discussing manga counterparts, I think Wally would unironically be S tier for literally saving the entire world. Those writers took him and practically turned him into a full on unsung hero. Which was also pretty cool. In general, he keeps getting glow ups with each major appearance he gets in the franchise.

I like how Johto Rival gets some character development

I like barry, his character is completely contrary to the region, you see him quite a lot in the game and his team is very cool. They could have highlighted the father thingy more that gets hinted st postgame

I’m a little sad Berry wasn’t higher, but I get it, when a character kinda reminds you of yourself as a kid, and you don’t like hyper active people, I can see why he’d be annoying in a way. But In my heart he’ll always be an S tier lol

Putting Hugh in the same tier as Shauna has got to be the single craziest take ive ever heard💀

Enjoyable video as always. It’d be neat to see a town tier list. Getting your insight on what makes a town memorable based on certain criteria would be interesting. Anyway, looking forward to future content.

I really enjoyed this video and hope you will make more tier list videos!

I'd love to see a battle theme tier list. (like for rivals, evil team leaders, legendaries etc) and a region tier list could be fun Maybe I'm a nerd for this but at least recently I've really been into the themes of pokemon, I don't think any pokemon game has bad music

Bede is one of my favorite

My biggest gripe with Hop is how he takes away so much screen time from bede and Marnie that them as character suffered because of Hop. He shows up in almost every single location in SWSH while the other two were sidelined. You know its bad when you only battle Marnie once before the league and Bede was straight up kicked out of the plot after stow on side and only comes back during the league while Hop aka the worst character of the three is constantly shoved in your face in every corner. It’s like Hop’s garbage factor actively drags down other more potentially interesting characters.

Carmine should have been S tier, but that's only because she's 100% my type. I love tall, mean, slightly unhinged girls who are nice to me only.

the entire B/W rival set would go up one tier each if I had to rank them personally. Just for the fact that they all embody the game's themes and duality of truth and ideals perfectly Also, to me, Blue is the Cynthia of rivals. Iconic, strong and all, but not that interesting overall besides all that I'm pretty much on the same page as Gireum here lol

"Blue goes in s tier." ok thats fair, he is i really good rival "Trace basically the same character just slightly less snarky goes in F" huh?

Me: This'll be fun Gireum: Bianca and Cheren slander Me: channel name boutta change to Gireum Black n Blue

If blue is s tier , N then need a whole tier just for him, but still a solid tier list but you should have better reasons because hop in F doesn't make sense😂

I'm actually really happy to see Hau get the credit he deserves

Everyone says Hop is a clone of Hau but I find he has more in common with Sarena and Calem. He goes through a similar arc except this time it actually works because we actually get to meet the person that he's trying to emulate and see what he is trying to achieve. Not only that but he picks himself back up after his losses where the other two just felt like they got more and more mopey as the game went on.

Trace rhymes with Chase, the male protagonist in LGP/LGE

Pretty good tier list. But what the hell was that about penny? No.

Nah you’re not missing out, Clara and Avery (especially) are both extremely insufferable characters

There's two Wallys because the Wally in Gen 3 and the Wally in Gen 6 end up being drastically different Wallys.

Hey Gireum! I'm really curious for your thoughts on the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series. I just started replaying Explorers of Sky a few weeks ago after quite a few years and want to hear your thoughts on why it was poorly rated on metacritic and ign

I can already hear the Gen 5 fans call out their Chandelures, Krookodiles, and Haxoruses after seeing your opinion of Hugh

You have pretty good taste rating on both Nemona and Carmine, which they are my favorite Female Rival Characters so far lol EDIT: Whole agreed on your take about Kieran too lmfao

Honestly? Pretty respectable tiers. Objective? Absolutely not, you even selfadmit it yourself as soon as you get to gen 2 lmao, but very respectable placements where C (which tbf is neutral and not negative) and even most of D hardly felt overly harsh, and instead felt more like subjective preferences (which also went both ways, since they're the reason Shauna made it in D and not F)... except for Hop. You absolutely put him in F tier and ragged about him. '^^ I can also understand the confusion regarding N and Penny considering they're treated more as antagonists than as "rivals", despite going the rival/friend route for a different part of the story. N definitely battles you multiple times before the climax, though, which gives him a pretty good edge since his non-final teams are also pretty nicely-themed (being Pokemon he can get around the place you're fighting him at, implying they just joined him directly rather than being a consistent "team" like most other rivals), and he's an at least memorable "rival" because of it imo. Edit: also, uh, about that Bianca "maybe if I watch the anime" statement? Uh, don't. The games unironically are better with their characters when it comes to BW1.

Wooooo new gireum red video 🥳

Thinking about how Silver is the son of Giovanni. I’d like to see a rival who goes after you under the orders of their parent who leads the villain organization. Maybe they could grow to enjoy the protagonists company and go out of their way without being prompted because of how fun they have from battling the protagonist. Inb4 someone brings up N.

I tier list of Pokemon regions would be awsome. Keep it on👍👍

ORAS Wally, what a glow up

I like going to No Frills

N is a rival. And he's the best imo

That Kieran take was hot 🔥 garbage 🗑 but pop off king 😂

I think Gen 6 was when rivals sort of stopped being characters and more like obstacles you need to get past. Thankful, Gen 9 mends this quite a bit.

Might you read the Adventures manga?

9:45 you do not know how much I laughed at this

Bro okay if you don't like hop but the music ??

Your tier list is fair and based. If only the anime during Generation 3 adapted more from the adventures manga. I hope to see more Pokémon videos from you soon.

I wonder if you'll delve into the Pal World controversy xD

Never will get the Hop hate, i love him

brody really tryna be east asian verlisify

The Hugh slander was a huge L

I keep seeing Arven and Penny on rival tier list, and it always baffles me because they aren't rivals. You are never in competition with them. It's the opposite actually since you actively help them throughout there storylines.

The story in Scarlet & Violet is...much more flawed than people thought. While I might agree the story brings up some concepts better than Sword & Shield, the overall narrative STILL feels lazy due to so many plot holes in said narrative. For example (credited to AcousticHarmonia): Why does Arven want the help of the trainer he despises? Why does Nemona fully expect you as a trainer who's never had a Pokemon before to rise to the challenge of proving a worthy opponent for her? Why does Penny want your help to take down Team Star instead of asking someone like Nemona or taking any other possible solution here? What's the point of a school that just tells you to screw off? How does nobody at the school seem to have any idea what went down with Team Star 18 months prior to the story? Why is Team Star so dead-set in their rules that they're not willing to disband even if their leader tells them to, but are willing to completely throw that out the window if the director of the school they don't even go to gives them an order? Why does Herba Mystica have such crazy variance of effects, always doing the one exact thing it needs to? Why is the Professor fixated on being the center of attention, taking credit for things they never did, and frequently interrupting Arven? Why did the other Professor leave? Why did the Professor want to bring pokemon out of time to coexist here? Out of a genuine belief that'd be the best world? Why didn't the Professor call the mean Koraidon/Miraidon back to its pokeball, or give it the order to not be so damn territorial since it apparently listens to whatever orders they give? Why did they instead have to throw themselves in front of an attack just to save your Koraidon/Miraidon? Why is the other Koraidon/Miraidon so territorial over this world that isn't even its own? What happened after your Koraidon/Miraidon was shielded from the attack? What was stopping the other Koraidon/Miraidon from immediately acting again since its mentality doesn't seem to have changed at all? Why does the Paradox Donphan who escapes Area Zero do absolutely nothing? Why is Larry the only genuinely great character? Why don't any Paradox Pokemon seem to care that they've been wrested from their home into a completely different world? Why does the AI Professor stick around to make you fight to stop the time machine instead of just leaving? Why not leave Area Zero, which would have them deactivated, so we can disable the time machine? Why is the key to disabling the time machine the AI Professor? Something that isn't even a direct part of the machine itself, being an additional helper the original Professor created, why wouldn't the most vital part of the machine be something directly connected? You'd think if the Professor was fixated on keeping the machine running no matter what, the most vital part would be directly connected, rather than something running off a wireless connection, and which can make a conscious decision to deactivate the machine. Why did the AI Professor just keep the other Koraidon/Miraidon's pokeball in her pocket? Couldn't she have left it upstairs, preventing the final battle? Why does the AI Professor need to go to travel through time to sacrifice themselves? Why couldn't they just leave Area Zero, being deactivated? Plus, then the heroes could just take some of the crystals serve to keep them rubbing out of Area Zero as and then Arven would've gotten his parent back.

17:41 eww, catering to the mob

You know what, this tier list is pretty objective. I can see how and why you placed certain people lower than others, like Hop and Arven, and higher than others, like Hau and Nemona. The only questionable takes are the Unova rivals. I’d say Bianca is a C, Cheren is a B, and Hugh is like a 89.99 rounded to an A-.

Everyone wake up, my favorite South Korean just uploaded!

Shame you didn't play the SwSh dlc, I think you'd have liked them.

We peaked with gen 1 and 2 when it comes to rivals

Hop should be in b tier. He gets a Zacian/Zamenzeta that can sweep you easily

you misread kierans arc so well

I think Wally appears twice because of how og and ORAS’ differences.

Pokemon music tierlist?

We need more of deez tierlists

0:21 starting with Gen 6? we had friendly rivals since Gen 3, May/Brendan are not evil rivals, neither is Barry, Cheren and Bianca arent either so what are you talking about? Klara and Avery are more evil than them as they actually feel like Blue/Green from Gen 1, infact more evil rivals than Blue/Green as they even lay Toxic Spikes/Psyshic Terrain before the battle

Do music tierlists 🥰🥰🥰

I headcanon Silver's name as "Dean" because of an old school bully I made up to explain my missing calculator for math class. I love this guy so much, I love to hate him. Also, I headcanon Brendan as a big giant jerk because of the day he beat my poor Marshtomp with his stupid Grovyle. I know he's a friendly rival but I love to hate him and I love to pretend he bullies me. And my least favorite rival is Hop. I HATE THAT GUY SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Super annoying and obnoxious, and he's too friendly for the junkhead he is.

you skipped rider willie and kaminko aide chobin. those 2 are the best rivals of all time with rider willie being the most epic. course i'd have to make a "MEGA S" tier, far and above traditional S tier just for those 2.

Bianca is basically my favourite Pokemon character so yeah your review on her wasn't something I agreed with but I appreciate your taken on Carmine and Kieran quite a lot.

before I start this, you better not talk smack about the rivals I like

I cared about Arven's doggo.

Do a tier list of the main protagonists

Justice for sword and shield

Could you rank pokemon anime series🙏

Who likes Barry?

No Frills bag. 🇨🇦

There should be the Heaven tier for N

Do the actual protagonist

If I'm being, honest Wally hardly counts as a rival since you only battle him twice.

Purrlion lmao

Gold litteraly kicks your ass at the beginning of the game. You should have shown that, the ultimate argument.

Bianca does here job well seeing how her character progress in to sequel

Hau was so positive that I wanted to punch through my 3DS. I immediately shut my brain whenever he showed up

NO E TIER?!

You put Bianca and Cheren in D & C Tier respectively... Just know that I know where you L-I mean, I respect your opinion and I still like your videos :). I woulda Put them both on S tier (Including N) Because they're the only few Characters/Rivals that get whole character arcs. They're special At least, in my heart.

How can you put Bianca and Cheren that loe,they are best rivals,their growth in game and they characters are unique

(reaches hop) 'ooh, yikes. sorry, looks like your opinion is invalid and i hate everything you stand for :)' more seriously, this is a pretty fun list (although i obviously disagree with some of the placements, eheh) and a cool video. i respect anyone with the balls to post their unfiltered opinions about popular characters on the internet. also, as a reminder folks, having and expressing your own opinion is well and good, but make sure to be civil while doing so!

Hello

🍥

I was here specifically to see where you ranked the ScarVi trainers. I didn’t play the DLC. But otherwise I’d put all three of them one letter grade above where you did. Carmine for me, what I’ve seen of her, would be like a D, though, and everyone I know who’s played the DLC doesn’t seem to like her for anything except maybe her looks lol Anyway, I feel like you can learn a decent amount about a person based on how they’d rank this kind of thing…

Do like Yuuki and Haruka, Mitsuru, Jun, Calem and Serena, Shana, Trova, and Hau.

I NEVER HEARD SOMEONE FUCKED UP LUSAMINE'S name like that I'm gonna start calling her Lasagna 😂, I don't agree about Gladion tier but whatever my guy and I love Hop and Bede it's Game freak's fault they shitted themselves for while making it the game so don't even bother playing SWSH DLC at all, the game drifted my first pair of joycons red flag

You best be joking about Lillie. She is solid S-Tier probably high A-Tier