He isn't as popular as he should be

>>31528681
I mean he's brown
What else did you expect ?

>>31528707
Yeah but the most bro rival ever

>>31528707
He isn't black

>>31528681
He was surprisingly okay. I thought he'd be annoying but he was actually kinda funny and stayed out of your way.

>>31528707
some of the brown characters are decently popular in the fandom though, like Olivia you see a thread about her here every single day

He's literally the worst thing about this gen by a significant margin.

>>31528681

if he had some sort of mental breakdown where all his depression/frustration/anger boiled over... then he'd be best character. But as it stands, he's just an irritating faggot.

>>31528899
>wanting some breakdown where all of a sudden our friendly character is so angry and edgy
Really? If the games gonna have a semi assholeish rival have them be an asshole from the start, otherwise if they're friendly just have them stay friendly

>>31528886
>Olivia
>Brown

She's a niggress. Brown characters refer to characters like Mallow.

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>>31528681
He's as popular as he should be. He isn't hated or anything. He's well liked character. He just had very little to do with anything in the story, and he had almost zero development, so he's not getting to Gladion level of popularity.

I liked him a lot and don't get why so many hate him besides people who just hate friendly rivals period. Though he was at his best with Gladion as a foil to him and vice-versa. Should've had a sixth party member for the postgame battle, too, but all of the Title Challenge folk should.

>>31528897
There are so many actual gameplay problems with SM I don't see how an inconsequential character is the worst thing about the game.

>>31528930

I'm not a fan of static characters, anon.

>"It's hard to be strong enough to admit that you're weak... you know?"
>"Seriously! This is really frustrating, you know? I seriously tried my hardest, you know? But at least I had a blast going all out against you, anon. So thanks."
i gotta admit, i experienced some feels. maybe i should replay until i get him and let him win. too bad nothing happens if you lose

>>31528870
my thoughts exactly.

outside of the malasada forced shit, he's actually pretty likable and has some personality

much more than the rival on XY

>>31528681
For a """character""" with no redeeming qualities he's actually kind of overrated.

>>31528983
Yeah. I wish losing wasn't always come back and they act like they didn't battle you yet. Like they cheer that they won and then you hurry to a Pokémon center. Then they have a comment about you challenging them again and if you've gotten stronger since their last battle. Or you don't do that specific battle again. Winning every single battle just makes me feel even more Mary Sue than my character already is

He's at his best during the Aether raid

I liked his character quite a bit. He almost felt like a "take that" to people like... well, like >>31528899, who seem to think that maturity equals angst. His cheerfulness always felt like a deliberate decision on his part to me, and not just him being oblivious to what was going on.

Like when he met Gideon, it wasn't that he didn't pick up on his resentment, he just decided, nah, I'm not gonna get mad. You do your thing, I'll do mine. It was a surprisingly self-aware attitude for what could have been just the dopey tagalong friend.

Dude malasadas lmao *gives you a Max Revive*

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>>31529656

Don't mock love

>>31529641
Also if you act dickish he isn't oblivious to you doing so. Like the one time he asks something like "Did you know?" If you answer yes, he's just like "I didn't say anything yet." Made me laugh.

>be Hao
>a pokemon trainer boy
>see Lillie, a non-pokemon trainer girl, sacrifice herself and get kidnapped
>watch all that happen right in front of you and do nothing

>>31528681
Nice try, Hau.

>>31528681
Why bother writing three dimensional characters when you can just make one rival super happy and the other one edgy right?

>>31528681
hes a lessened version of Barry
that being said
he's a version of Barry and should be thrown in a trashcan

>>31528681
Nip did like him. I saw a lot of arts pairing him with Chicken. Also there are rising number of some ChickenxGladion arts that imply him getting together with Lillie.
>>31529641
Except that Hau's "mature" attitude came back to bite him in the ass.
Such as this scene >>31529923 He losed to Plumeria and failed to protect the girl he apparently has a crush on because his "my pace" attitude made him an underachiever. He wised up though, but it is too late as your character already surpassed him despite starting out late. Gladion however never really got any "punishment" from his edgy attitude.

>>31528681

But he is popular....with malasada companies.

>>31530065
Did you actually play the game or did you just keep mashing 'a' to get to the end and ignore everything about the actual plot

One thing I don't get about people's interpretation of Hau is where do people get the idea that he likes Lillie romantically? He's nice to everyone and of course he'd be bummed by a friend leaving for Kanto

>>31530157
The scene that he became sobbing mess after she left and Cuckui just felt the need to said "you must smile when you say goodbye to the one you LOVE".
Also he announced he would to Kanto to find Lillie (and his dad).
I am interested though if Cuckui's wording was any different in japanese.

>>31530222
I still didn't really interpret that as a romantic love. And nonetheless it doesn't really matter since he's 11 and will find other people, doesn't it?

>>31528870

Pretty much this. He was never your rival, he's just a guy who is also on the same journey as you and has his own goal of surpassing his grandfather. Gladion is the one that's your rival, sorta.

>>31530273
like literally any other rival

>>31530287

No Blue was definitely your rival, he's never shut up about it because he was for some reason obsessed with you. Silver actually I wouldn't even call a rival, just an asshole that likes to show up.

>>31530318
>because he was for some reason obsessed with you

Because Red and Blue had been friends their entire lives? I'm surprised people forget this when the only other rivals like that are the Unovan ones, and even then only Hugh really shows that the characters are meant to be old friends familiar with each other close to as well as Blue.

>>31530406
>Because Red and Blue had been friends their entire lives?

Which only made it wierder that once they got old enough, he just became an asshole towards you. I mean competition is one thing, friends can often be competitive, but he takes his losses very personally, like a fuckup on his part rather than an acknowledgement that you could possibly be better than him. I mean when you take his role as Champion, he almost acts like you didn't deserve your win.

Though as SM has shown, they do become good friends again.

>>31528681
>He isn't as popular as he should be
What? No character SHOULD be popular at all, unless you are trying really hard to pander to a specific crowd like Marvel's latest comics. Hau is as popular as he is.

>>31530406
No, Barry was like that, too.

He's probably the best "sidekick" in the series yet but being the friendly sidekick means he was never going to be as popular as the other characters

>>31530757

He's brown and cute, he was gonna get popularity by default

>>31528681
Any tumblr or Redditfags on here know how popular he is with normies/Triggered-kin?

>>31529094
we're not talking about Lillie

The overused jumping for joy animation, all the free items and the AHAHAA MALASADAS shit made him intolerable to a degree even the XY Pals couldn't rival. Hau's as obnoxious as dex Rotom.

>>31528681
Why do so many people hate him?

>>31530915
They either find malasadas forced (it is), hate him for being a happy rival (They want Blue to step on their dicks as he talks about how you don;t get to come yet) , or they are racist

>>31530869
>>carries a shitty weak type starter and pikashit to get btfo
>>Muh Malsala

He is overrated AF athough still a nice buddy. At least Lillie is going to be a trainner with a legendary poke on her side.

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I liked Hau. He was fun, and he actually did have interesting moments here and there (like the "you didn't even hear what I was gonna say" in Malie Garden, and BTFOing Faba's logic in Aether Paradise) that give him more of a splash of personality than past rivals have had. And he can have that without being an edgy angsty broodmaster or experiencing some tragic emotional whiplash halfway through the game. He's just an optimistic kid who wants to get strong enough to inherit the Kahuna role from his grandpa.

Plus, the most important thing that people don't get about him is that he's a foil. He and Lillie (and sometimes Kukui) bounce off each other in the early game, and then it truly comes out when you, Hau, and Gladion raid Aether and they start playing off one another. He and Gladion help develop each other, if only slightly (it's a Pokemon game, so take actual implementation of writing techniques where you can get them). Gladion teaches Hau that you need to actually try in order to succeed and you can't just be content with having a fun time, and Hau teaches Gladion that there are things that can't be done alone, and that relying on friends is okay.

This game actually did character interactions well, which lifts it miles above Kalos' buddy squad, who were all a bunch of two dimensional characters who add nothing to each other in any way and all have the same exact personality, and as a result they feel like they're just wasting your time and don't even need to exist.

>>31531277
basically yeah

like i always assumed the whole 'malasadas lmao' thing was him going out of his way to make people think he's simple-minded and thus lower their expectations of him

>>31529641
This. First rival I've actually liked since Gary. Silver was aight, May was meh, Barry can go die in fire, Bianca and Cheren were okay, I recognize Hugh is popular but I wasn't a fan, and Serena always felt like she was on the verge of suicide. Hau knew you'd curbstomp him at every turn because you're the player and just had fun with his journey. Plus he took the piss out of Gladion, which was funny. Good rival.

>>31531382
I mean, it's okay for characters to have a fixation on a certain food, especially in Japanese media where it happens all the time. And honestly, I don't even think he was THAT bad about it. Sure, it came up multiple times, but maybe like once or twice per island? Which isn't nearly as obnoxious as Tierno reminding you in EVERY conversation with him about how he likes observing Pokemon moves and how he wants to become a dance master.

And unlike Hau, there's nothing else to his personality except for that. Hau at least has a proper motivation to improve himself in wanting to become Kahuna, and is actually present in the story when shit gets real and actively helps you save Lillie, instead of "DUDE TREVOR AND I STOOD GUARD OUT HERE AND YOU NEVER SAW IT BUT WE GET TO ATTEND THE BIG HERO CEREMONY TOO BECAUSE WE'RE JUST AS IMPORTANT AS YOU LMAO".

And although minor, Hau actually does get sad enough to nearly cry when Lillie goes to Kanto, showing how much he cares about her, and then Kukui encourages him to buck up and be strong for her, which he's able to do. And even beyond that, he tells you about how his dad ran off and how he wants to go find him, which is definitely interesting, and adds facets to his characters that aren't just malasada.

People get so hung up on that one aspect of him that they don't even give a fuck about anything else he's about. People like Chie even though she's obsessed with meat, right? Or does she get a pass because she's a waifu?

>>31531484
i was using 'malasadas lmao' as shorthand for his ditzy behaviour in general, guess i should've been more specific

>>31531452
Agree with all your opinions 100%. Although I'd put Hugh just as low as Barry because the only thing he could think about was MUH SISTER'S PURRLOIN. Though his battle theme was kickass.

Like you say, Hau's fun to spar with because he's not a moody faggot or a fragile wallflower or a raging sperg. He's just fun, but he still doesn't give up the dream of getting stronger. He's such a bright and cheery character that you almost don't even want to see him frown. At least that's how I felt. A real "I want to protect that smile" kind of guy.

>>31531525
Ah yeah, that makes more sense. Lots of characters use that as a sort of defense mechanism for dealing with their problems, but I kinda doubt Gamefreak thought that far ahead, or even considered something that deep for a buddy character in a Pokemon game.

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>>31531452
>Serena always felt like she was on the verge of suicide
Seriously, what were they thinking when they made Serena? Watching her become more and more depressed over losing to you was fucking soul-crushing. I wanted to lose to her, just so she could be happy that she finally beat her neighbor, but nope, I'm not allowed to give her a happy ending.

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>>31531894
>pick the female player
>every time Calem calls you "neighbor" instead of your name, I imagine this fucker

No one ever says this kind of thing unironically. I hate that kid, I hate XY's writing, and I hate XY.

>>31528681
He has a sort of Naruto type personality. "I'm gonna be a Kahuna someday! Believe it!".
I like it Tbh.

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>>31528681

>>31533571
Your opinion belongs in the garbage can

>>31528856
>Black is bad guyz xdxd

>>31530140
I think he's talking about black and white

>>31531894
I tried to play through XY one last time before SM came out, but I couldn't bring myself to finish due to the "friends" breaking your pace every 5 seconds to do some useless bullshit I didn't care about. Even during the honeymoon phase back in 2013 I was thinking on how boring these guys were.

When SM rolled around, I was expecting something mediocre like early Cheren and Bianca or utterly horrible like the XY gang but I'm happy I was wrong. Hau actually had a few moments where I thought that he was actually a good friend to the MC like the Aether raid (best part of the game) and not just some "HUR DUR DANCE HUR DUR DEX" kid that follows you around.

>>31534067
I personally like XY more than SM, but no doubt SM blows it the fuck out in characterization. The best I can say about characterization in XY is some characters have a lot of potential, but they did absolutely nothing with it. Trevor's backstory is my favorite example of it.

>>31534350
I don't even remember what Trevor's back story is. I only remember him as the NPC who exists solely to measure your Pokedex progress at regular intervals. I guess that goes to show how interesting XY's characters were as a whole.

>>31534526
Wait, scratch that, I didn't even remember that he HAD a back story.

>>31534552
Hidden away in the mess of map design that is Lumiose is Trevor's sister as a generic Ace Trainer NPC. Talk to her and she mentions their parents left them behind to travel the world with their Pokemon instead of raising her and Trevor. There's a whole lot they could've done with that and a whole lot one could construe from it, but besides that one tidbit of dialogue there's not a hint or mention of it in the game.

>>31534638
They were all so forgettable in XY except Zenia

>>31534638
Wow, seriously? Yeah, that's fucking awful how such a seemingly important thing can just go to waste like that. And it just really solidifies that feeling of the buddies being pointless and tacked on.

>>31531927
xy hardly has writing as is.

>>31534665
Zenia was in oras. It all kinda blurs together

>>31531927
It makes sense in Japanese. Calling your neighbor just neighbor is a thing in Japan.

>>31531137
>At least Lillie is going to be a trainner with a legendary poke on her side.
So she's a scrub who needs to rely on legendary pokemon? She's gonna have a tough time in Kanto, where niggas kill legendaries and leave them in caves.

At least Hau is implied to be stronger than Gladion through the game's narrative. It's impressive since Gladion has Arceus-lite and a decent in-game team.

>Gladion loses to Guzma while Hau was able to battle him until the MC beat Lusamine.
>You fight Gladion before facing off against Hau in the league.

>>31530869
Yeah, we're not. We're talking about the shit character.

>>31534791
Not that anon, but what are you even comparing? Lillie isn't even a trainer. Even if Hau is stronger, that doesn't make him a better character.

>>31534685
I liked to imagine a Z would've gone more in-depth with them all, maybe each of the friends even getting a Looker Bureau-length sidequest, Trevor's dealing with any baggage there may be with his family such as it possibly influencing his decision to go on an adventure, Tierno's actually going in-depth with his dreams of making it big with Pokemon dancing and the world around it, Shauna managing to find a more meaningful drive than just making good memories or trying to truly become strong so she can fight for herself instead of relying on others like she says she feels bad about relying on the player and Serena/Calem all the time during Flare's doomsday, or Serena/Calem truly overcoming the inferiority complex weighing them down since their first fight and loss against the player. Get the Gym Leaders and other notable characters like Dexio and Sina some more character too in similar scenarios.

But alas, it was never to be.

>>31530940
>racist

Hau is clearly based on the Hawaiian kid in the trailers so there's no reason to hate him because of his "race".

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>>31528681
Give me one good reason why he should be more popular than he already is. Just one is enough. He has a fun personality, so he isn't hated like XY friends, but beyond that, he has the same fucking role.

>>31534849
Read the post I responded too. Guy calls Hau weak even though he is at least on par with Guzma, who is stronger than Gladion. Then he says

>At least Lillie is going to be a trainner with a legendary poke on her side.
Even though Lillie is going to Kanto, and none of the top trainers in Kanto use legendaries.

I'm not talking about Hau being a good/bad character. I'm saying that Hau isn't a shit tier trainer within the Pokemon franchise. He beat the trails, can use Z-Moves, and is implied to be stronger than Gladion. If they make a Alola sequel, Hau could easily be E4/Kahuna tier.
>but he lost to the MC
Everyone loses to the MC, and everyone forgets about the MC in the next game. Only Red matters.

>>31534949
Hau would do the player a favor by attacking the Reddit Owl in a double battle if he's on your side. That makes him great.

>>31531137
Lillie gave nebby to the playable. She has no Pokémon at the end of the game I thought

>>31534997
Okay, I get that. Just that he can challenge the Champion should be proof enough of his strength. Almost no one in-universe can get that far.
Still, that was just a retarded anon, and you should ignore him.

>>31535061
Correct. She doesn't have a Legendary.

>>31534925
To be honest, I don't think all the character development in the world could save any of the buddy squad for me. They already fucked it up big time in being some of my least favorite video game characters ever, and their designs aren't even that appealing to me to begin with. It would take a LOT of good will to make me appreciate them in any capacity.

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>>31535032
>starter war shitposting out of nowhere

Can you people give your hateboners a rest for even one goddamn second in a thread that has nothing to do with the starters at all?

>>31530273
Actually, someone pointed out something interesting: Hau usually shows up at your goals AFTER you, you're the one whose always stronger and one step ahead of him: he's not your rival.

YOU'RE HIS RIVAL.

>>31536309
Rivalry usually isn't a one sided thing, anon. Other than Blue, almost all of your rivals are one step behind you. Like Cheren beating E4 after you, Barry contently bumping into you, Silver showing up after you etc..

>>31534350
>The best I can say about characterization in XY is some characters have a lot of potential, but they did absolutely nothing with it. Trevor's backstory is my favorite example of it.

As much as I'd love to see it if they were characters that I didn't mind before, I hated them all besides Serena because she was cute.
I could not have cared less about the XY friends which is a shame since their counterparts in the manga are actually pretty neat.

>>31528681
Worst rival yet desu fampai desu.

>>31536507
The difference is that Kusaka actually knows how characters work. No matter how well-written or deep a character is, if you don't get the audience invested in him, that character is shit. XY failed at the first step. I could not care less if the friends had gotten backstories or not. Some of XY characters, like Lysandre and AZ are the opposite of this, characters I wanted to see more of, but didn't see enough. XY was a just a fucking trainwreck with its characters.

>>31530869
Both of them are shit. All of the characters in SM are shit except Nanu.

>>31536598
>Some of XY characters, like Lysandre and AZ are the opposite of this, characters I wanted to see more of, but didn't see enough.

I would've liked to see AZ actually expanded upon, especially since his reunion with Floette is supposed to be this big emotional moment like Lillie leaving, but I just sat there feeling nothing waiting for the credits to roll.

>>31536921
I just hated how cheaply that whole plot point was wrapped up.

>I built an ultimate weapon that killed everything in its path and brought suffering to countless people and Pokemon, in the name of revenge for the Pokemon I lost
>My Pokemon was revived, but disgusted in my actions and left me
>I walked the earth for 3,000 years in search of it

>Not ONCE have I encountered anything that moved me or changed the way I think
>But having a battle with that kid who just destroyed my weapon and stopped the evil guy who wanted to use it? Man that was fun. Oh hey, my long lost Pokemon appeared out of thin air in front of me!

What's even funnier is how it was handled in Generations. The mom and kid are just like

>"Look, he got his Pokemon back!"
>"Yup he sure did honey."

Not even surprised that they're witnessing an event that was three fucking MILLENNIA in the making.

Such a desperate and hasty move to have an emotional ending, and it sucked hard.

>>31536973
>But having a battle with that kid who just destroyed my weapon and stopped the evil guy who wanted to use it? Man that was fun. Oh hey, my long lost Pokemon appeared out of thin air in front of me!

The power of the almighty Kalos MC, able to make (useless) friends instantly and change the life of a god damn immortal! Truly, he is Pokemon Jesus.

>>31537033
People may say that the SM protag gets too much praise from other characters for being strong, but at least he wasn't an "Ash in any Pokemon movie" level Gary Stu like the XY protag.

>>31537033
>>31537084
Hey, don't take it out on MC-kun. They've done nothing wrong. All they did was beat Lysandre and become Champion. It was just AZ being retarded.

>>31537104
But it's specifically that chosen-one-level one-in-a-million magic chance bullshit that bugs me. Protags have always intervened in the matters of legendary Pokemon, because of course it's the bad guys who are stirring up trouble and awakening those legendaries, and naturally you're gonna get involved in that.

But it's so stupid to have such THAT shoehorned moment be the point where AZ discovers the true meaning of friendship and gets his buddy back after such a staggeringly long time. I'd be more inclined to believe it if AZ was more involved in the story, but you meet him like 2 times before that moment. It's improbable to think that AZ has never before encountered such an extraordinary trainer that could teach him to forgive and experience joy in his whole 3,000 years of searching the entire world.

>>31537166
The word "such" shouldn't be there. Forgive me, it's late.

>>31537166
We don't know anything. That's how shitty that scene was. It came out of nowhere. MC didn't do anything special. He didn't save AZ in any way. He just fought a battle. It was AZ that was shittily executed, appearing randomly, deciding to fight MC, then suddenly feeling free after that despite MC not doing anything.

I would understand if MC had given some shounen speech, or even just nodded towards him. It just doesn't feel right to me to blame someone for doing absolutely nothing.

>>31530915
- Not a challenge (if you had problems with his Raichu, you are either a kid, never played Pokémon or clinically retarded)
- Happy-go-lucky attitude even when he is aiding to rescue a girl who got kidnapped in front of his face because he couldn't do shit. Literally, he is like "omg they kidnapped Lillie and I stood here like a faggot" and in matter of seconds you go to Aether Paradise and he is all happy again with his shit eating smile. Destroys any hint of tension this game could have had.
- Only rival in the games who is ALWAYS behind your progress to make children feel good. You are at the 4th island and he hasn't completed the Acerola challenge yet.
- No character progression. Starts a loser, ends a loser.
- Muh malasada. Everytime he appears they drop something related to fucking malasada somehow. You get Psychic and he gets a malasada, "oh, I'm going to the malasasa shop". There are malasada stores everywhere (instead of being a "one place typical recover item" like Rage Candy Bar, Castelia Cone, etc.) just for this fucker.

You remove Hau and you get a better game. I'm not a Lillie fag, but I LOVED the fourth island because this faggot wasn't there.

>>31528681
LOL MALASADA XD!!!!
kill yourself

>>31537294
I guess you have a point, but what we can both agree on is that it was still a sloppily done scene no matter whose "fault" it was.

>>31537311
>Not a challenge
Has ANY rival been a true challenge? It's not Hau's fault that the games are becoming easier as a whole. Do you just hate every character in SM for being relatively easier than past games?
>Happy-go-lucky attitude
Because he likes battling, and in the infiltration part, he's in a situation where he gets to battle for a good cause? Maybe he's more at ease knowing that the player and Gladion have his back? And his peppiness clashes with Gladion's aloofness and creates a good character dynamic, better than rivals like Hugh, who's SO serious that all he can say is "MUH PURRLOIN" and "FUCK TEAM PLASMA"
>No character progression
He specifically learns from Gladion to not fuck around and be complacent with merely a fun time if he wants to improve. It does show in his lines, even if you're not paying attention because you're too busy focusing on his happy facial expression. He's actually bitter when he loses to you on Mt. Lanakila, but sucks it up because that's what he's about, and because he's proud to see his friend move forward.
>Muh malasada
Pops up a fair amount, but he still only mentions it in moments of levity, showing that he can focus on important things when he needs to. If you want a forced gimmick, look at Tierno. At least Hau is capable of talking about other things, Tierno cannot shot up about dancing for even a second. Food-loving characters are no new thing in Japanese media, anyway, so Hau having a trademark favorite food is no big deal.

>>31537441
>He's actually bitter when he loses
You just described a human being.

>>31537475
Which Hau is. And if you can see traits of humanity in a fictional character, doesn't that make them good? At least a little bit?

It's development for him either way. Some rivals are permanently stuck in "d'aww, you smacked my shit three ways to Sunday, but fun match anyway, buddy ol' pal! Let me heal our Pokemon!" mode. Hau starts off like that, but becomes more passionate about wanting to win instead of just wanting to battle. His entire personality isn't going to get a facelift over the course of the game, so he'll still be that smiley little kid, but he definitely does become more focused on self-improvement after realizing he wasn't strong enough when it mattered most.

>>31537508
If he has to go through the entire game just to get feel any emotion other than happiness, then he's not a good character. It's not fucking development. He reached the level others start at by going through the entire game. That's not a good character. Pue it however you like, it's not going to sound any better.

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>>31537535
>It's not fucking development if a character develops

Also, there's a difference from the emotions you FEEL and the emotions you EXPRESS. Hau expresses himself happily all the time. He has his own problems, namely not being as strong as he would like, worrying that he won't be Kahuna material when the time comes for him to inherit the role, getting a crush on Lillie, and wanting to find his deadbeat dad, but he handles them in his own upbeat way instead of angsting about them and trying to gain unnecessary pity from the audience. That doesn't make him hollow at all. It just means he's a kid that's psyched to go on an adventure with his friends and try out different malasada restaurants, and hakuna matata-ing the fuck up while he does.

I think the problem you have is that you assume that more complexity = higher quality character, when that doesn't have to be the case. Sometimes a good character is someone who's able to keep the group going with their positivity, while also facing their own fights. Pokemon doesn't need to be a soap opera where we have a scene with Hau breaking down into tears or completely losing his temper, because that would be extremely out of character for him as a person who tends to be optimistic whenever he can, and keeping your characters reasonably within character is more important for writing than making every character experience/display every spectrum of emotion just for cheap diversity.

>>31537655
Continued: Lillie was our emotional spectrum character, the one whose story we followed as a silent MC meant for players to self-insert onto a blank slate, the one who we saw go from a helpless girl babysitting a cosmic fart, to a confident girl ready to take on the world and tell her mother to go fuck herself. None of the other characters in the game change or evolve very much. They might have a few lines of establishing details behind them, but hardly anyone develops aside from villains and Lillie. Hau's not meant to have such a strong development, he's supposed to bring levity to the table and bounce off of Gladion's grimdark edgy personality. That's the purpose his character serves. And he still manages to be a more colorful character than, say, someone like Brendan/May who was completely useless within their own story and only existed to provide occasional miniboss battles and had even less personality/development.

>>31537655
Half of that doesn't even happen in the games. He never worries he won't become a Kahuna. All of what you said can be summed up with that he admitted he wasn't strong. That's really it. That's all that happens.

Yes, complexity can fuck itself. But we're talking about character growth here. He is literally the same as he was in the beginning, the only difference being that he realizes he can't beat you. He gets a new goal in the end, finding his father, but that leads to nothing. He still stays the same. He can be taken out completely and NOTHING would change.

It doesn't have to some soap opera. He doesn't have to break out in tears. But having him develop a little is bare minimum to ask for if you want him to be more popular. His development is comparable to that of fucking Shauna, for fuck's sake.

>>31537655
>>31537686

This actually makes me appreciate the SM characters more, I wish we could haven gotten more out of it. Like Hau for instance, you see him training those ex-Skull grunts postgame and I wish we could have an event of him needing a break from all that training.You know to get a malasada and the two of you (Well just him) talk about how it's been since all the events at Aether Paradise and after the League.

A segment with Gladion's progress on the Aether Paradise would be nice as well.

But that's probably asking too much from Gamefreak

>>31528681
Ayy malasada
*gives max revive*

>>31537686
If that's all his role was, let him be that. Don't expect him to get a huge fanbase for being nothing more than just a two dimensional character who's there simply to be the funny guy, having no impact on anything.

>>31536309

See that worked with Wally because he in the end decided he wanted to surpass you and gets his own theme for it (he fails but it was worth a shot). Hau's goal never had anything to do with you, it was always to become kahuna.