Opal

Opal
Species	Human
Hair color	White (formerly Purple)
Eye color	Blue
Age	88
Base	Ballonlea
Debut	Pokémon Sword/Shield

Opal was the fifth gym leader of Galar's major division who had to be faced as an opponent in Pokémon Sword and Shield. She specializes in Fairy-type Pokémon.

Background

Opal was a clever woman who was capable of being both whimsical and spiteful. A skilled trainer, she valued the intellect of others and often insisted that others show her the color "pink", while being vague about what that meant. One answer that she gave during an old interview implied that others were supposed to create their own meaning for what she meant. Opal became a gym leader 70 years ago, around the age of 18, when she took over Ballonlea's gym from her mother. At one point 20 years later (fifty years prior to the eighth generation), she was defeated by Mustard in a Championship Cup. It is unknown if she maintained major division status or the same ranking throughout all of those years, but during the time of Sword and Shield, she was the fifth gym leader who gym challengers had to face in the major division.

Ballonlea Stadium doubled as a theater, and Opal was said to put on performances. Over the years, Opal felt that her time was coming to step down, and she started to seek a new successor. So she tailored her gym challenge to double as an audition for a potential new gym leader. For the gym challenge, challengers had to face trainers while answering several quiz questions about them. Answering correctly would boost the stats of the challenger's current Pokémon, while incorrect answers would lower them instead. These questions would continue into the battle against Opal. She claimed that she liked to give quizzes because of how people showed their true colors when in a pinch, but apparently it was speculated that she actually did so out of pure spite. In the past, both Leon and Sonia have failed her quiz.

During Sword and Shield, she was first seen with most of the other gym leaders at the opening ceremony of the gym challenge that was held at Ballonlea Stadium. She then came across Victor/Gloria a few times before they reached her gym. First, she encountered them as they were leaving Hammerlocke. Recognizing Victor/Gloria as one of the challengers endorsed by the Leon, she gave them her League Card and looked forward to seeing what they could do. The second time they met was at Stow-on-Side, in the aftermath of a battle between Victor/Gloria and Hop. She criticized Hop's ambitions and gave Victor/Gloria a League Card for the local gym leader (Bea in Sword or Allister in Shield) before moving along on her way. She was next found at her gym, shortly after Marnie had defeated her (and she was also beaten by Hop at some point). Opal appeared at the beginning of the gym challenge to officially introduce herself and to explain the rules of her gym challenge. Victor/Gloria soon managed to face her in battle and defeated her. She acknowledged their skill, but still considered them lacking as a potential new gym leader. At the same time, she claimed that she had an idea for a potential successor. Regardless, Opal gave them the Fairy Badge for their efforts, as well as TM87 (Draining Kiss) and the Fairy Uniform.

Afterwards, she met Victor/Gloria outside of the gym and asked them to escort her to Hammerlocke, because she knew that they had to return there to get to the next gym, and she had errands to run there.Her reasons for coming to Hammerlocke may have had to do with Bede, a trainer who had been disqualified from the gym challenge after attacking a mural at Stow-on-Side. Opal felt that Bede's wrongdoing was the result of being manipulated by Oleana and that he actually had potential as her successor. She considered him to be truly pink, and that he had depth due to being so "sincere and straightforward and yet so twisted and misguided". Opal rushed Bede when he was talking with Victor/Gloria and quickly convinced him to come with her back to Ballonlea and to take her gym challenge. Bede impressed her enough that she officially passed her gym leader status onto him soon afterwards. Opal still visited him at the gym on a daily basis, "giving unsolicited advice, coming up with new quiz questions, and practicing various performances".

Opal was the only gym leader to not participate in the Finals of the Championship Cup (although Bede challenged Victor/Gloria as an unofficial participant), and she was not seen again until Victor/Gloria revisited the gym during the crisis where forcibly Dynamaxed Wild Pokémon were appearing in stadiums. Bede had already cleared out Ballonlea Stadium's Dynamaxed Pokémon and challenged Victor/Gloria to a rematch. While Hop questioned Bede challenging them at a time like this, Opal showed up to defend his decision and claimed that he was truly independent now, although she also admitted that she had influenced some of his recent decisions. Opal considered the following Pokémon battle to be "perfectly pink" and gave Victor/Gloria her rare League Card in the aftermath. Opal could later appear as a participant in the Galarian Star Tournament, where she would partner up with Bede, Hop, Piers or Mustard, and she could also become available as a potential partner for Victor/Gloria after beating the Star Tournament six times.

Pokémon Roster

• Weezing
• Mawile
• Togekiss
• Alcremie: Her Alcremie is of the Ruby Cream, Strawberry Sweet variant, and she will Gigantamax it during battle.

For the Galarian Star Tournament, she uses only Weezing, Togekiss and Alcremie.

Other Appearances

Other Media

• In the Pokémon: Twilight Wings series of anime shorts, Opal made a brief appearance during the final episode. She appeared as part of a montage of video testimonies by Gym Leaders talking about Leon, and she offered the opinion that she often could not tell if Leon wanted to win or to lose. She also appeared in the bonus episode, in which she reminisced about her older days while watching Bede train after receiving an invitation to the Galarian Star Tournament, and she was later seen showing up for the tournament with various other trainers.
• In the Pokémon Adventures manga, she appeared during the Sword/Shield arc with a similar role as in the game. Henry Sword and Hop were shown clearing her gym challenge, but Casey Shield lost against her and was disqualified from the Gym Challenge as a result. She announced her plans for retirement and, as in the games, chose Bede as her successor. In this version, she also questioned why Rose had him removed from the gym challenge and took part in the efforts against Rose's Darkest Day.
• Opal appeared in several episodes of the Pokémon anime during the Pokémon Journeys series. In her first appearance, she made Ash and Goh take part in a series of quizzes at Ballonlea and had one of their Pokémon wear pink clothes for every wrong answer. It was ultimately revealed that she was doing so to stall for time until Chloe found them, in order to prevent Ash and Goh from recklessly trying to search for her. In the next episode, she hosted an All-Alcremie Decoration Challenge at Ballonlea Stadium and took on Ash in a battle after selecting him as the winner. The battle came to an unusual end when Ash's Pikachu was immobilized by having temporarily grown fatter from having eaten all of the cream produced by her Alcremie's G-Max Finale.

Trivia

• Her Japanese name is "poplar", named after a type of plant. Her English name, Opal, may have been chosen to sound similar to "poplar", and it also references the "opal", a gemstone that has historically been associated with superstitions.
• Opal's League Number is 910. In Japanese, its pronunciation can match that of a word meaning "cute".
• The correct answers to her quiz reveal more tidbits about her. She is nicknamed "the wizard", and although she is 88, she prefers to be considered to be 16 years old (and would consider that to be the correct question on her quiz, as calling her 88 would be "insensitive"). Additionally, despite how much she talks about the color pink, her favorite color is actually purple.
• Her Pokémon are kept in Ultra Balls.
• Her concept art includes a depiction of how she looked when she was younger.
• Opal is the only gym leader who cannot be invited to tournaments (not counting version-exclusive gym leaders) and the only one not to appear on the Isle of Armor.