At the time of writing, the newest trailer for Pokémon Sword and Shield has only been out for about half a day, and there’s already a metric tonne of fan-art out there for the newest fighting type gym leader, Bea. The trailer announced the idea of “Gigantimaxing”, a way of increasing the size of Pokémon in the same way as “Dynamaxing“, but this process also changes their shape.
This was demonstrated with the newly announced fairy type, Alcremie, who turns into a huge wedding cake upon “Gigantimaxing”. They also announced a new coal-like Pokémon named RolyColy, a metallic dragon named Duraludon, and formally introduced us to Damper, an electric corgi that first appeared during the game’s demo at E3.
But what really got fans most excited was the announcement of four new gym leaders. The first was Chairman Rose, a jolly suited businessman who many suspects to be the game’s villain. Up next was Oleana, a fashionable gym leader who stares at the protagonist boredly. The final two gym leader announcements were version specific. In Pokémon Sword, you will face up against Bea, a stoic fighting type gym leader who trains in “Galar karate”, and in Pokémon Shield, you will challenge Allister, a young ghost type gym leader who hides his face and generally tries to avoid public appearances.
サイトウ #Pokémon #ポケモン剣盾 pic.twitter.com/s4WMSEYE2c
— 上ノ竜 (@uenoryoma) July 8, 2019
It didn’t even take a full hour for fanart of Bea to start being posted on Twitter and Pixiv (links may contain NSFW posts). There was a similar phenomenon happened when the gym leader Nessa was announced prior to E3 and we’ve even seen cosplay of her appear at Anime Expo. The same will likely be true for Bea in the coming months, but only time will tell, especially with both Pokémon Sword and Shield’s release dates just around the corner.