Iono

"The Supercharged Streamer"
Iono
Species	Human
Hair color	Teal/Pink
Eye color	Pink
Base	Levincia Gym
Debut	Pokémon Scarlet/Violet

Iono is one of the Gym Leaders of the Paldea region who is featured as an opponent in the ninth generation games of the Pokémon series, Scarlet and Violet. She specializes in Electric-type Pokémon.

Background

Iono resided in Levincia, where she was an influencer and streamer who hosted her own show called The Iono Zone. She was very energetic and incorporated a number of catchphrases into her speech, such as referring to her audience as having their eyeballs caught in her Electroweb and repeating words in several different dialects or languages ("'Ello, 'ello, hola! Ciao and bonjour!"). She was intent on constantly producing content to satisfy her many fans. As the Gym Leader of Levincia, Iono even incorporated her work into her gym duties, as she streamed all her battles (which she referred to as collabs), and her Gym Test consisted of having challengers draw in more subscribers by solving a game while being streamed.

Within Scarlet/Violet, Florian/Juliana came to Levincia to take on her gym. For the Gym Test, Iono subjected them to a game called "Where in Levincia is Mr. Walksabout?". For this game, Iono recruited a seemingly random person who she referred to solely as Mr. Walksabout (but was clearly Clavell) to hide in several crowded areas, and Florian/Juliana had to locate him. They also had to battle one of Iono's fans after locating him. After the challenger completed three rounds of the game, Iono was excited by her rising subscriber numbers and accepted their challenge. Florian/Juliana proceeded to defeat her in the battle. She congratulated them and gave them her gym badge as well as TM048: Volt Switch. They also took a picture together in which they both did Iono's signature pose. After Florian/Juliana became champion, they could return to Levincia for a rematch after Geeta tasked them with evaluating Paldea's gyms in her place. Iono was surprised at how quickly the trainer had become a champion and eagerly accepted the chance to have another battle, as she saw it as the perfect chance to collaborate with another celebrity figure. After being defeated, Iono was disappointed to lose again, but she was satisfied by the viewer numbers and claimed that she was trending "like the internet's mad at [her]". She offered to collab with Florian/Juliana regularly and warned them not to appear on other channels. She also asked the trainer to report to Geeta that she was a sensation.

Pokémon Roster

• Wattrel/Kilowattrel: Used in the first battle, it evolves by the rematch.
• Bellibolt
• Luxio/Luxray: Used in the first battle, it evolves by the rematch.
• Electrode: Used in the rematch only
• Mismagius: She Terastallizes this Pokémon with an Electric Tera Type.

Trivia

• Her Japanese name is Nanjamo, which is taken from a Japanese term that means "What is it?" and is used to refer to an unusually large tree growing in a particular place, most commonly in reference to the Chinese fringetree. Her English name of Iono is similar in that it sounds like "Iunno", an informal way of saying "I don't know", and it may be derived from "Chionanthus", which is the genus name for the fringetree, as well as containing the word "ion" which could reference the Electric type.
• Her design appears to the based on the appearances of Vtubers, digital avatars of streamers that are typically full of personality and have become popular going into the 2020s. Despite that, Iono differs from vtubers as she is shown to have that appearance in reality rather than being a digital avatar with a different physical appearance.
• Prior to the release of Scarlet/Violet, Iono was introduced in a pair of fully voice-acted promotional videos that were treated as episodes of The Iono Zone. In those videos, she asked viewers to guess the identity of a Pokémon, which turned out to be Bellibolt.
• She has hairclips of Magnemite which match her two hair colors, although she has not been shown to own or use any member of Magnemite's family.