So in order to give B/W some sort of fresh rebranding, GameFreak gave us slightly older protagonists, and made a few comments on Japanese publications about how the group of trainers of Nuvema Town were "older" than the previous ten-year-olds in the Pokémon RPGs prior to Black/White.
So Cheren, Bel, and the player character are apparently not ten; they're supposedly teenagers. (While it was something that while GameFreak would boast a few times, TPCi has neglected to mention it.)
So how old would you say the young trainers of Nuvema Town are? Why?
I say that they are 16 years of age, because they look a bit taller than the usual "10 year olds" of
Pokemon. Also, my personal guidelines are that anyone who's as tall as Naruto was pre-Shippuden is about
13 years old; anyone as tall as him during Shippuden's start is about
16 years old. In
Pokemon, the only people I consider "10 years old" as of now are Ash when he first started out and Red during Generation 1.
Everyone else looks way too old to be ten, though Ken Sugimori's artwork of Iris may avert that (Iris's anime depiction, however...).
Anyway, White and Touko definitely have to be older than 10. The mentions by the developers confirm that, and for White...THOSE SHORTS. As for Belle...
THEM HIPS.
Additionally, Cheren reminds me of
Bleach's Uryu Ishida, who is 16 as well:
It's funny how only when the protagonist/rivals are around 16 years old do the parents start worrying about their children and demand they come home.
While 10 year olds have been traveling around regions before without a care in the world.
LOL...strangely true.
I just had a look, but unfortunately it doesn't tell you. There's no visual representation of a Pokémon's height anymore that I can find anymore, it's just a number.
-_- Game Freak, WTF?! Yet
another pointless regression of BW...