THE BASICS, WHO IS ANABEL?
Basic info sheet
Anabel (Lila リラ in japanese) is a side character who first appeared in Pokemon Emerald for the gameboy color and her last major appearance was in Pokemon Sun and Moon for the nintendo 3DS, she also most recently features on the mobile spinoff game Pokemon masters EX as one of the unlockable gacha characters and as a side character im the game's story.
Pokemon emerald
Her debut appearance on pokemon emerald features her as a boss fight as the Salon maiden (tower tycoon in japanese) on the Battle Tower, a side mode in which you face consecutive battles back to back with NPC characters, Anabel first appears as your 35th opponent, defeating her grants you the silver ability symbol, you're able to challenge her again as your 70th opponent, granting you the gold ability symbol. Nothing much is known about her, and she’s quite an enigmatic character, she’s constantly regarded by other NPCS in the tower to be quite the tough trainer, and they're not wrong, Anabel is regarded as one of the most difficult battles in Pokemon Emerald, sporting various quite strong, meta relevant (at the time) moveset optimized pokemon and most notably, using various legendary pokemon on her team
"The reason I've come to see you... Well, there is but one reason... Let me see your talent in its entirety..."
-when first meeting the player
Anabel's behavior to the player is initially standoffish and even a bit rude, she most notably mentions her desire to see the players “talent” at play, her behavior however changes whenever you first beat her, now having seen the players battling talent, she finally regards you with respect and grants you the silver ability symbol, urging you to keep battling and come challenge her again, on every consecutive rematch, she seems way more enthusiastic about it, she even mentions how much fun she had during the battle.
"That was fun... I have never had a Pokémon battle so enjoyable before... I wish I could battle with you again..."
- when defeated for the second time
Pokemon sun and moon
introduction
After eleven years from her original debut, and no role since, Anabel makes her re-debut of sorts during the postgame, in where it's revealed that she's now part of the international police, more specifically the UB task force along with recurring character Looker, charged with defeating or capturing Ultra beasts (if you don't know, they're basically pokemon from another dimension and super dangerous).
You first meet with her after completing the main story of the game and being gathered by Looker to meet you up at the motel in route 9, they both introduce themselves as members of the interpol and ask for your help with the task of capturing all the roaming ultra beast let loose in alola, but before they can fully trust you with the mission, Anabel challenges you to a pokemon battle. This is the point most people playing the game casually realize she's the same anabel from emerald, as not only does she still retail most of her old pokemon, but the same theme song too, and unlike other character cameos like red and blue, this isn't a remixed version of the track but straight up a port of it (we'll get to why that's important later). After we defeat her, she fully trusts our power to carry out the mission.
As we progress through the missions, Anabel carries out her duty of protecting the populated areas from any damage that the beasts may cause, but as we go ahead clearing more and more missions, Anabel’s health begins to deteriorate as she shows signs of fatigue, as she seems to be running into a staggering amount of UB’s on her way there, yet despite Looker’s concerns, she keeps insisting on continuing to carry out her work, persisting that she's completely okay, denying the offer of swapping places from Looker, expressing that it's part of her duty and she cannot allow him to get himself in danger like that without a partner pokemon.
So, why is this?
Backstory
As we play through the different chapters of the postgame we get little sprinkles of Anabel’s backstory mainly through way of Looker and Nanu, who was revealed to be a part of the international police in the past and knew Anabel alongside Looker. It is revealed to us that her drastic change in appearance in between games doesn’t just amount to a change in profession, but instead she comes from another dimension.
Let me explain, as we established there are these creatures called ultra beasts, pokemon from other dimension who for one reason or another, appear onto other dimensions, namely the one the games take place in trough interdimensional portals called ultra wormholes, but UB’s are not the only things that can pass through these wormholes, because humans can as well. We see this in the main story, namely through Lusamine, the player character & company, but the concept is explained a bit more in the postgame, mainly the “side effects” of too much exposure to the energy poured out of ultra wormholes, it being that they are doomed to be relentlessly hunted down by ultra beasts because of the residual energy following them.
“The UBs relentlessly seek out those who have passed through an Ultra Wormhole. The passage must change them somehow...as though they’ve been bathed in some energy... Something that the beasts can smell or sense... It is thought that the UBs can track such people as though sniffing them out.”
“It’s not like the monsters come here by choice. They don’t want to be here. So they smell that familiar scent and think there’ll be a wormhole. That they’ll get home.”
To add insult to injury, the interpol seems to have caught on to the opportunities presented by these fallers to aid in their research of the UB’s, so they’ve taken to using fallers as living bait, typically without their knowledge, and they call them “Fallers”
“Nanu, you called her bait... She really was, wasn’t she?”
“Faller..
That is what the International Police calls them. Humans who appear from an Ultra Wormhole... and those who are bathed in a great deal of the energy that pours out from them. She had come through a wormhole. She was from another world. And she was put on our team to help draw the UB to us…”
So, as you’ve probably inferred by now, Anabel is one of these so called fallers, as, ten year prior to the events of pokemon s/m, she was found by Looker and Nanu lying unconscious washed up on the beaches of Alola, just after completing a mission that resulted in the death of another faller ¹
she had also completely lost her memory aside from some key details
"She had lost most of her memories, but four things she could tell us. That her name was Anabel... That she came from the Hoenn region... That she had protected some tower there... And that she was a powerful Trainer..."
She was shortly placed under custody of the international police, who discovered her status as a faller, yet she was never informed about this by anyone in the interpol. Short
ANALYSIS, HEADCANONS, WORD SALAD
Something important (and cute) to note is her insistence that we do not defeat the ultra beasts, but instead catch them, she clearly has empathy for these creatures despite the circumstances
“(...) then the order from above is to erase them completely.But neither myself nor Looker would like to see that happen. Even if they are UBs, they are living creatures. We would like to protect them and save them.”
“Oh yes. There was one other thing I wanted to tell you. The original plan was that the UB you caught would be collected by the International Police. However, we have been able to secure official permission for you to keep it, [trainer name]
It was a bit of a hassle to get all the details ironed out, but... If we take the UB to headquarters, it would end up as a research subject.”
THIS IS WHERE I LEFT IT UNFINSIHED hahahahaha.............sorry
credits
project pokemon’s sun and moon story transcript for giving me an easy way to check back & copy and paste dialog
on a similar way, user cicciochiave from the gbatemp forums for exporting all the japanese script
Bulbapedia and ポケモンWiki, too for compiling information on her and making it easily accessible for anyone