As nice as off-screen training and improvement is, I still want these rivals to at least showcase their prowess in person. Collectively so far we have on-screen in terms of confrotations:
Tierno
-Losing each Summer Camp event.
-Losing the final battle.
-Getting rocked by Numelgon / Pikachu.
-Getting showed up by Serena's green Eevee.
Yet we're told he won the Voltage Badge but lost the Psychic Gym Badge Battle, the latter being meant as hype for Satoshi's future victory.
Shouta
-Gets beaten by Citron.
-Gets beaten by Satoshi.
-Gets beaten by Mache-san. (But this is meant as hype to boost Satoshi's victory.)
-Gets beaten by Satoshi again.
-Gets smashed here by Satoshi again.
But we're told he got five badges and that he's not going to the Eisetsu Gym because it's too strong for him (but this is meant to glorify Satoshi's future victory over it).
Trova
-Lost the Summer Camp events.
-Lost the Team Battle.
-Lost to Satoshi.
He snapped a picture of Fire though so that's an achievement but it's nothing he rivals Satoshi in, he got the Bug Badge off-screen too.
Millefeui
-Lost Poffle comp.
-Lost TriPokalon.
-Lost to Serena's new Nymphia.
Sana
- Lost to Serena.
- Lost camp events.
- Lost final team battle.
She did win the first TriPokalon but it got downplayed by Yashio because she deemed her uninspirational trash in-comparison to Serena, oh and Serena never really got to compete SMH. She got a Key off-screen too.
Nene
- Lost TriPokalon in Theme Performance.
- Lost another TriPokalon in Free Performance.
Got two keys off-screen.
Musashi
- Lost a bunch of these things until she got her first key later on, fair and square. Win was not downplayed and everything was just.
In-general, I'm sick of this trend of rivals being used as tools to make the main characters look better. I want on-screen self-proclaimed victories so I can actually see the prowess of these characters, this is what a "rival" is. I don't care if Serena is a prodigy at beauty pageants or of Satoshi "five regions of experience" (You should all know by that point that doesn't even matter given Satoshi has slayed way more experienced trainers several times himself.) At this point, I'm wondering if this is going to go on forever, which is why I'm starting to think Shouta might just turn things around at the league because everything's so lopsided at this point. Shouta can show "better power" with a more aesthetically pleasing team and more keen eye all he wants but actually winning is something else in itself. You cannot have a main rival lose forever. Serena already has her dream killer with the Shiny mon and all set and ready so this might it for her too.