I'm disappointed the boy seems to be the protagonist again when they could have finally done a League-centric arc starring a girl.
But there's one thing that drew my attention. Look at
this image. Ever since Generation 5, the starter owned by the protagonist was always the one in the center of the poster image. This image has Scorbunny in the center, not the expected Sobble. Furthermore, with exception of XY (which has Fennekin in front of Y and Froakie on the opposide side), every poster image EVER to depict Starters has always had then lined up with the Dex Holder that owns them. Even BW has a Snivy in front of White despite her only getting a Pokémon of that line much later. This image has Scorbunny lined with the boy and Sobble with the girl.
DP had Platinum in the center of its poster image and yet Diamond is the protagonist. I could just be in denial and seeing things that aren't there, but what if the girl is the protagonist and the boy being on the center is just a red herring/marketing ploy? Sometime ago, the artist for
Digimon Next released the illustrations used for the volume covers, and one thing in particular that was revealed then, is that the image used on volume 4 originally had a pink background, but the editor made him change it under the mind that pink would turn away boys. What if the girl is the protagonist, but the boy is in the center for marketing purposes?
We still don't have confirmation that the boy is named Sword and the girl is Shield, despite what
was assumed in the speculation thread. That magazine scan with the sketches doesn't say anywhere the characters' names and Yamamoto these days has basically refused to confirm the characters' names, going as far as giving one different answer for everyone who asked. I posted
before that he called them Tatezō-kun and Hokko-chan, with the boy's name being derived from "shield" and the girl's from "sword", but since then, he did the following:
-Called them Hokō-kun and Tateko-chan, a reversal of the first post.
https://twitter.com/satoshi_swalot/status/1195637628298649600
-When asked about it, he called them Tsurukatsu and Tsurugiko-chan, both derived from "sword" (tsurugi).
https://twitter.com/satoshi_swalot/status/1195661269451173888
-Answered another person calling them Ken-chan and Hoko-chan, both derived from "sword".
https://twitter.com/satoshi_swalot/status/1195661400493850624
-And a different answer.
https://twitter.com/satoshi_swalot/status/1195665599965233154
He then said people will learn their names when the chapter comes out.
I don't see a reason for all the suspense if they're following tradition in the exact same way. There seems to be something going on here. Except for when he used the name "Tateko", all female names he used were derived "sword". Perhaps they want to surprise people by having a female protagonist and reversing the usual name scheme, and Yamamoto is dropping tiny hints about it. All League-facing protagonists so far were boys and they might want to make something different this time. Zacian's Pokédex entry also specifically calls it "Zamazenta's older sister", so it is canonically referred to by female terms, which could potentially encourage Kusaka to reverse the names for once.
Or maybe this is another Lack-two and Whi-two situation where they aren't going to use the exact game names. In the games, there's two characters named Sordward and Shieldert, whose Japanese names are Swod and Shieldy. While Shieldy has no problem, Swod is too similar to Sword, and that can potentially make following the name tradition perfectly unviable, at least for one of the characters. And if they can't use the game title for one of them, while would they use it for the other? We would have only one character with a game name, and another with an adapted name. The better option would be to not use game names for either of them.
But that's just my theory. We'll find out soon.
