Maylene: the Veilstone City Gym Leader still proving herself

She has only just landed the job, and the game doesn't hide it. Maylene runs the Gym in Veilstone City, specializes in the Fighting type and still trains like a challenger rather than an institution. Four Black Belts protect her, her own father coaches her, and the manga turns her into the hungriest Gym Leader in the region.

Contents

• Veilstone City, the Cobble Badge and Four Bodyguards
• Newly Appointed, and Still in Training
• Her Appetite, a Trait as Well Documented as Her Style
• The Rematches: Survival Area, World Tournament, Mobile
• In the Anime, a Collapse and Then a Badge Given Away
• In the Manga, Under Twelve and One Berry a Day
• Maylene at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

Veilstone City, the Cobble Badge and Four Bodyguards

Beating her earns you the Cobble Badge, one of the eight official League rewards you need to collect in Sinnoh before you earn the right to challenge the Elite Four, located in the east of the region.

She doesn't receive challengers on her own. Four Black Belt brothers watch over her Gym, known together as the Karate Quads: you have to get past them before you can reach her.

The route itself changes from one version to the other. In one, you have to rebuild a path by shifting movable wooden panels, and Maylene is the third Sinnoh Gym Leader along the way; in the other, punching bags are used to clear the obstacles, and she only comes fourth, right after Fantina.

Newly Appointed, and Still in Training

The game presents her as a Gym Leader who has only just taken up her post in Veilstone City. That's as much a characterization as a status: the job is new, her legitimacy is still to be earned, and her stated specialty, the Fighting type, is also her personal training ground.

Her training isn't just set dressing. She works relentlessly to get stronger, sometimes alongside her friend Candice, and it's her father who acts as her coach — a father the player, for their part, runs into at the Veilstone Game Corner.

Outside of battle, she's credited with two disciplines: martial arts, unsurprisingly, and calligraphy, mentioned with some caution. The second tempers the first: Sinnoh's Fighting specialist isn't reduced to her striking power.

Her Appetite, a Trait as Well Documented as Her Style

Her relationship with food comes up too often to be a mere detail. What she raves about at the Battleground is being able to eat as much as she wants, and she tells the player so herself.

Competition backs this up: she turns up among the contestants of an eating contest, which she seems to win without any real difficulty.

Her sporting side follows the same endurance logic. She runs the Pokéathlon's Power Course with Lucario, Machoke and Meditite, and she can be one of the three opponents in the Supreme Cup if the player picks that course.

🥊 Her best-known partner has its own section: shop all things Lucario.

The Rematches: Survival Area, World Tournament, Mobile

Handing over the badge isn't the end of her story. One version lets you battle her a second time, at the Battleground in the Survival Area — the very place whose buffet she was praising.

She also takes part in the Pokémon World Tournament, which brings together the best Trainers. Several doors lead to her there, including the Type Expert Tournament and the Sinnoh Leaders Tournament, and beating her earns 1 BP. The format decides the size of her team: three Pokémon in Single Battles, four in Double and Rotation Battles, all six in Triple Battles.

Two variables make these battles harder to read than they seem, since her team's Abilities, like each Pokémon's gender, can differ from one encounter to the next. Added together, all these appearances bring her documented roster to fourteen names, from Blaziken to Infernape by way of Dragonite, Gallade, Hitmontop, Machamp and Empoleon. On mobile, she was there from launch, in her standard outfit, paired with a Meditite that can evolve into Medicham.

In the Anime, a Collapse and Then a Badge Given Away

The series starts by breaking her. Against Paul, she is soundly beaten, and the defeat costs her her confidence rather than her title.

What gets her back on her feet isn't her own training but a match she watches: the battle between Ash and Paul's brother, Reggie, rekindles her love of battling.

She then fights two battles in a row. She beats Dawn, then fights Ash to a hard-won draw — and hands him her badge anyway, even though the result didn't require her to. As for moves, the series shows her Meditite using Drain Punch, Meditate and Detect, and her Machoke using Brick Break.

In the Manga, Under Twelve and One Berry a Day

One of the adaptations reduces her to almost nothing: a single panel, just long enough to hand the Cobble Badge to Hareta after her Machoke loses to a Piplup. The bonus drawing that closes the chapter shows her complaining about it herself.

The other turns her into a full-fledged character. There, she is under twelve, takes every battle with the utmost seriousness, and her reputation rests as much on her power as on her speed; she goes running with Meditite and Riolu, dodges a poorly aimed attack from Pearl's Monferno, then summons the heroes to her Gym.

Her battle against Platinum says everything about the character. Her Meditite draws its strength from an extreme diet, a single Berry a day, and she eats as little as it does: she is poor and openly envies her opponent's wealth. After taking out Chatler, Platinum's Chatot, she is within a hair of winning, but Platinum finds an opening by putting to use what she had learned on the Game Corner's slot machines; Riolu falls, and the Cobble Badge changes hands.

What follows is harsher still. She discovers that her father, whose gambling addiction is heavily implied, led Platinum to the Game Corner, and she answers him with a Force Palm. She is later seen running through the snow with no winter clothes and an empty stomach, then training with Candice and Volkner, who greets them with his Raichu's Discharge while complaining about having to babysit. Together with Candice, she ends up facing Jupiter of Team Galactic at Lake Acuity, holds on even after the Galactic Bomb explodes, collapses, and is revived at Snowpoint Temple by Platinum's Rapidash. Before losing consciousness during the Gym Leaders' battle, she entrusts Platinum with a Pachirisu that Volkner had caught for the Trainer from Sandgem Town; the epilogue finds her back on her feet.

Maylene at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Which badge does Maylene give out?
  The Cobble Badge, one of the eight official badges of the Sinnoh League. You need to collect them all to earn the right to challenge the Elite Four, located in the east of the region.
• Where does the Veilstone Gym come in the Gym order?
  It depends on the version: Maylene is the third Sinnoh Gym Leader in one and the fourth in the other, right after Fantina. Access changes too, with movable wooden panels in one and punching bags in the other.
• Who are the Karate Quads?
  Four Black Belt brothers who protect Maylene in her Veilstone Gym. They are the first obstacle before you reach the Gym Leader herself.
• What Pokémon does Maylene use?
  Fourteen Pokémon are documented under her name, with a stated preference for the Fighting type. In the Pokéathlon's Power Course, she competes with Lucario, Machoke and Meditite.
• What happens to Maylene in the manga?
  There, she is a Gym Leader under twelve, known for her strength and speed, very poor and constantly hungry. She gives the Cobble Badge to Platinum, then fights Jupiter of Team Galactic alongside Candice.

In short

Maylene is a Gym Leader caught mid-journey: the badge is official, her legitimacy isn't yet. The game shows her training and eating, the anime puts her through a defeat that crushes her before having her give away a badge she didn't have to hand over, and the manga takes the logic all the way by making her hunger and poverty the driving force of the character. She is the Sinnoh Gym Leader whose room to grow is most explicitly written into the story.