Eri: the Caph Squad Boss who taught Team Star to wrestle

An antagonist who starts out as a victim. Eri leads the Caph Squad, the Team Star branch devoted to the Fighting type, and greets the player of Scarlet and Violet as a masked, aggressive athlete itching for a fight. Yet the character's backstory tells the opposite of a brute's story: a student driven out by bullying who became the instructor and big sister of an entire crew.

Contents

• From Admired Student to Boss of the Caph Squad
• Wrestling First, the Fighting Type Second
• Taking the Hits for Her Own, Then Letting Carmen Stand Guard
• In the DLC: Make-Up Exams and Private Tutoring
• Beyond the Games: A Training Session, a Sync Pair and Cards
• Eri at a Glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

From Admired Student to Boss of the Caph Squad

Before Team Star, Eri was a standout student at the academy in Paldea. Her athletic talent and her looks made her popular across the whole school, to the point that this enviable position ended up turning against her: admiration bred jealousy.

The bullying came from students at her own school, and one of the ringleaders was none other than Carmen, a former beauty queen who had lost her crown in everyone's eyes. That pressure is what drives Eri to seek revenge, and it's with that vengeful intent that she joins the band of dissident students that would become Team Star.

What follows turns the tables. Carmen becomes the target of bullying in turn, and Eri, instead of savoring it, brings her into Team Star. The gesture sums up how the group really works: less a gang than a shelter for those the Academy left on their own, and it establishes from the outset the character trait that everything else about her will confirm.

Wrestling First, the Fighting Type Second

Her specialty is anything but a strategic choice: it was her love of wrestling that led her to Fighting-type Pokémon, not the other way around. She turned it into in-house training, since she's the one who coaches the group's recruits, and the other Bosses too, in wrestling as well as in Pokémon battles.

Her outfit shows the same obsession. Her makeup directly evokes luchador masks: hair dyed white down to the middle of her back, white eyes, a sleeveless white shirt open at the sides, matching cuffs, black shorts under a frilly white skirt, knee pads and tall boots.

Two variations are worth noting. The color of her tie changes depending on the game version, orange or purple, a cosmetic detail that sets apart the two halves of Scarlet and Violet. And in the DLC, you see her without her makeup, with tanned skin and black hair under a summer uniform: the ring costume was hiding a high schooler.

🥊 The heavy hitters of the Fighting type have their own shelf: check out the Pokémon figures.

Taking the Hits for Her Own, Then Letting Carmen Stand Guard

The battle against the player shapes up in an unexpected way. Rather than letting the Caph Squad Grunts file past one by one, Eri asks to be fought in their place: the Boss duel would stop being an end-of-the-road reward and become a shield raised in front of her recruits.

Yet that duel doesn't happen right away: Carmen convinces her to defend the camp from the inside and steps in herself to face the player. The loop closes neatly, since it's her former bully who sets her straight.

The whole character lies in this gap between appearance and behavior. Her real role among the other Bosses is that of a big sister, who calms them down when they argue, puts herself in danger to help them and holds no grudges — to the point of having protected the very person who once targeted her.

In the DLC: Make-Up Exams and Private Tutoring

Some time after the expedition into the Area Zero Underdepths, Eri and Giacomo approach the player in the Academy's entrance hall. The player doesn't recognize them right away: out of their Team Star outfits and in school uniforms, the two Bosses are back to being ordinary students — the gag says plenty about how much the costume made the character.

The reason for the encounter is academic. The two are in the middle of make-up exams, several Bosses are struggling in certain subjects, and so as not to worry Penny any further, they ask the player to give them private lessons. In class, Ortega loudly makes it known that he's not thrilled about the player showing up; Eri puts him in his place and makes him apologize, then sends someone to fetch Mela, who hasn't shown up.

The sequence ends with a thank-you and two gifts: a customized outfit and a Team Star phone case. Then Penny bursts into the classroom, embarrassed to have stumbled in; her friends keep her from leaving and confess everything. She understands what they were doing but blames them for keeping her out of it, when she would have come to help without a second thought.

Beyond the Games: A Training Session, a Sync Pair and Cards

The anime gives her a brief but well-judged appearance. She features in the third episode of the short series set in Paldea, where Hohma comes looking for her to squeeze a sensational interview out of her — and leaves with a training session on his hands instead of his scoop.

The mobile game added her on November 9, 2024, in her canonical outfit from the games, as a sync pair with an Annihilape. Her profile there comes down to two ideas: a relentless hard worker, and someone ready to risk everything when her friends are involved. The games give her plenty of other Pokémon: Toxicroak, Lucario, Passimian and Revavroom accompany her at the Caph Squad's Base, and in the rematch Revavroom gives up its spot to a Primeape.

The trading card game welcomed her on March 22, 2024 in France, with the Scarlet & Violet—Temporal Forces expansion, and she has reappeared on other cards since. A localization curiosity: her French name, Nèflie, doesn't survive a single border, since she's called Eri in English, Erin in Spanish, Rioba in German and Nespera in Italian.

Eri at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Why did Eri join Team Star?
  Because she was being bullied. Her athletic popularity had stirred up jealousy at Naranja/Uva Academy, and the bullying, led in part by former beauty queen Carmen, pushed her to seek revenge with Team Star.
• Why does she specialize in the Fighting type?
  Because she loves wrestling. Her passion for grappling is what steered her toward this type, and she uses it to train both the group's recruits and the other Bosses.
• What Pokémon does Eri have?
  At the Caph Squad's Base, she fields Toxicroak, Lucario, Passimian, Annihilape and Revavroom; in the rematch, Primeape, Passimian, Annihilape, Lucario and Toxicroak. Annihilape has also been her sync pair partner in the mobile game since November 9, 2024. Her Trainer specialty remains the Fighting type.
• What happens to her after her defeat by the player?
  She hands the Fighting Badge over to the player, who can later battle her again. She shows up again in the DLC, taking make-up exams with Giacomo.
• Does Eri appear in the anime?
  Yes, in the third episode of the short animated series set in Paldea. Hohma hopes to get a scoop out of her and ends up roped into a training session with her.

In short

Eri ticks every box of the one-off antagonist — a group to take down, a type specialty, a Boss battle — and uses them to tell exactly the opposite story. The wrestler's mask covers a bullied student, the surface aggression serves to protect younger kids, and by the end the character finds herself studying for exams in a school uniform. Few bosses of a criminal organization end up in private tutoring.