Hideko: Mossui Town's Grandma Who Dresses You, Then Attacks

She lends you a festival outfit, then jumps you in a battle. Hideko keeps the family home in Mossui Town, in Kitakami, with her husband Yukito, and raises their two grandchildren there for part of the year. The player first meets her as a host, on the evening the Festival of Masks begins — and runs into her again, much later, on the wrong side of a Double Battle she never chose.

Contents

• The Mossui Town house, only full outside the school term
• The Festival of Masks: a jinbei, a hairstyle and a card
• The shed wardrobe: a game system entrusted to a grandma
• Mochi Mayhem: from host to opponent
• "Grandma" first, Hideko only at the end
• Hideko at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

The Mossui Town house, only full outside the school term

Hideko is from Kitakami. That's where she married Yukito, and the two of them are the ones bringing up, in the family home in Mossui Town, their grandchildren Carmine and Kieran. The game never says why this responsibility falls to the grandparents: the question stays open from one end of the story to the other.

This care doesn't take up the whole year. The two children spend term time at Blueberry Academy and only come back to Mossui Town between sessions. During The Indigo Disk, the couple stays alone in the house waiting for them to return; the grandchildren only come home to rest once the adventure is over.

The way the household is organized says a lot about the character's place in it. Hideko plays the host rather than the Trainer: she welcomes, she dresses people up, she tidies, she sends the kids off to find what they've lost. You have to wait for the epilogue to see her take part in any battle at all.

The Festival of Masks: a jinbei, a hairstyle and a card

The player enters her home through the story's back door: Kieran brings them home at the end of the first day of the signboard hunt and introduces them to his grandparents. Hideko's emotion is less about the visitor than about her grandson, who, she realizes, has finally made a friend.

She then remembers that the festival starts that very evening, and decides to get the guest ready exactly like her own. She lends them a green jinbei and redoes their hair while she's at it, without really giving them a choice. The scene takes just a few lines and wraps up with a satisfied compliment.

She adds a Teal Style Card, mentioning that it'll come in handy for anyone who loves fashion. Carmine shows up at that moment, asking for her missing mask, and her grandmother points her to the shed where the three masks have been stored since last year's festival — a household instruction that sends the kids and their friend off into the evening.

🧸 A village-festival vibe at home: check out the Pokémon plushies.

The shed wardrobe: a game system entrusted to a grandma

What Hideko hands out is anything but decorative. The Teal Style Card expands the selection at clothing shops and hair salons, so part of the character customization in The Teal Mask expansion of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet goes through this living-room scene.

Once the expansion's adventure is wrapped up, she hands over two more outfits, an off-white jinbei and an ultramarine one, dug out of storage in the shed. They match the colors of her grandchildren's, but have become too small for them and were never worn; she gives them away, simply remarking that kids grow up so fast.

It's a common device in the series: a character who stays put serves as the counter for a game system. What makes Hideko different is that nothing is ever presented as a reward — no formal handover, nothing asked in return, just a shed being cleared out and an old lady's concern for how the kids are dressed.

Mochi Mayhem: from host to opponent

The epilogue turns the character upside down. Carmine starts acting strangely and moving around with a duck-like dance; her grandparents hide her and watch over her without understanding what's wrong with her, unaware that Pecharunt is pulling the strings.

Hideko eventually eats a poisoned mochi herself and falls under its spell. She then starts pushing the treat on others to widen the circle of victims, and she's the one who orders her husband to eat one, in front of Kitakami Hall, while he's talking with Kieran and the player.

The two grandparents then turn on the boy and his friend in a Double Battle, the character's only battle in the entire game. Once beaten, they're briefly stopped in their tracks, then end up at Loyalty Plaza with all the other victims; Kieran holds them back while the player takes down Nemona and subdues the Mythical Pokémon.

Once the spell lifts, none of the victims remembers anything that happened, and the family simply enjoys being reunited with the player and their friends. The game erases the sequence for its characters, but not for the person playing it: they'll have watched a village grandma throw a whole team at them.

"Grandma" first, Hideko only at the end

Throughout the first expansion, no line of dialogue gives her a first name: she's just Grandma, the same way her husband is just Grandpa. Her name only appears at the moment of that Double Battle, on the screen of a battle she isn't responsible for — and Yukito is in the same boat.

The game also sets her apart in a tiny but very real way: Hideko is the only Trainer to carry the "Grandma" class. A Trainer class for a single person is the sign of a figure written for one specific moment rather than to fill out a category.

Then there's the pet name. Yukito doesn't call her Hideko but "dearest" (in the French version, "mon Couaneton," his little Ducklett), right up to the lines just before his own downfall. What she says back to him then falls apart before your eyes: the word mochi stutters and breaks up, until all that comes out is "Mochi MOCHI!!!" ("kibi kibi" in the French version) — the corruption is signaled by the typography of the dialogue before it shows up in a battle.

Hideko at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• Who is Hideko in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet?
  A resident of Mossui Town, in Kitakami. With her husband Yukito, she raises their two grandchildren, Carmine and Kieran, in the family home, outside the periods when they're studying at Blueberry Academy.
• What does Hideko give the player?
  On the evening the Festival of Masks begins, she lends them a green jinbei, redoes their hair and gives them a Teal Style Card, which expands the range of fashion items and hairstyles available. Once the expansion's adventure is over, she adds two more jinbei, one off-white and one ultramarine.
• Why do you battle Hideko?
  Because she falls under Pecharunt's control during the Mochi Mayhem epilogue, after eating a poisoned mochi. She then pushes Yukito to eat one, and the two of them attack Kieran and the player in a Double Battle.
• Why doesn't Hideko have a name for most of the game?
  The dialogue simply refers to her as Grandma, exactly as Yukito is only ever Grandpa. Their first names are only revealed at the moment of their Double Battle, in the epilogue.
• Does Hideko have a special Trainer class?
  Yes, the Grandma class. She's its only representative in the entire game, which makes her a unique case among the Trainers you can battle.

In short

Hideko has no Gym, no famous team, no grand destiny: she has a house, a shed and two grandchildren who only live there part of the year. The game first uses her as a warm-hearted service counter, before turning the tables and making her an unwilling opponent, for a single battle she'll never know anything about. It's precisely at that moment that she stops being Grandma and becomes Hideko.