Elesa is Gym Leader of Nimbasa City's gym of the Unova region. This gym will be the fourth to be challenged by the player character. She specializes in using Electric-type Pokémon. She will award the player the Bolt Badge if defeated. Her first appearance was in Pokémon Black and White. Like the rest of the Unova gym leaders, Elesa has a career outside of being a gym leader, in which she is a supermodel.
Appearance
Elesa is a tall, very slender young woman. She has bright, almond shaped blue eyes.
Black and White
Elesa has short blonde hair. She wears red, white, and blue headphones with long cords on the sides. Elesa wears a yellow sleeveless top over a black top that exposes her stomach in two sections, thick opaque black tights, and bright yellow stiletto high heels.
Black 2 and White 2
Elesa has short black hair, with long extensions tied in two diamond patterned braids. She wears a blue and yellow two piece, made up of a crop top and very short shorts, with a large, fluffy yellow coat, and slippers, one red and one blue. Her top and shorts are connected by a hexagon shaped buckle. Elesa also wears new headphones, with cone shaped spikes protruding out of the ear pieces, with the right spike red and the left spike blue. In addition, she wears nail polish, red on her right hand, and blue on her left.
Personality
Elesa was initially portrayed to be a very calm and stoic character which is often compared to her more cheery and outgoing personality in the Anime and Pokémon trailers. Much like the other Gym Leaders of her type, Elesa prefers to show off her skills with a sense of style and a performance to accompany it. It's later revealed that Elesa has a fondness for bad puns. This is capitalized on in Pokémon Masters, where she makes a variety of Pokémon based puns.
Biography
Games
Black and White
In the games, after the player exits the Pokémon Musical for the first time, Bianca's father confronts her and tells her to go home with him. However, Elesa steps in and convinces Bianca's father to let Bianca continue her journey. This makes Bianca admire Elesa and makes her want to be a model just like her. She then tells the player she's waiting in the gym for him/her. After defeating her, she goes out to Route 5 and contacts Clay, telling him to bring the Drawbridge down. When it does come down, she wishes the player good luck and returns to the gym.
She next appears along with the rest of the Unova Gym Leaders, with the exception of Cilan, Chili, and Cress, and battles the Seven Sages, allowing the player to continue.
For the rest of the game, she can be found in her gym.
Black 2 and White 2
In Black and White 2, she has changed looks, dying her hair black and wearing more revealing outfit. Her Gym is themed after a catwalk. Through the Memory Link it is revealed she's good friends with Skyla and wanted to practice making jokes, in a way to break the image of a serious person that everybody believes her to be, which upsets her. She throws bad puns which Skyla points out, but Elesa says that by doing so, people will poke fun at her and allow a new approach. Skyla thinks such way is old fashioned and should take it with ease. The two then agree to have a Pokémon Battle and Elesa asks Skyla to not call her "Shirley", hinting it to be her true name (and referencing the movie "Airplane!" in the process).
Masters
- Main article: Elesa (Masters)
Manga
- Main article: Elesa (Adventures)
Anime
Main series
- Main article: Elesa (anime)
Ash and his friends met Elesa in the Nimbasa Amusement Park. She has a fondness for Electric-type Pokémon, like Ash's Pikachu. She is also a fashion model, surrounded by an entourage of fans. For a supermodel, she also happens to be wise, as shown when she was settling an argument between Bianca and her dad. She not only suggested that Ash battle her, but also volunteered to be the judge of their battle. She has also proven to be a tough battler, giving Bianca a run for her money with just her Zebstrika.
Trailer
- Main article: Elesa (trailer)
Generations
- Main article: Elesa (Generations)
Masters trailer
- Main article: Elesa (Masters trailer)
Sprites
| BW battle sprite |
| BW VS. Sprite |
| B2W2 battle sprite |
| B2W2 VS. Sprite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
Pokémon
Black and White
 Emolga  
| Emolga
|  Zebstrika
| |||||||||
| Lv. 25 | ♂ | Lv. 25 | ♀ | Lv. 27 | ♂ | ||||||
| Ability: Static | Ability: Static | Ability: Lightningrod | |||||||||
| Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | |||||||||
| Quick Attack | Quick Attack | Quick Attack | |||||||||
| Pursuit | Pursuit | Flame Charge | |||||||||
| Aerial Ace | Aerial Ace | Spark | |||||||||
| Volt Switch | Volt Switch | Volt Switch | |||||||||
Black 2 and White 2
Gym Battle
Driftveil Tournament/Mix Tournament
 Raichu
|  Flaaffy
|  Galvantula 
| Emolga
| Galvantula
| Emolga
| ||||||
| Lv. 25 | ♀ | Lv. 25 | ♀ | Lv. 25 | ♀ | Lv. 25 | ♀ | Lv. 25 | ♀ | Lv. 25 | ♀ |
| Ability: Lightningrod | Ability: Static | Ability: Compoundeyes | Ability: Static | Ability: Unnerve | Ability: Static | ||||||
| Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | ||||||
| Volt Switch | Volt Switch | Volt Switch | Volt Switch | Electro Ball | Encore | ||||||
| Flame Charge | Thunder Wave | Electroweb | Thunder Wave | Agility | Spark | ||||||
| Charge | Signal Beam | Signal Beam | Charge | Bug Bite | Light Screen | ||||||
| Pursuit | Cotton Guard | Gastro Acid | Acrobatics | Thunder Wave | Acrobatics | ||||||
| Zebstrika
| Flaaffy
| Galvantula
| Emolga
| Galvantula
| Emolga
| ||||||
| Lv. 50 | ♀ | Lv. 50 | ♀ | Lv. 50 | ♀ | Lv. 50 | ♀ | Lv. 50 | ♀ | Lv. 50 | ♀ |
| Ability: Lightningrod | Ability: Static | Ability: Compoundeyes | Ability: Static | Ability: Unnerve | Ability: Static | ||||||
| Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | Item: None | ||||||
| Volt Switch | Volt Switch | Volt Switch | Volt Switch | Electro Ball | Encore | ||||||
| Flame Charge | Thunder Wave | Electroweb | Thunder Wave | Agility | Spark | ||||||
| Charge | Signal Beam | Signal Beam | Charge | Bug Bite | Light Screen | ||||||
| Pursuit | Cotton Guard | Gastro Acid | Acrobatics | Thunder Wave | Acrobatics | ||||||
Electric-type Tournament
Unova Gym Leader Tournament/World Leaders Tournament
Trivia
- Her Japanese Leader title is シャイニング ビューティ "Shining Beauty".
- Her name derives from "electric" and possibly "laser" or "Tesla," which could refer to any of four things: 1. Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American scientist and inventor, 2. the Tesla coil, one of Nikola Tesla's inventions, 3. the tesla, a unit of magnetic induction, named after Nikola Tesla, and/or 4. Tesla, Inc., an American company that manufactures electric cars. Her Japanese name (Kamitsure) has the word kami, which comes from the word kaminari, meaning lightning in Japanese.
- She is the only female Electric-type Gym Leader (Volkner, Lt. Surge, Wattson and Clemont are male).
- She is one of the few female Gym Leaders to have more male Pokémon than female Pokémon.
- Elesa is the only returning Unova gym leader to receive a redesign. She received a second redesign exclusively for Pokémon Masters.
- Elesa is the first major fashion model in the series.
- As stated by the magazine Nintendo DREAM, Elesa's slim legs are designed to be extremely slim on purpose just to emphasize on her being a model, and her stoic appearance plus her robot-like accessories such as her headphones and their cables are based on how real life models are stereotyped as acting emotionless and looking like robots.
| Unova Gym Leaders | |
|---|---|
