I'll be honest here, I didn't really like Penny much when she was first revealed...but now that I've played the game and completed the Team Star storyline, I feel like I kind of understand her a bit more. She reminds me a lot of myself when I was in high school/middle school. I too was very quiet and withdrawn and maybe had a small select group of friends (one of which I found out was hella toxic later on...long story short, we're no longer friends) and I was very much into anime back when it wasn't as main stream as it was today.

Penny still isn't my favorite character but I like her a bit more now that I understand where she's coming from. I love her dynamic with the rest of the Team Star bosses and I love the Team Star bosses themselves, they're all great characters. I wish we would have learned what happened that made the previous staff of Naranja/Uva academy quit all of a sudden. But overall, I like most of the characters in Scarlet/Violet. They've really surprised me along with this game. As of writing this comment, I still have yet to do the Elite Four battles...but soon...