I’m a little bored at the moment, so I thought I’d go ahead and start up a new feature I’ve been thinking of doing. In the Pokemon games and anime there are plenty of awesome Pokemon, but there are also some good human characters as well. So I’ve decided to every now and then salute those characters in a post. This series probably won’t be a weekly thing though. To kick off this little series, I’ve decided to talk about Team Rocket’s somewhat lovable misfits, Jessie and James, and their Pokemon sidekick, Meowth.
I actually have mixed feelings about these characters. I find that I both like and hate them at the same time. So I might as well start with the things I don’t like them. At the top of the list is that little motto they do every time they show up. It gets really old after hearing it for the second time. And it never seems to occur to Ash and his friends that the perfect time to get rid of those idiots is when they’re doing that little song and dance. All it’d take is just one Thunder Bolt from Pikachu. I also find Meowth in general to be annoying, which is weird because I love cats and Meowth’s evolved form, Persian, is one of my favorite Pokemon.
One positive thing about Jessie and James though is there general incompetence, and in my book incompetent villains make a good recipe for comedy. But as amusing as some of their antics are, they get a little old, probably the result of them showing up in almost every episode. But one of the trio’s redeeming qualities is that they aren’t two-dimensional bad guys. They’re actually good at heart; they’ve just made a lot of bad life choices. Though they’re troubled backstories were probably a big factor in that.
Meowth was a stray cat, James ran away from his family because they were just plane messed up (like most rich people). Jessie’s backstory is a little more… complicated. In a nutshell, Jessie is basically an orphan who bounced around for a while until ending up with Team Rocket. Of course we do learn that Jessie’s mother was an elite agent for Team Rocket who worked for the organization when Giovanni’s mother was running it. Jessie’s mother, Miyamoto, apparently disappeared on a mission to track down Mew. I wish the anime dealt with that more, but oh well.
In the Games: Let me take you back to the very first time I played Pokemon Yellow. I had pretty much cleared Mt. Moon and had beaten the guy guarding the fossils (taking the Dome Fossil as my own). My Pokemon were pretty much on their last legs, but I had pretty much reached the end. One thing I found odd was that the Team Rocket grunt that was there in Red and Blue before facing the guy guarding the fossils wasn’t present. But considering that all my Pokemon had just about had it, I wasn’t complaining.
Just as I had reached the exit though, a text window that said “Stop right there,” or something like that, appeared. My character turned around, and two very familiar characters from the anime showed up. I remember literally blurting out, “Oh no, not these losers!” And of course because my Pokemon had more or less had it, they had beaten me. I felt a bit humiliated afterward. I mean, losing to Jessie and James? That’s a little pathetic. But of course I beat them back.
Anyway, because Pokemon Yellow was based on the anime, Jessie and James were put into the game in a few places. In addition to replacing the final Team Rocket grunt at Mt. Moon, they also take the place of the two grunts faced before taking on Giovanni at the Game Corner, the three grunts at Pokemon Tower holding that old guy hostage, and the single grunt faced before taking on Giovanni at Sliph Co. Meowth is merely a part of their Pokemon team along with Arbok and Weezing (and their pre-evolved forms early in the game). Jessie and James haven’t appeared in any of the games since then though. It’s a little too bad though, because that would’ve made a good double battle.
That pretty much covers it I think. I will add that Jessie, James, and Meowth still show up in the anime. But from the little of the newer anime episodes I’ve seen they don’t show up as often as they used to. And when they do show up they seem more competent at what they do, which is a little weird. I mean what the heck happened that made them improve? Anyway, until next time.
