Pokémon anime

How so? They try and rob people all the time!

Their first instinct in any situation is to try and cheat!

What's the premise? If you're popular enough, people will like you even if you're assholes?

.....oh, wait.

Never mind. You're right.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Mar 28th 2021 at 10:20:58 AM

A fair point, especially considering that in the games canon they disbanded ages ago.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Mar 28th 2021 at 6:26:29 AM

Popularity Power is probably why Giovanni was changed from disbanding the organization in the original games to working to get it back in shape and forming Rainbow Rocket later on.

Team Rocket was/is disbanded, I recall Wicke mentioning that. RR Giovanni was just alternate version like the other Bosses.

Edited by Cross on Mar 28th 2021 at 6:37:10 AM

Didn't Giovanni state he still has his Take Over the World plans in black and white 2

Bulbapedia treats it as the same Giovanni except for remake differences. He has an interesting life. (And keeps getting beat by kids. XD)

Edited by lalalei2001 on Mar 28th 2021 at 6:41:26 AM

So either it's a different Giovanni or he forgot about the other times.

Would you want to remember all the times your evil organization got dismantled by a kid? XD

Yes, because then it will be on top of the "Things to Avoid" list. Or I'll take them seriously if they accept my recruitment offer.

1. In regards to my Team Rocket Trio comment and someone asking what they have really done - They have tried to separate Ash from his most beloved Pokémon ally, leave him with practically no Pokémon at all, have hawked one insulting and condescending comment after another at him, effectively rubbing salt into the wound in some instances, under the assumption that they were some kind of a group of geniuses; and have made it a point to state that they take pleasure in making his life miserable. Something has to be done about people like that, those three need the comeuppance of a lifetime, all of the stuff that they do should not just go virtually unpublished.

2. In regards to the up and coming Iris return episode - I will admit that I do like the prospective idea of seeing Ash’s Dragonite face off against Iris’, but I am left to wonder just which one of them will prevail? I mean they both seem pretty strong all things considered and as someone who never really liked Iris as a character, mostly because of her annoying and condescending type of personality, the idea of her Dragonite being the victor just doesn’t feel right to me, even if it would somehow make sense in some way.

And, um, while we are on the subject of returning characters, I am genuinely not sure about how to feel about this. I mean Misty’s original reappearances were... okay, I guess, and May’s returning arc was...pretty nice, I suppose; but Dawn’s return was kind of spoiled by Iris’ flaws as a character in my opinion and the returns of both Misty and Brock were both good in theory to me, but ultimately wound up falling short in certain areas, kept me from fully enjoying them (mostly because to them bringing up some old stuff from the original series that I didn’t much care for the initial badge teasing and general heckling that occurred in that Cerulean Gym episode, since it seemed like they should have been passed that by the Johto episodes). And while the Alola gang’s return was, again, good in theory, I found myself not really getting into it for somewhat different reasons (one of which was possibly because it felt like it came at the wrong time for me), so I’m genuinely not so sure about how I’ll feel about seeing Iris’ return, especially since I am certain that her “little kid” talk will be returning with her, even though it will seem even more inappropriate for Ash now than it was in Unova and Ash should have been way passed her Level as a trainer by that point as well, in my opinion.

Their punishment is humiliation and defeat, as is befitting as comedic villains. This whole thing reminds me of how over the top people went in hating Spongebob in later seasons. It was weird.

I agree.

I'd prefer they just disappear. Maybe bring in someone new, but that's not gonna happen until they finally get rid of Ash, and we've recently seen that even winning the league won't make that happen.

You might want to be more specific on that since I've seen multiple reasons as to why people dislike SBSP.

Going into vast detail about how mean fictional characters are and how they should be flogged is probably common throughout the world, but it reminds me most of Spongebob. Team Rocket are comedic villains who we feel bad for because they're super pathetic. It's like really hating Elmer Fudd.

I kinda stopped feeling bad for them years ago.

They pretty much choose to do what they do. They've had plenty of chances to try something not connected to stealing Pokemon (like the numerous side businesses they find success in), but they made it clear years ago that they're never gonna leave Team Rocket, and will continue to try and rob not just Ash, but other people.

The fact they're comedic doesn't mean much to me, as with a few exceptions, I don't find them funny anymore, namely because they're 100% predictable. They're always gonna fail somehow.

This is especially apparent now that Ash has won a league (well, a second league. Nobody seems to want to count the Orange League). He used to be their mirror, good in many things, but continuing at a goal that he wasn't actually allowed to succeed at. But it was different because after a while, the writers got more blatant with the plot devices to keep him from succeeding, until they finally stopped with Alola.

Now the sky is the limit for Ash, but we know TR will never stop, and never be allowed to stop.

.....and that's me and my overly serious rant about comedic failure villains in a kids tv show.

Them being ineffectual is probably a saving grace, because having them succeed in most of their intended goals would probably cost them whatever sympathy they've garnered.

And IIRC, the reason we have Yosemite Sam was because Bugs came off worse when against Fudd similar to how people became critical of "Squidward Torture Porn" in SBSP. At main difference in these cases are people taking issues with the one we're supposed to be rooting for.

The main difference between Fudd and Team Rocket is that Looney Tunes remained strictly focused on Bugs while keeping the same motions, increasingly outlining how vastly he outmatched his opponents who effectively became cardboard cutouts over time, whereas the Pokemon anime dealt with Team Rocket's ineffectual nature by allowing the series to focus on them on occasion and allow the audience to relate to them.

I imagine if the series hadn't given the occasional focus episode on Jessie, James and Meowth and made them so personable even outside of those episode, they would've been replaced by Butch and Cassidy decades ago for the same reasons Sam followed Fudd and Marvin followed Sam.

Wait, I thought it was Biff and Cassidy?

Edited by Cross on Apr 1st 2021 at 4:50:24 AM

The Name is Butch!

I feel like the main problem is that the writers just have no idea what to do with the trio at this point.

They only became as popular as they did because the original creator of the Anime preferred writing and humanizing them over the actual main characters.

But they never bothered to modify their roles into something that works. They tried to change them in Black/White, but the middling reception it got has probably convinced them that changing them at all is too risky.

Really, they should have just had their own spin off. That way, the focus is firmly on them without them feeling like a nusuiance every time they show up against Ash. Ever notice how the best Team Rocket episodes are the ones when they're not the antagonists.

There was also the whole real life events that happened that lead to them having to scrap storylines in Black and White too.

Pretty sure TR would have been written off a long time ago like Misty/Brock were and are kept around due to the popularity of the VA's and to have some brief villain conflict in every episode. At least they don't appear in every ep anymore.

Sometimes when I rewatch the older eps it really is jarring to know each ep has 5+ minutes of screentime wasted on TR stealing Pikachu or the pokemon of the day all the way even though Hoenn and DP. It's easily the most dated aspect of the older seasons now. After Johto ended they should have only appeared from time to time.

I would like to go back to Srebak's second comment, the one hidden behind a spoiler wall:

1. I don't think that that I would want to see a battle between the Dragonites because either we get the old Trope of "Iris can't win with her Dragonite" when Overshadowed by Awesome would definitely be in play, or old "Hugs" (not to be confused with the Sequel Trilogy's version of Botch) suffers The Worf Effect to raise Iris up to her Game-persona's level. Granted, I would rather had Iris' return be between Laverre and Anistar. Just think of Iris having to go through Ice Cavern...
2. Yeah, Dawn adopting Iris' gag for her return trip was 1 of 2 things I found off-putting about the former's reappearance. The other was that it was for the Anime's version of the PWT. I would have had her come back a year earlier and cooperate with (or compete against) Cilan at the Nimbasa Musicals. Personally, if I wanted someone to rag on Ash while competing in the Junior Cup, I would have brought in Gary, or at least Misty. Or, have Gary come with Dawn even if it implied an Offscreen Romance.^note That was the only (Watsonian) explanation I could come up with for Dawn taking up the gag...
3. As implied in the statement above, I would have been okay with Misty still bringing up Ash's early days because that's the type of girl she is.^note Or at least, the type of girl that the dub portrayed her as. What soured me is that Brock followed along on it. He should have been all "Yeah, but [Ash] turned out okay in the end".
4. Perhaps the reason why The Captains getting a return appearance rubbed you the wrong way is that we have a Plot thread Left Hanging from the other half of the Alola crew: specifically, the Aethers' quest to find Dr. Mohn. I, at least, would rather have a short mini-series about the latter before we got the former.

New episode title: The Detested Absol!

I hope Ash catches Absol.

In hindsight, now that Fairy types are a thing, Iris catching Exadrill is a great counter to anyone who thinks brining a Fairy Type to battle her Dragons will have him to deal with.

I just hope her Axew has at least evolved to Fraxure. It'd be enough to show he's changed but still cute sized, and Gible evolves too.

Then again I'm more excited for next week's episode just so we can see Dracovish DO Something.