25 Crazy Things Only Superfans Know About Team Rocket From Pokémon
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The villains of the Pokémon world, Team Rocket, have a lot of things hidden in their backstories.
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When Pokémon reached American shores in the late 90s, many elements of the franchise became instantly iconic in the minds of young Millennials. Among those were the series’ recurring villains Team Rocket, in the form of bumbling trio Jessie, James, & Meowth. The three’s hare-brained schemes and knack for dramatic presentation, plus their silly but memorable motto, endeared them to the series’ school-age fans. Even if you didn’t watch the show, Team Rocket was still a thorn in the side of anyone playing the games with their plans to steal rare Pokémon and take over the world. The twist that the villain team’s leader Giovanni was also the final gym leader still stands out to Gen 1 players.
There was more going on with Team Rocket than appeared though. Beneath their menace in the games and their antics on TV, there are some fascinating themes, references, and series lore about the nefarious organization and its three most well-known members. Some of these are pretty obvious. Most people have probably picked up on the fact that Jessie & James are named after the famous Wild West outlaw. But others are only found in the series backstory or spin-off materials.
The trio in the anime may paint Team Rocket in a goofy light, but the organization as a whole is more dangerous than it seems. And they’re far more successful than given credit for. Here are just a few of their hidden secrets. Here are 25 Things Only Superfans Know About Team Rocket From Pokémon.
25 The Reason Giovanni Hasn’t Fired Them
Jessie, James, and Meowth are pretty incompetent as villains go. It’s enough to make you wonder why Giovanni keeps them around. Well, it turns out the three are more valuable than their failures make them seem. Jessie is the daughter of an old friend of Giovanni’s, so there’s a personal connection there. James, on the other hand, is the heir to a huge fortune. Team Rocket always needs income. But what about Meowth? Meowth is one of the only Pokémon that can speak human language. Something that rare is valuable just by itself. Plus, they do occasionally do their job.
24 The Worst Thing They Ever Did
Mortality doesn’t really come up in Pokémon games. When Pokémon get defeated, they just fall unconscious. There is one exception though, and Team Rocket is responsible for it. The ghost haunting Pokémon Tower in Lavender Town had its life ended by members of the villainous organization.
In life, the ghost was a Marowak defending its baby Cubone from Team Rocket.
They were stealing the skulls of Cubones to sell on the black market. The baby was able to flee, saved by its mother’s sacrifice. No wonder that momma ghost was pissed when Team Rocket took over its resting place.
23 Jessie & James Got Married
It’s ambiguous in context whether Jessie and James have romantic feelings for one another. They, along with Meowth, are obviously long-time friends, and there have been a few hints and possibilities throughout the anime’s run. But there’s never been anything explicit that said they were in love. Except in the manga. In the Electric Tale of Pikachu manga, a slightly altered retelling of the anime’s story for older readers, James ended up confessing his love for Jessie and the two got married. Jessie was even shown as pregnant in the story’s epilogue. This has only stoked shippers since.
22 The Name Is An Acronym
Team Rocket is a good name for a bad guy group. It’s forceful, memorable, and sounds explosive. But it turns out the “Rocket” in Team Rocket is actually an acronym. Really. According to Giovanni in the Pokémon Adventures manga, it stands for “Raid On the City, Knock Out, Evil Tusks.” The raid on the city part we get, but who are the evil tusks? Why are they getting knocked out? Or are Team Rocket the Evil Tusks? The Adventures manga drew on elements that were dropped later, so maybe the explanation just got lost.
21 Their Real Ages
It’s been a source of some speculation just how old Jessie and James are supposed to be. We know Ash Ketchum is ten, and they’re clearly older than him. But how old are they supposed to be?
Turns out they’re actually in their 20s.
Crazy, but it’s true. In a Japan-only CD, it was confirmed that both Jessie and James were 20 years old when they debuted in the anime’s second episode. A later episode had Jessie listing her age as 17, but she was in disguise and with how vain she can be she was likely lying.
20 The Creation Of Mewtwo
Most of Team Rocket’s schemes to take over the world are actually pretty practical. They sell Pokémon on the black market, infiltrate prominent organizations, bribe people. Stuff like that. The one time they went full supervillain was by trying to create the world’s strongest Pokémon.
Yes, Giovanni funded the creation of Mewtwo.
He supplied Dr. Fuji with Team Rocket’s illegal cash to develop the cloning research necessary to create the monster Pokémon. Team Rocket agents even looked for Mew DNA. That’s why Giovanni also tricked Mewtwo into serving him after Dr. Fuji’s destruction. He’s getting his return on investment.
19 Jessie’s Connection To Mew
Mew has been the focus of Team Rocket’s efforts for a long time. They’ve spent a lot of money and manpower both looking for it and cloning it. One of the agents Giovanni sent searching for Mew was a close friend of his. Miyamoto, Jessie’s Mother.
Yep, Jessie’s a legacy member of Team Rocket.
Unfortunately, that connection set Jessie on her path to villainy. Miyamoto did find Mew, but it was on a frozen mountain during a blizzard. The legendary Pokémon escaped and Jessie’s mother lost her life in an avalanche. Being orphaned like that led Jessie back to her mother’s employer.
18 Last Team Standing
Of all the villain teams in Pokémon, Team Rocket is the most successful. Not only haven’t they been disbanded, they’ve actually extended their operations to other regions. So it comes as no surprise that they ended up absorbing the other villain teams. This was shown in the Pokémon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon games.
Team Rocket had reformed as Team Rainbow Rocket and come to the Alola region.
In their reformation, Giovanni had contacted other realities where the other villain teams had triumphed and folded them into his organization. The leaders of the other teams were made executives under him.
17 Giovanni Isn’t The Only Boss
Make no mistake. Giovanni is the undisputed leader of Team Rocket. In mafia terms, he’s the godfather, head of the organization. But like any good criminal syndicate, Team Rocket has a number of underbosses who head up branches and special operations. Indeed, one of these executives named Archer was the main villain of Pokémon Gold & Silver. Archer was head of the Johto branch and assumed leadership of Team Rocket during Giovanni’s disappearance after Red & Blue. Giovanni himself wasn’t even Team Rocket’s first leader. His mother, known only as Madame Boss, founded the organization and passed leadership unto him.
16 James And Grass-Types
When it comes to the Pokémon types they use, Team Rocket is pretty limited. Mostly it’s Poison-types with a few Normal-types. Giovanni himself favors Ground-type Pokémon. James is unique among his peers because he keeps using Grass-types. Every time a new generation of Pokémon comes along, James gets a new Grass-type in the anime. So far he’s had a Victreebell, a Cacnea, and a Carnivine. He gets on great with Grass-types too. The ones he catches are always extremely affectionate with him. Maybe a bit too affectionate, because their love physically harms him. Good thing his Poison-types don’t do that.
15 The Hard-Knock Life: All Of Them Had Awful Early Years
There are many reasons people turn to crime. In the case of the Team Rocket trio, the rough backgrounds all three came from probably played the biggest part. Jessie grew up an orphan in the foster system, and was so poor she had to eat snow to survive. James came from money, but his parents forced him into an arranged marriage with a girl who bullied him, leading him to run away from home. Meowth had it the worst, being abandoned as a kitten and becoming a stray until he taught himself to speak. At least they have each other.
14 They Are All Over The Map
As the Pokémon series progressed, the creators started introducing other villain teams. Most would only be around for a single game though, as players would defeat them over the course of the story. This wasn’t a problem for Team Rocket though. They remain the only villain team to appear in multiple different Pokémon regions. While they’re based in Kanto, there are Team Rocket branches in Johto, Unova, and the Sevii Islands. It’s also been implied they’ve spread into Hoenn and Sinnoh too since the villain teams there fell apart. So if one branch falls, another will always take its place.
13 Giratina’s Angels
Team Rocket are criminals, first and foremost. A lot of their visual design actually comes from gangsters and thugs in Japanese pop culture. The grunts, including Jessie and James, are based on biker gangs for example. Called Bosozoku in Japan, these gangs are known for wearing pants tucked into tall boots, leather gloves, and jackets with big bright slogans or emblems on them. That’s why Team Rocket have the big “R” on their chests. The anime even referenced this inspiration by saying Jessie & James were part of a bosozoku gang before joining Team Rocket. But on bicycles, not motorcycles.
12 Pokémon Love To Befriend Jessie And James
Despite their status as criminals, It’s been shown that Jessie and James have befriended Pokémon serving on the other side of the law. Jessie, for instance, became good friends with several Chanseys who were Pokémon nurses before her life of crime. She was actually training to be a Pokéon nurse herself at the time. And James’ only companion as a child was a baby Growlithe, which are often used as police dogs in the Pokémon world. Other members of Team Rocket aren’t shown as so chummy with the law. Maybe the two are just good at heart.
11 An Odd Form Of Love
They may technically be villains, but Jessie & James do care about their Pokémon. They’ve been shown caring and supporting for them throughout the series. James’ Pokémon even love him back, though maybe not in a way he appreciates.
Because it’s usually physical harm.
His Victreebell would swallow him, his Cacnea would stab him with its spikes while hugging him, and his Mareanie would wrap her tentacles around his head and poison him. It’s James’ own fault really. He’s the one who keeps treating dangerous Pokémon with so much love they don’t mind making physical contact.
10 20 Years To Beat Ash
The Team Rocket Trio exist to get their butts kicked. It was their lot in life. Every episode had to end with them blasting off again. Until 2017 anyway. It was in that year that Team Rocket was finally able to defeat Ash in a Pokémon battle. This was during the part of the anime based on the Sun and Moon games, with Team Rocket’s Mimikyu being the key factor. There was no cheating or skullduggery either. It was a fair fight. This was such a momentous occasion, even Forbes Magazine felt it was worth reporting on.
9 The Pokémon Mafia
Team Rocket may be fictional, but its inspiration is definitely not. How the villain group is organized and operates is drawn directly from Japanese organized crime. Specifically, it’s from the Yakuza. Often called the Japanese Mafia, the Yakuza’s hierarchy of grunts, executives, and one leader at the top were ported over for Team Rocket. The two even run similar schemes; selling illegal goods on the black market, operating underground gambling facilities, and recruiting from local hoodlums. The American localization team even gave Giovanni an Italian mafioso name to connect him back to organized crime.
8 Giovanni Said To Ignore Legendary Birds — Focus On Mewtwo
Practical seems to be Team Rocket’s MO when it comes to taking over the world. They’re willing to be boring but effective. This separates them from their villainous kin in the Pokémon series. All of the other villain teams, from Teams Aqua and Magma on down to Team Skull, had plans revolving around awakening Legendary Pokémon and then controlling them. This inevitably got those villain teams destroyed because Legendary Pokémon are, you know, legendary for a reason. Team Rocket did have plans revolving around the legendary birds, but Giovanni put the kibosh on those after his trouble with Mewtwo.
7 Team Rocket Have A Radio Drama In Japan
Pokémon has expanded into nearly every medium you can imagine, including radio. Back in the early days of the franchise, Jessie and James’ Japanese voice actors had the idea for an in-character radio show.
The premise was that the show was a Team Rocket recruitment initiative.
The show’s sound director, a fan of Team Rocket, loved the idea and set it up for them. This was a common thing for anime in Japan, helping promote the show and keep fan interest between episodes. They even brought on other voice actors from the show to answer fan questions, all in character.
6 Jessie’s Secret Origin
Writers draw inspiration from a lot of different places. While crafting Jessie, the Pokémon anime’s head writer Takeshi Shudo pulled from his own experience. Specifically, he based her on his college girlfriend. Shudo combined his memories of his romantic partner with the villain Majo from the Time Bokan series to create Jessie’s unique personality. It’s never been mentioned which parts are from the ex-girlfriend. Considering Jessie is known for being vain, short-tempered, and controlling, that’s probably for the best. One has to wonder what that relationship was like if Shudo made her a villain.
Nick is a writer, scholar, and all-around nerd. When he’s not watching the latest (or oldest) weird sci-fi movie, he’s probably reading equally weird comics or looking weird anime. He also might be a giant robot, no one is sure. He currently lives in Los Angeles.
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