Team Rocket

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Team Rocket
Logo
Universe	Pokémon
In-universe information
Type	Criminal organization
Owner	Giovanni
Purpose	To steal and use Pokémon for profit

Team Rocket (Japanese: ロケット団, Hepburn: Roketto-dan, Japanese: [ɾo̞ke̞t̚to̞ dã̠ɴ]) is a fictional crime syndicate in the Pokémon franchise. Team Rocket is a primary antagonist in the original Pokémon video games Red, Green, and Blue, as well as in the long-running Pokémon anime TV-series. In the latter, Team Rocket is primarily represented through the trio of characters Jessie, James, and Meowth, who are major secondary characters throughout the Pokémon TV-series.

Team Rocket is portrayed as a serious crime syndicate in the video games series, stealing and killing Pokémon. In the TV-series, Team Rocket has a largely comedic role, as they repeatedly fail to steal Pokémon while operating increasingly flashy mecha. The Team Rocket trio in the anime is beloved by Pokémon fans who relate to their roles as young adults and their queercoding.

Team Rocket first appeared in the video games Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue, where they are portrayed as a serious and affluent crime syndicate. The games present Team Rocket breaking and entering, murdering a mother Marowak, and chopping off the tails of Slowpoke to sell on the black market.^[1] In Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal, it is revealed that Team Rocket's leader Giovanni had disappeared after being defeated in the original games, and the syndicate is disbanded. Giovanni himself reappears in the 2009 remakes Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver.^[2]

Each subsequent set of Pokémon video games has its own villainous teams, such as Team Aqua and Team Magma in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, and Team Galactic in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.^[1] Team Rocket and Giovanni returned as a major antagonist team in the 2017 video games Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, as "Team Rainbow Rocket"^[3][4]

Team Rocket was introduced to Pokémon Go in 2019, allowing players to encounter and battle Team Rocket grunts.^[5]

In the long-running Pokémon anime series, a trio of Team Rocket grunts Jessie (ムサシ, Musashi), James (コジロウ, Kojirō), and Meowth (ニャース, Nyarth) are major secondary characters. The three were the primary antagonists of early seasons of the series, where each episode they attempt to kidnap the protagonist's Pikachu. Team Rocket's Meowth is unusual within the Pokémon canon, as it is the only Pokémon creature able to speak the human language, whereas all other Pokémon in the series only utter syllables of their own names.^[6] Introduced in episode 3, Jessie, James, and Meowth work directly for Giovanni and are tasked to steal the most powerful Pokémon. The characters are presented as simple-minded, bringing slapstick antics to the series.^[7]

Jessie and James have an Arbok and a Weezing as their signature Pokémon, respectively. As the Pokémon series evolved, the Team Rocket trio uses an increasingly large number of vehicles and mecha. Most notably, they travel in a Meowth-shaped hot air balloon throughout the show, and use a Gyarados-shaped submarine in its early seasons. Lateron, Team Rocket became known for their large number of mecha and gadgets.^[8] The Team Rocket characters have sympathetic backstories and share a strong camaraderie. They are not ideologically aligned with Giovanni and therefore frequently find themselves siding with the series' protagonists. Lastly, Jessie and James repeatedly crossdress and are heavily queercoded.^[9]

In 2011, the Pokémon series was building up to an arc in which Giovanni faces off against rival organization Team Plasma, but the episodes were cancelled following the Great East Japan Earthquake.^[10] The Team Rocket trio disbands in Pokémon Journeys: The Series episode "The Rainbow and the Pokémon Master!". After reuniting with the Pokémon Team Rocket had captured in previous seasons and failing to steal Pikachu one last time, the three characters decide to end Team Rocket officially. This event came as a surprise to viewers of the series.^[11]

In the English dub, Jessie is voiced by Rachael Lillis. During her audition, Lillis was instructed to make Jessie "sultry" while also keeping her "tough." Lillis did not expect Jessie to be a recurring character in the series. James was originally voiced by Eric Stuart. The two actors quickly started to play around with their voices, giving the characters a "prissy" attitude that contrasted with their inability to succeed.^[12]

Meowth was voiced by Maddie Blaustein for the first eight seasons of the series.^[13] James Carter Cathcart took over the roles of James and Meowth in 2006, and continued to voice the characters until 2023, when he retired from Pokémon due to oral cancer.^[14][15]

Team Rocket is the central antagonist in the 2000 stageplay Pokémon Live!, in which Jessie, James, and Meowth successfully steal Ash Ketchum's Pikachu and use it to train Giovanni's Mewtwo.^[7] Team Rocket characters frequently appear on cards in the Pokémon Trading Card Game.^[16][17]

As comic relief characters, Jessie, James, and Meowth are very popular among Pokémon viewers. Yahoo!-writer Jay Castello notes that as Pokémon fans grew up, the struggle of "twenty-somethings who couldn’t quite find their place in the world or succeed at their ambitions" became increasingly relatable, and a sub-fandom dedicated to the trio sprang up. The LGBT community largely embraced Team Rocket's queercoding, interpreting them as bisexual drag artists.^[9]

Chris Carter of Destructoid called the English voice team for Jessie, James, and Meowth (Lillis, Stuart, and Blaustein) "some of the show's finest work."^[18] Blaustein was inspired by Meowth-focused episode "Go West, Young Meowth" to come out and transition as a transgender woman, a friend of her later metaphorically describing the character as "a human trapped in a Pokémon’s body."^[19]