the fact that i'm no longer the same age as the protagonists of novels and films i once connected to is so heartbreaking. there was a time when I looked forward to turning their age. i did. and i also outgrew them. i continue to age, but they don't; never will. the immortality of fiction is beautiful, but cruel.
For me it's both I guess. I can feel kinda weird knowing that I've outgrown JJM, for example, and I love this idea of youth stasis/immortality combined with apparent "cleanness" "freedom" in cartoons. (How it almost seems like they barely need to fulfill their physiological needs or can do stuff we normally can't due to various limitations like health money etc). Even better if we get this and proper character growth/development, regardless of their apparent unchanged looks. (So unlike most of Pokemon)
On the other hand, I can pretty much connect with any character, too. Old geezer, disembodied entity and many others, plus I can indeed think of myself as younger just fine, so it isn't that much of a loss
So, I'm pretty sure we all assumed this, but the Explorers infiltrate Naranja to keep an eye on Liko. (I'm hoping they meet Raifort there, have them learn about the Ruinous Legendaries.)
And Rakurium? What on earth could that be? :O But the way Gibeon says Lucius's name and the "this adventure isn't over" line has this ring of familiarity to it. (It's curious how he's been alive after what has to be at least 120+ years, like we don't see any wrinkles or anything around his mouth as you'd expect of someone at such an advanced age. Amd what's his relation to Amethio since their hair is similar in how they part it and coloration, and Amethio being referred to as being "pampered"? I'm also curious about Zygarde, since it's more of a "good" Pokemon generally as a keeper of order.)
Damn, I only realized it just now, that it was supposed to be Zygarde... Hmm, maybe it's actually a prisoner behind energy barrier and not his? I'm not sure which hero pokemon we're still missing, could Zygarde be one of them?
I can't look back on Ash's ending with any sense of nostalgia because I'm still not over how genuinely, atrociously bad the way TR were treated was.
It was so empty and pointless that it ruined their entire legacy for me. Ash might have gotten an open ending, but he also got an actual character arc that reflected his progress toward something that could be considered a conclusion. TR got reverted to the very barest skeletons of themselves, had what development they did get reversed, and their "conclusion" was nothing but a reheated filler plot that had been done to death already.
Those last few weeks, I was just ready for the Ash era to end already.
It was so empty and pointless that it ruined their entire legacy for me.
For me, that's hyperbolic. Their entire legacy has been so full of ups and downs that them ending their run as main characters on a down doesn't especially phase me, and in some ways doesn't even surprise me given their Japanese voice actors' antics. But that said...
TR got reverted to the very barest skeletons of themselves, had what development they did get reversed, and their "conclusion" was nothing but a reheated filler plot that had been done to death already.
Nothing you just said is untrue, sad to say. They technically underwent the reversion in the last episode of Journeys proper, but then just....stuck with it all throughout the Pokémon Master miniseries, only to then undergo that reheated filler plot which just had the effect of reverting them to those barest skeletons again. And while they are at least still in Giovanni's favor, the other stuff like their underground criminal lair, the gaccha machine, and the budding working relationship with Matori Matrix (so that Matori could have them around to pass the buck of her failures to) just got left by the wayside in favor of endlessly stalking Ash and Pikachu in the hot air balloon. Ash's open ending felt like he genuinely went through a big personal realization that will affect his life for the better, whereas TR's felt like Status Quo.
Those last few weeks, I was just ready for the Ash era to end already.
Replace that with "for Atsuhiro Tomioka to leave the Pokémon anime already" and I concur. Dai Sato and all of the writers on his team have been such an upgrade it's not even funny.
For me, that's hyperbolic. Their entire legacy has been so full of ups and downs that them ending their run as main characters on a down doesn't especially phase me, and in some ways doesn't even surprise me given their Japanese voice actors' antics.
The problem is that I came away feeling like my time had been wasted. I didn't feel that way about Ash or anyone else. With TR, the destination was so bad that the journey felt like it wasn't worth it.
The place they finished at was, at best, right where they started. One could argue it was actually worse, if they wanted to build a case on the image TRio had before running into Ash the first time. And the "TR splits up before realizing they belong together" thing ultimately was over a thousand episodes old if my quick math is accurate.
The whole mess just radiates the feeling that the writers completely gave up. Bringing back the old Pokémon? Most of them get one scene. Fleshing out the larger organization again after abandoning it in XY? TRio get to meet with a statue. Actually building up something that could be used to give them an ending with character development? What, who ever said anything about a radio show?
Sadly your last sentence is probably right. I think on some level they were afraid to take any risks with TR after what happened in BW. Not just for that reason, but also because I think they want to preserve as much of the status quo as possible to use as nostalgia material if Ash appears in Horizons or some sort of new material with him is eventually made. That's why it left me so ready for the entire Ash era to end - it won't be continued as anything but playing the old hits now. I doubt even Dai Sato would change that.
I want to expand with a couple more thoughts on the final thing I said.
I've made no secret of the fact that by the end of DP, I was sick of them. The dub didn't invent them intruding on every single episode to do the same thing over and over at that time. Ironically enough, just like they had been at the end of their run, by late DP they were caricatures of their former selves with nothing but the same jokes done every single episode.
This is why when they changed things for BW - in hindsight, changed things a bit too drastically - I liked it so much. It felt fresh and interesting, and there were reasons to get invested and speculate on what might come next. The writers were smart enough to limit their use, too, so it didn't become as tiring. But instead of adjusting to do the new approach even better, they just retreated back to the tired old routine from DP once BW ended. Not appearing in every episode of XY and using their high-tech gadgets didn't balance out how done to death the whole thing was.
SM took cautious steps toward experimenting again, by changing the setting, altering some of the running jokes and coming up with new ones, and allowing them to have episodes that involved more than just the tired old "catch Pikachu" routine. Journeys, until the ending, seemed like it was setting up to go somewhere by revealing what happened to Butch and Cassidy, reviving the radio show as something they do, and further establishing the rivalry between TRio and Matori.
And then it all goes nowhere. They were there for as long as Ash was, but while Ash got an ending that brought some kind of reasonable conclusion to his story, TRio didn't. What we got for them was that they really weren't anything more than the tired routine they had decayed into, grown out of, fallen back into and were breaking away from again. Ever since BW there was at least hope that something new or interesting could happen, and sometimes it did - but it was all pointless. There never was anything worth hoping for, and when it comes to them, there is now no chance it can change - they're locked into being nothing but those tired jokes.
If we ever see them again it'll be the same thing we could get by watching any of the hundreds upon hundreds of old episodes instead. That's why their legacy is ruined for me - they turned out to be nothing, and I have zero enthusiasm for the idea of ever seeing them again.
The whole mess just radiates the feeling that the writers completely gave up.
They absolutely did give up, especially Atsuhiro Tomioka whom I must point out was the head writer for the Pokémon Master miniseries as opposed to SM (Aya Matsui) and even Journeys proper (Shoji Yonemura), and was the one who scripted those last three episodes. He'd hoped to send TR off at the end of BW, which was the whole point behind the "too drastically" nature of their change in that series, but their continued popularity among fans coupled with the voice actors' entitled attitudes thwarted that. And so he just gave up on treating them as characters good for anything other than jokes and following the old formula, with the only exceptions being the episodes he scripted where they went up against Team Flare in XY and Team Skull in SM, given that ever since BW he had come around to the view of them being an effective rival force to the regional villains rather than just a comedic foil.
I think on some level they were afraid to take any risks with TR after what happened in BW. Not just for that reason, but also because I think they want to preserve as much of the status quo as possible to use as nostalgia material if Ash appears in Horizons or some sort of new material with him is eventually made.
Agreed, although to be fair that's more of a producer /executive thing than a writer thing, since again Aya Matsui and even Shoji Yonemura had managed to do some interesting things with them despite this. It really was just Atsuhiro Tomioka who didn't care to even try.
This is why when they changed things for BW - in hindsight, changed things a bit too drastically - I liked it so much. It felt fresh and interesting, and there were reasons to get invested and speculate on what might come next. The writers were smart enough to limit their use, too, so it didn't become as tiring.
Same, and I'm so glad that this kind of thing is now being done again with the Explorers.
But instead of adjusting to do the new approach even better, they just retreated back to the tired old routine from DP once BW ended.
Technically, they got a head-start on that in BW with the Decolore Islands arc, since at that point they had a pretty good idea that TR would indeed be sticking around for XY which rendered their whole Unova style (created specifically for a last bow) meaningless.
Journeys, until the ending, seemed like it was setting up to go somewhere. And then it all goes nowhere.
Again, the difference in head writers between Journeys and the miniseries explains this.
If we ever see them again it'll be the same thing we could get by watching any of the hundreds upon hundreds of old episodes instead. That's why their legacy is ruined for me - they turned out to be nothing, and I have zero enthusiasm for the idea of ever seeing them again.
I guess I had already made my peace with this after both Takeshi Shudo's exodus from the anime and then their send-off in BW failing to fall through. I kind of figured if the anime moved away from Ash (which was a big if up until it finally happened), we either wouldn't have much of an ending for TR or would have a rushed, unfulfilling ending. My expectations were low. This doesn't mean I still don't hate what Tomioka did, but I'm less emotionally affected by it.
Same, and I'm so glad that this kind of thing is now being done again with the Explorers.
The Explorers are unironically one of my favorite parts of Horizons for this reason - they're the best of everything TR tried and ultimately failed to achieve. They pose a legitimate threat, they have fun personalities (Coral's unhinged behavior with Sidian as the straightman, Spinel's deliberately over-the-top evil, Amethio's desperation to be strong that almost comes off as a parody of edgy isekai protagonists), the ongoing mysteries of Gibeon's identity and what his goal actually is invite speculation... it feels like, in the end, TR walked so the Explorers could run.
Almost one year since Horizons premiered and I think my one issue with the Explorers so far would be I’m not entirely sold on the necessity of Zirc and Onia as anything other than props to give Amethio people to play off of and to give Liko and Roy some opponents they’d actually stand a chance against at this stage of the game. Maybe they’ll get some focus and development later, including backstory on why they’re with Amethio and so loyal to him, but right now, for all you say about the Explorers outdoing TR, it’d be crazy to think anyone could say they’re as good or better than Jessie and James.
Otherwise I’d argue that every evil team adapted into the anime walked so that the Explorers could run, and that even includes Team Flare!
While that's true, I feel it's Team Rocket in BW that really got the ball rolling. Teams Aqua, Magma and Galactic were severely under-characterized and just had its bosses and admins go through very predictable motions based on their goals and actions in the games, and later on Team Skull was.....well, Team Skull. But BW!Team Rocket, Team Plasma, Team Flare and the Explorers all follow a winning formula of villainous intrigue. We have the big boss man:
The research-oriented second-in-command:
And finally, the followers:
All of whom work in very distinct operations utilizing subterfuge and technology and tactical strategy just as much as they utilize Pokémon, and with each character bringing their own personality and personal motivations along with them rather than just stagnantly united toward an evil goal. It makes things more unpredictable and interesting, more akin to how the Pokémon Adventures manga handles its villains. And yes, the Explorers definitely do it best.
Yeah, BW was definitely where it all begun. The writers and approaches might have changed along the way, but - either intentionally or by a twist of fate (since I doubt the newest writers would know a whole lot about BW anyway?) - it was that "revolutionary" point for Pokemon anime and its villains. Although I wouldn't say Explorers "do it the best" (at least not just yet). Some of these things can be hard to directly compare anyway, given how much of a "limited" writing the post BW era was, forced TR intrusions included. But still, I'm noticing a few faults and boredoms here, that aren't as exciting and where the pace feels slow. Like Zirc and Onia, yeah, they feel like props, almost needless as characters. Or like someone had an idea to create a replacement "Jessie and James" without Meow and see where it goes but it went nowhere.
One other thing I noticed after binge-watching it just now is how the villains seem to suffer from lack of technology when it relates to their main Pokemon objectives, no matter how well-written or science-savvy and devices rich they are. Explorers/Spinel can hack the news, utilize "BW level" of science and resources, develop special frequency sound waves, have holo conferences and Gibeon-sama is maybe from the future, providing them with some future technology, but they end up trying to capture Rayquaza... in a ball. It's a "novelty" that's a left over from how they've been handling TRio in SM/Journeys (by denying them more advanced methods of going after their targets, for example nets instead of energy fields) but also a bigger insistence on "gamifying" anime in all things where it concerns Pokemon, specifically - it can be seen with Legendary ones. (I guess this approach is also why "nastier" Legends like Eternatus end up woobified rather than effective final foes they should have been, but that's another thing). But truly, the last time we've seen the regional villains use science in conjunction with "capture/control an invincible legend" goal posts (rather than do something that clearly won't work) was XYZ finale with Zygarde and Team Flare. I guess you could also count Matori Matrix vessel in SM/Journeys (however brief and less effective it was) and Black Uniformed TRio's scheme with Dialga/Palkia (even though that one was an anomaly, as far as episodes come), all of which were far from being main antagonists and more like guest villains. Turn the wheel back, even prior to BW, then trying to weaken an invincible legend in a normal battle and then throw a ball (which gets prevented by a mere distraction from the good guys!) pales in comparison with what Giovanni used to do in Mewtwo arc and how Team Rocket usually operated back in OS. Sure, the show is about Pokemon battling, and I guess battling is what they're trying to insistently highlight. But on the other... it's just makes your villains silly or weak in a cheap plot convenient way that affects their image. The way they used to do it in the past was far more effective: use science to weaken it/effectively contain it but still have the villains battle it/battle the goods guys to get some parts of the job done.
One could also argue they've lost the pacing that made BW so good, in terms of its villain arc. We could have seen a bit more of Amethio training before he showed up here, plus other Explorers behind the scenes. You don't have to reveal the whole plan but create the anticipation and maybe develop them in small ways outside of their interactions with the good guys. It was always a good thing to see Jessie, James and Meowth in BW in those short scenes at regular intervals, even if just for anticipation factor. It started on a similar note with Explorers but the "drought" before the latest two-parter felt more like they used to do it back in AG/DP with their respective villainous teams, especially that the two-parter itself wasn't all that "epic" and "new." It moved some intrigue forward but essentially it all boiled down to "just another attempt at facing off against Rayquaza." Also, we've kinda lost contact with the grandma, no? Even though she was supposed to be investigating but I guess we'll get to it.
That being said, an actual finale of this particular series have a potential to be bombastic, with all sorts of unexpected things. Maybe.
the fact that i'm no longer the same age as the protagonists of novels and films i once connected to is so heartbreaking. there was a time when I looked forward to turning their age. i did. and i also outgrew them. i continue to age, but they don't; never will. the immortality of fiction is beautiful, but cruel.
So, after a long time and a lot of hard work, we finally have the scripts to the legendary lost Best Wishes anime two-parter, “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!” We’ve got the whole story.
I wish the 3/11 disaster had never happened…mostly because so many people would still be alive today and so much damage to Japan would not exist, but also because these episodes could have aired. And I wish the staff’s original plan for the overarching story for Best Wishes based on the Black/White games could have come to pass, as it would have been amazing.
However, in the end these wishes are hollow Ideals, and we have to face the harsh Truth. And part of this Truth is that Game Freak passed on doing a Gray version in favor of doing Black 2/White 2, which means the staff’s plan was going to be scuttled regardless of whether the 3/11 disaster transpired or not. They would’ve done Episode N and just placed Reshiram putting a halt to N’s coronation in the present day rather than two years prior. So that’s why….
….I’m kind of, sort of glad that “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!” never aired.
Don’t get me wrong! The executives in Japan not allowing the full episodes to be released in any capacity in favor of remaining Lost Media just because their events no longer line up with subsequent canon is stupid. They have lots of grown-up viewers who understand the facts and still won’t mind…heck, probably lots of kids as well! However, the episodes not being broadcast and being relegated to a nebulous space in Japanese canon ended up working to the series’ advantage when Tomioka and the other writers were freed up to recycle elements from them. Most specifically, in the Operation Tempest two-parter, which is honestly an even better pair of episodes than “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!” and I just have a hard time imagining them in any form other than the one they’re in now. If not for what transpired with “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!”, we might have never been blessed with this scene:
Pikachu using a giant Electro Ball on a nuclear space rock just doesn’t hit the same way that him using it on Giovanni, the leader of Team Rocket whom Ash had never faced up until now and whom had always doubted Pikachu’s abilities when Jessie, James and Meowth talked them up. Pikachu doing it to save not only the entire Unova region but also Meloetta, a character that we’ve come to love and care about, is also far more dramatically satisfying.
Really, I’m more sore about how the show’s third year turned out due to Junichi Masuda’s Gen VI-related meddling (since it really should have been something more like this) than I am about “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!” and the intended arc it was setting up. As great as it would have been to see, it just wasn’t in the cards and, unlike said Gen VI-related meddling with the third year, I don’t believe that Best Wishes suffered all that much from its removal.
Tl;dr - I’m honestly kind of cool with this as all we have now.
The unaired episodes and the events of the plot contained therein are like Schrödinger’s cat as is, but the whole idea of what might have been had the Gen VI-related executive meddling for the third year not occured that surrounds them and BW on the whole is its own Cat Box altogether. There are basically three different variations of alternate reality there - one where 3/11/11 never happened and so the episodes got broadcast when they were intended to only for B2W2 to still alter the course of the planned storyline, one where 3/11/11 (as in real life) did happen, the episodes went unaired, and the series eventually made its way to this Year 3, and one where again 3/11//11 happened and the episodes were postponed, but TV Tokyo didn’t pussy out of making the call for them to be broadcast on a later date near the very end of 2011, with Episode 24 now being very edited and censored compared to its original form. IMHO, these would all be so much better than the reality we got stuck with.
And to note, only one of those operates under the premise of “No 3/11″, but all of them operate under “No Year 3 derailment” and “Game Freak does Black 2/White 2 instead of Gray version.” So the pure BW1-based narrative the staff had initially envisioned for the anime was never going to fully materialize in the exact way that they envisioned it. My only disagreement is that “they would’ve done Episode N” even if those episodes that set up Team Plasma had aired. They’d work in B2W2 Plasma elements like Colress and the new uniforms, and probably even have N break from Team Plasma to be an antihero on his own. But the overall direction of the story would likely still be closer to BW1, with the “heroes of truth and ideals” angle that’d ensure both Reshiram and Zekrom had a big part in it. So it would’ve closer ressembled the series narrative we ended up getting in Sun & Moon, where they ended up having to work in some US/UM elements that weren’t there in the original plan, but still ended the story more in line with the initial S/M games just as was intended.
Lastly, on “Team Rocket VS Team Plasma" and the Operation Tempest two-parter…on a surface level, the former just seems a lot more epic and important than the latter - there were way more Rocket grunts, a larger city was threatened and in a more intense way than the B2W2 shout-out from Operation Tempest, the whole incident was less isolated, the regional professor and International Police were involved rather than another region’s Champion and some rando OC cipher, and of course, the regional evil team showed up, being led by a villain who in the games (and in the original plan for the anime) was big and bad enough to give Giovanni some serious competition. But in Operation Tempest, the very end of Part 1 (the actual “Undersea Temple” part) and the entirety of Part 2 hit way harder on the “epic” front than both “Team Rocket VS Team Plasma” episodes put together - it’s the same three Legendary Pokemon who’d had a true Battle Of Gods earlier in the series now under Giovanni’s control and set to be turned against all of Unova if the heroes don’t stop them now. That is the most grandiose and dramatic that BW ever got in terms of the stakes (Reshiram’s revival and mental enslavement by Team Plasma should have been a close enough match for it, but no, Tomioka shat the bed on that one).
It certainly is a tricky subject - the writers began their work on Best Wishes in 2009, with the “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!” two-parter scripted in 2010. This was all before the B/W games were even released to the public; all the writers had to go by was the material they had from Game Freak, including the games’ story which clearly the anime staff was highly enthusiastic about. However, after the initial sales numbers and reviews following the games’ release in Fall 2010 (which also means after the writers’ meeting session that concluded with episodes up to Tepig’s evolution being mapped out), Game Freak decided on doing B2/W2, although it was an idea they had been toying with even during development of B/W. So you are correct in having “B2/W2 happens” as a premise in all three hypotheticals, since unlike the whims of Mother Nature or Junichi Masuda, this was something always guaranteed to transpire since it was a decision by committee - and one it was passionate about, no less.
For scenario 1, this would work since the exact changes to Team Plasma in B2/W2 had not been solidified yet…and even if they had been there was no way to call off the episodes from airing, meaning the arc they foreshadowed was just going to be aborted. Scenario 2 is the most likely if 3/11 happened and there was no Gen VI-based interference in the final year, but I could see scenario 3 happening if the executives at TV Tokyo had more of a spine and decided keeping their word to their viewers superseded the Pokémon Company’s desires.
I didn’t mean it literally when I said “they’d do Episode N”; I meant that they would have had to change the story in that direction - there is no “probably” about it, N would definitely have to leave Team Plasma and be a protagonist rather than an antagonist since he does not fit in with any version of the group using the B2/W2 designs and Colress as a boss. They’d have Reshiram interrupting his coronation happen in the present day, and with Ghetsis and the Plasma grunts in their B/W designs, but otherwise the story would be kept the same…except that yes, Zekrom most likely would still see some action by the end, possibly the Plasma Frigate too, just as you position in this post. It wouldn’t be the spectacular B/W-based finish at the Unova League that the writers had envisioned, but it still would’ve been cool regardless.
Another factor you neglected to mention: Operation Tempest ended on less of an anti-climax. Meteonite-powered Pikachu no-sold anything thrown its way, and after all that trouble Giovanni and Ghetsis just tell their operatives “Ah, never mind the Meteonite; pack everything up, we’re done here”. It took a lot of hard work for Ash and his allies to scale the Abyssal Temple to reach where Giovanni was holding Meloetta captive while their Pokémon struggled with the Therian Formes under his control, and then even after the giant Electro Ball that looked like it would resolve everything as it had in “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!”, the situation intensified with Giovanni being driven mad and ordering the destruction of Unova rather than its conquest. Him calling a retreat after being knocked back into sanity also makes perfect sense, as it lines up with the more honorable side of his character; listening to his loyal followers and allowing his worthy foes to set right what has gone horribly wrong.
It wouldn’t be the spectacular B/W-based finish at the Unova League that the writers had envisioned, but it still would’ve been cool regardless.
One thing to say on this. Yes, it wouldn’t be the B/W-based finish, as in the climax of a Pokemon Liberation Revolution plot kicked off by Ash VS N as two opposing heroes. That was fated to never happen. But seeing as the anime staff and writers would later go on to have Team Flare launch an assault in the wake of the Kalos League and three Guzzlords rampage in the wake of the Alola League even when no such things ever happened in the source material games, I really doubt there was anything in place that was preventing them from still writing the story so that the Plasma arc is settled closer to the Unova League except their own damn choices. Whether it was a call from the director, the producers, or the head writer, once B2/W2 altered their story plans, they just didn’t want to push for a Unova League-adjacent finale and chose to take the Unova League in the shitty direction it went in instead, regulating the Plasma stuff to afterwards.
As much as Best Wishes might’ve had a heart in the right place, this merchandise-driven anime and its staff behind-the-scenes was still a disaster zone prior to SuMo and the new blood added to the writing.
I really doubt there was anything in place that was preventing them from still writing the story so that the Plasma arc is settled closer to the Unova League except their own damn choices.
From late 2009 to early 2011, almost two years, the vision of a Unova League-based climax the writers had was highly specific to factors relating to B/W that the requirement to market B2/W2 rendered invalid - N competing to become the Unova League Champion, the Pokémon liberation movement from self-righteous crusader form Team Plasma, all of the Unovan Gym Leaders that did not include Roxie, Marlon and Cheren. Because they couldn’t have any of those things now, Tomioka and co. decided that doing any Unova League-based climax would be pointless since it wouldn’t be the vision they were all passionately looking forward to. Unlike newer writers, these ones weren’t quite so flexible. If they were, they wouldn’t have ever embraced the old episodic formula and thrown Takeshi Shudo’s GS Ball plans under the bus back in Johto. Team Flare was able to get away with a Kalos League attack for opposite reasons - the writers didn’t commit to that as a plan from the start in favor of waiting to see what transpired with Z…and when Z got cancelled, they were left being able to get away with making up whatever they wanted. No idea what was behind placing the Guzzlord attack at the Alola League, though. I guess it was just more impactful that way, since literally every major character and every Z-Ring was on hand to do battle against them.
(Side rant: Team Flare attacking the Kalos League ended up making perfect sense with the story the writers came up with. What did not, however, was placing Alain in the Kalos League to battle against Ash. The Alain we had seen in his own side specials was not written as someone who would want to compete in the League, but because Tomioka was desperate to jam the Alain-shaped block into an N-shaped hole, he made him act OOC and become obsessed with Ash and his magic ninja frog over the girl and her Chespin that was supposed to be his focus. In a way, it kind of makes Ash’s loss in the Kalos League worse than his loss in the Unova League? Once again he loses to someone who wouldn’t be there if not for him and who has dubious grounds for qualification, this time in the final round and as badass Mary Sue XY!Ash instead of clumsy goober BW!Ash. No wonder it caused such a shitstorm.)
One is noting that apparently Tetsuo Yajima and Atsuhiro Tomioka planned on having Alain be Ashs’ big Kalos League opponent from the beginning of planning the XY series. Meaning it’s a special kind of incompetence on Tomioka’s part to not properly build Alain up to his pre-ordained conclusion, creating a disconnect between Alain in the specials and the series.
And for another, I’m going to have to say it: even if it’s because they aren’t all that good or flexible, the writers were absolutely right in the call they made regarding Team Plasma’s involvement with the Unova League serving as a series finale. @ultraericthered, you said:
I really doubt there was anything in place that was preventing them from still writing the story so that the Plasma arc is settled closer to the Unova League except their own damn choices. Once B2/W2 altered their story plans, they just didn’t want to push for a Unova League-adjacent finale and chose to take the Unova League in the shitty direction it went in instead, regulating the Plasma stuff to afterwards.
OK, but what if they hadn’t done that? What if, in the first B2/W2-inspired planning session, they decided that they were still going to push for a Unova League-adjacent finale with Team Plasma being involved? And then - oops! The higher-ups whom they have zero authority over tell them their next planning session is it for Unova, as they need to get out of there for worldwide Gen VI marketing purposes afterward. Which means not only is the Unova League not the series finale (even if it’s still the finale of the Unova Saga), but also that Team Plasma attacking the League would feel completely unearned since they were only just properly introduced in that very set of episodes. Viewers would be left scratching their heads as to why Team Rocket, the villainous team Ash actually faced throughout his quest to reach the League, didn’t have their conclusion at the League (rather than in Undella) as opposed to some random villainous team out of nowhere. And no, “but they’re the villainous team of the Unova games!” isn’t a valid excuse, since it doesn’t change the fact that the show didn’t build them up properly enough. It would have been a far greater disaster than what we got. Team Plasma as “postgame episode” villains was the 100% right call to make, since them as Big Bads worthy of a Unova League-adjacent conclusion was simply never a possibility with B2/W2’s existence and Junichi Masuda pushing so hard on a worldwide release for Gen VI.
….Still no justifying how the Unova League went and Cameron in of himself, though.
“Team Plasma as the postgame episode villains” worked mostly because the writers had gone ahead and done those Operation Tempest episodes, meaning that for structural and pacing purposes it worked better to give us a villain-free period where the Unova League could transpire rather than shoving Team Plasma at us so soon after Giovanni’s plans got taken down. But otherwise, we got Team Plasma “dealt with after they’d been just properly introduced in that very set of episodes” anyway, and due to the hold-up, they didn’t even get the majority of the episodes in that set to be worked with.
I also doubt any viewer would’ve been expecting Team Rocket to be dealt with at the League, as their endeavors to take over Unova were never anywhere near anything League-related save for Burgh being around in the episodes that were supposed to set up Team Plasma.
And no, “but they’re the villainous team of the Unova games!” isn’t a valid excuse, since it doesn’t change the fact that the show didn’t build them up properly enough.
Yet again this is something rendered a bit hollow by what the staff of PokeAni would go on to do later, when SuMo had Team Skull appear in the very first episode (rather than just be alluded to like Team Plasma) but didn’t build them up as anything other than recurring comedic bad guys and didn’t build Guzma up at all despite him being the team boss, then in the third year Guzma appears and in a single episode, the one where we only just met him, is set up as a major antagonist for the Alola League. It’s not entirely equivalent to the Plasma debacle seeing as there was no executive meddling involved to cut Team Skull’s time or purposes, but after doing so little with Team Skull, Plumeria, and Guzma for so many episodes, there was no reason to do that so late into the story other than “Team Skull is the villainous team of the Alola games and they have a boss in those games, we gotta work him in somewhere!” The staff’s dilemma with N and Team Plasma as of B2W2 was basically the same deal, they just rightly decided that the “somewhere” was to be post-League rather than anywhere near it. The fault for their arc then not running a lengthier course is then solely Junichi Masuda’s and no one else’s.
The point still stands that Team Rocket’s goal was conquest of the Unova region, and that they were at it throughout Ash’s journey to collect badges to enter the Unova League. If they had gained some means of attack the Unova League as a means of conquering Unova, nobody would have raised any eyebrows over it…OK, actually they probably would have, since they’d likely see it a step too far in Team Rocket usurping Team Plasma’s position as the main villains in Unova. And beyond the lack of executive meddling you mention, the Guzma comparison also doesn’t hold up because…..well, it’s Team Skull. As popular as they are, they were never the big villainous threat of the Alola games. So throwing Guzma in just at the point of the Alola League may piss off out-of-universe fans since it means a popular character won’t get all that much to do in the series, but from an in-universe perspective there’s no reason it can’t work that way. Team Plasma, on the other hand, is the big villainous threat of the Unova games and would need proper in-universe representation of that threat level in order to justify something as significant as a siege upon the League, and there simply was no longer any time for it thanks to executive meddling (the writers would get around this problem with Team Flare by building up Lysandre and Lysandre Labs, to which Team Flare is a mere subsidiary of, across the duration of the series’ run rather than Team Flare itself.)
@its-whitetomorrow:
I already said what would have happened if the two-parter was broadcast: they’d still do the Episode N storyline (Reshiram, the White Ruins, the Colress Machine, N as a good guy, etc.) but instead of Reshiram’s attack on Team Plasma’s castle happening two years ago, it would happen in the present day, with Ghetsis and Team Plasma’s grunts still wearing their B/W outfits. After N leaves and can no longer serve as their King, that’s when Colress’ hiring and the switch to B2/W2 outfits would occur. And had there been less executive meddling, the Episode N storyline could last longer and include Zekrom, which it absolutely should have.
By the way, the Japanese editions still show the previews and/or Ash flying off to investigate with Juniper, right? This gotta be the best part in all of this. LOL.
Yep! I must repeat - this is official Japanese canon:
It's curious though. The dub done some meddling but a Japanese watcher who is catching up is gonna feel the exact same thing we did back then, like it's a feature. Well, at least they have the scripts now, to immediately fall on :D
Honestly I'm super duper excited to see the climax of this arc! From the character interactions to lore expansion and the battle scenes, not to mention the upcoming clashes!!
Obligatory happy anniversary to Pokémon Best Wishes (aka Pokémon the Series: Black & White)! Thank you for being one of the more unique series and trying new things. I never expected to love you so much and your characters. Even your relatively minor one-time characters. :) I can't believe it's been 13 years.
Ah we're reaching the end of the first story chapter of Horizons, the next arc is climax for "Liko & Roy Set Off". Most likely meaning new opening and ending after it!
Made me go and watch the preview. Looks like, while we're getting a more action packed climax episodes with the full set of villains, the next "story chapter" doesn't really change much other than the title. Explorers and their unrevealed leader will be still a thing, the mystery of the pendant/hero will be still a thing.
So, after a long time and a lot of hard work, we finally have the scripts to the legendary lost Best Wishes anime two-parter, “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!” We’ve got the whole story.
I wish the 3/11 disaster had never happened…mostly because so many people would still be alive today and so much damage to Japan would not exist, but also because these episodes could have aired. And I wish the staff’s original plan for the overarching story for Best Wishes based on the Black/White games could have come to pass, as it would have been amazing.
However, in the end these wishes are hollow Ideals, and we have to face the harsh Truth. And part of this Truth is that Game Freak passed on doing a Gray version in favor of doing Black 2/White 2, which means the staff’s plan was going to be scuttled regardless of whether the 3/11 disaster transpired or not. They would’ve done Episode N and just placed Reshiram putting a halt to N’s coronation in the present day rather than two years prior. So that’s why….
….I’m kind of, sort of glad that “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!” never aired.
Don’t get me wrong! The executives in Japan not allowing the full episodes to be released in any capacity in favor of remaining Lost Media just because their events no longer line up with subsequent canon is stupid. They have lots of grown-up viewers who understand the facts and still won’t mind…heck, probably lots of kids as well! However, the episodes not being broadcast and being relegated to a nebulous space in Japanese canon ended up working to the series’ advantage when Tomioka and the other writers were freed up to recycle elements from them. Most specifically, in the Operation Tempest two-parter, which is honestly an even better pair of episodes than “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!” and I just have a hard time imagining them in any form other than the one they’re in now. If not for what transpired with “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!”, we might have never been blessed with this scene:
Pikachu using a giant Electro Ball on a nuclear space rock just doesn’t hit the same way that him using it on Giovanni, the leader of Team Rocket whom Ash had never faced up until now and whom had always doubted Pikachu’s abilities when Jessie, James and Meowth talked them up. Pikachu doing it to save not only the entire Unova region but also Meloetta, a character that we’ve come to love and care about, is also far more dramatically satisfying.
Really, I’m more sore about how the show’s third year turned out due to Junichi Masuda’s Gen VI-related meddling (since it really should have been something more like this) than I am about “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!” and the intended arc it was setting up. As great as it would have been to see, it just wasn’t in the cards and, unlike said Gen VI-related meddling with the third year, I don’t believe that Best Wishes suffered all that much from its removal.
Tl;dr - I’m honestly kind of cool with this as all we have now.
The unaired episodes and the events of the plot contained therein are like Schrödinger’s cat as is, but the whole idea of what might have been had the Gen VI-related executive meddling for the third year not occured that surrounds them and BW on the whole is its own Cat Box altogether. There are basically three different variations of alternate reality there - one where 3/11/11 never happened and so the episodes got broadcast when they were intended to only for B2W2 to still alter the course of the planned storyline, one where 3/11/11 (as in real life) did happen, the episodes went unaired, and the series eventually made its way to this Year 3, and one where again 3/11//11 happened and the episodes were postponed, but TV Tokyo didn’t pussy out of making the call for them to be broadcast on a later date near the very end of 2011, with Episode 24 now being very edited and censored compared to its original form. IMHO, these would all be so much better than the reality we got stuck with.
And to note, only one of those operates under the premise of “No 3/11″, but all of them operate under “No Year 3 derailment” and “Game Freak does Black 2/White 2 instead of Gray version.” So the pure BW1-based narrative the staff had initially envisioned for the anime was never going to fully materialize in the exact way that they envisioned it. My only disagreement is that “they would’ve done Episode N” even if those episodes that set up Team Plasma had aired. They’d work in B2W2 Plasma elements like Colress and the new uniforms, and probably even have N break from Team Plasma to be an antihero on his own. But the overall direction of the story would likely still be closer to BW1, with the “heroes of truth and ideals” angle that’d ensure both Reshiram and Zekrom had a big part in it. So it would’ve closer ressembled the series narrative we ended up getting in Sun & Moon, where they ended up having to work in some US/UM elements that weren’t there in the original plan, but still ended the story more in line with the initial S/M games just as was intended.
Lastly, on “Team Rocket VS Team Plasma" and the Operation Tempest two-parter…on a surface level, the former just seems a lot more epic and important than the latter - there were way more Rocket grunts, a larger city was threatened and in a more intense way than the B2W2 shout-out from Operation Tempest, the whole incident was less isolated, the regional professor and International Police were involved rather than another region’s Champion and some rando OC cipher, and of course, the regional evil team showed up, being led by a villain who in the games (and in the original plan for the anime) was big and bad enough to give Giovanni some serious competition. But in Operation Tempest, the very end of Part 1 (the actual “Undersea Temple” part) and the entirety of Part 2 hit way harder on the “epic” front than both “Team Rocket VS Team Plasma” episodes put together - it’s the same three Legendary Pokemon who’d had a true Battle Of Gods earlier in the series now under Giovanni’s control and set to be turned against all of Unova if the heroes don’t stop them now. That is the most grandiose and dramatic that BW ever got in terms of the stakes (Reshiram’s revival and mental enslavement by Team Plasma should have been a close enough match for it, but no, Tomioka shat the bed on that one).
It certainly is a tricky subject - the writers began their work on Best Wishes in 2009, with the “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!” two-parter scripted in 2010. This was all before the B/W games were even released to the public; all the writers had to go by was the material they had from Game Freak, including the games’ story which clearly the anime staff was highly enthusiastic about. However, after the initial sales numbers and reviews following the games’ release in Fall 2010 (which also means after the writers’ meeting session that concluded with episodes up to Tepig’s evolution being mapped out), Game Freak decided on doing B2/W2, although it was an idea they had been toying with even during development of B/W. So you are correct in having “B2/W2 happens” as a premise in all three hypotheticals, since unlike the whims of Mother Nature or Junichi Masuda, this was something always guaranteed to transpire since it was a decision by committee - and one it was passionate about, no less.
For scenario 1, this would work since the exact changes to Team Plasma in B2/W2 had not been solidified yet…and even if they had been there was no way to call off the episodes from airing, meaning the arc they foreshadowed was just going to be aborted. Scenario 2 is the most likely if 3/11 happened and there was no Gen VI-based interference in the final year, but I could see scenario 3 happening if the executives at TV Tokyo had more of a spine and decided keeping their word to their viewers superseded the Pokémon Company’s desires.
I didn’t mean it literally when I said “they’d do Episode N”; I meant that they would have had to change the story in that direction - there is no “probably” about it, N would definitely have to leave Team Plasma and be a protagonist rather than an antagonist since he does not fit in with any version of the group using the B2/W2 designs and Colress as a boss. They’d have Reshiram interrupting his coronation happen in the present day, and with Ghetsis and the Plasma grunts in their B/W designs, but otherwise the story would be kept the same…except that yes, Zekrom most likely would still see some action by the end, possibly the Plasma Frigate too, just as you position in this post. It wouldn’t be the spectacular B/W-based finish at the Unova League that the writers had envisioned, but it still would’ve been cool regardless.
Another factor you neglected to mention: Operation Tempest ended on less of an anti-climax. Meteonite-powered Pikachu no-sold anything thrown its way, and after all that trouble Giovanni and Ghetsis just tell their operatives “Ah, never mind the Meteonite; pack everything up, we’re done here”. It took a lot of hard work for Ash and his allies to scale the Abyssal Temple to reach where Giovanni was holding Meloetta captive while their Pokémon struggled with the Therian Formes under his control, and then even after the giant Electro Ball that looked like it would resolve everything as it had in “Team Rocket VS. Team Plasma!”, the situation intensified with Giovanni being driven mad and ordering the destruction of Unova rather than its conquest. Him calling a retreat after being knocked back into sanity also makes perfect sense, as it lines up with the more honorable side of his character; listening to his loyal followers and allowing his worthy foes to set right what has gone horribly wrong.
It wouldn’t be the spectacular B/W-based finish at the Unova League that the writers had envisioned, but it still would’ve been cool regardless.
One thing to say on this. Yes, it wouldn’t be the B/W-based finish, as in the climax of a Pokemon Liberation Revolution plot kicked off by Ash VS N as two opposing heroes. That was fated to never happen. But seeing as the anime staff and writers would later go on to have Team Flare launch an assault in the wake of the Kalos League and three Guzzlords rampage in the wake of the Alola League even when no such things ever happened in the source material games, I really doubt there was anything in place that was preventing them from still writing the story so that the Plasma arc is settled closer to the Unova League except their own damn choices. Whether it was a call from the director, the producers, or the head writer, once B2/W2 altered their story plans, they just didn’t want to push for a Unova League-adjacent finale and chose to take the Unova League in the shitty direction it went in instead, regulating the Plasma stuff to afterwards.
As much as Best Wishes might’ve had a heart in the right place, this merchandise-driven anime and its staff behind-the-scenes was still a disaster zone prior to SuMo and the new blood added to the writing.
I really doubt there was anything in place that was preventing them from still writing the story so that the Plasma arc is settled closer to the Unova League except their own damn choices.
From late 2009 to early 2011, almost two years, the vision of a Unova League-based climax the writers had was highly specific to factors relating to B/W that the requirement to market B2/W2 rendered invalid - N competing to become the Unova League Champion, the Pokémon liberation movement from self-righteous crusader form Team Plasma, all of the Unovan Gym Leaders that did not include Roxie, Marlon and Cheren. Because they couldn’t have any of those things now, Tomioka and co. decided that doing any Unova League-based climax would be pointless since it wouldn’t be the vision they were all passionately looking forward to. Unlike newer writers, these ones weren’t quite so flexible. If they were, they wouldn’t have ever embraced the old episodic formula and thrown Takeshi Shudo’s GS Ball plans under the bus back in Johto. Team Flare was able to get away with a Kalos League attack for opposite reasons - the writers didn’t commit to that as a plan from the start in favor of waiting to see what transpired with Z…and when Z got cancelled, they were left being able to get away with making up whatever they wanted. No idea what was behind placing the Guzzlord attack at the Alola League, though. I guess it was just more impactful that way, since literally every major character and every Z-Ring was on hand to do battle against them.
(Side rant: Team Flare attacking the Kalos League ended up making perfect sense with the story the writers came up with. What did not, however, was placing Alain in the Kalos League to battle against Ash. The Alain we had seen in his own side specials was not written as someone who would want to compete in the League, but because Tomioka was desperate to jam the Alain-shaped block into an N-shaped hole, he made him act OOC and become obsessed with Ash and his magic ninja frog over the girl and her Chespin that was supposed to be his focus. In a way, it kind of makes Ash’s loss in the Kalos League worse than his loss in the Unova League? Once again he loses to someone who wouldn’t be there if not for him and who has dubious grounds for qualification, this time in the final round and as badass Mary Sue XY!Ash instead of clumsy goober BW!Ash. No wonder it caused such a shitstorm.)
One is noting that apparently Tetsuo Yajima and Atsuhiro Tomioka planned on having Alain be Ashs’ big Kalos League opponent from the beginning of planning the XY series. Meaning it’s a special kind of incompetence on Tomioka’s part to not properly build Alain up to his pre-ordained conclusion, creating a disconnect between Alain in the specials and the series.
And for another, I’m going to have to say it: even if it’s because they aren’t all that good or flexible, the writers were absolutely right in the call they made regarding Team Plasma’s involvement with the Unova League serving as a series finale. @ultraericthered, you said:
I really doubt there was anything in place that was preventing them from still writing the story so that the Plasma arc is settled closer to the Unova League except their own damn choices. Once B2/W2 altered their story plans, they just didn’t want to push for a Unova League-adjacent finale and chose to take the Unova League in the shitty direction it went in instead, regulating the Plasma stuff to afterwards.
OK, but what if they hadn’t done that? What if, in the first B2/W2-inspired planning session, they decided that they were still going to push for a Unova League-adjacent finale with Team Plasma being involved? And then - oops! The higher-ups whom they have zero authority over tell them their next planning session is it for Unova, as they need to get out of there for worldwide Gen VI marketing purposes afterward. Which means not only is the Unova League not the series finale (even if it’s still the finale of the Unova Saga), but also that Team Plasma attacking the League would feel completely unearned since they were only just properly introduced in that very set of episodes. Viewers would be left scratching their heads as to why Team Rocket, the villainous team Ash actually faced throughout his quest to reach the League, didn’t have their conclusion at the League (rather than in Undella) as opposed to some random villainous team out of nowhere. And no, “but they’re the villainous team of the Unova games!” isn’t a valid excuse, since it doesn’t change the fact that the show didn’t build them up properly enough. It would have been a far greater disaster than what we got. Team Plasma as “postgame episode” villains was the 100% right call to make, since them as Big Bads worthy of a Unova League-adjacent conclusion was simply never a possibility with B2/W2’s existence and Junichi Masuda pushing so hard on a worldwide release for Gen VI.
….Still no justifying how the Unova League went and Cameron in of himself, though.
OK, guys, but what if... assuming the episodes actually aired and the original plan wasn't immediately flashed down the toilet and put into jeopardy (with Ghetsis actually introduced as the mysterious leader of Team Plasma, the hero being mentioned and Team Plasma debut in their original uniforms). Whatever shape and form it would take, I doubt they would just suddenly act and pretend Team Plasma were always just black uniformed ones, like they did in that short coronation flashback of Episode N, something they could only get away with because they never aired the lost episodes.
Also, don't forget B2W2 actually included two Team Plasmas, with one being the old uniformed reformed version. While I doubt they would be willing to overcomplicate things with too large cast of characters/two differently uniformed Plasma agents (...on top of Team Rocket already being villains of the series), I guess they would be able to easily transition to the second Team Plasma following the failed plot of the original one.
Let's say the episodes aired and perhaps we even get to see the original writers' plan unfold with a second (or third?) BW Plasma appearance (or N appearance in a lone episode?) before the word gets out the plans have changed. At this point, with one episode alone, they could just work in new elements that push it in a whole different direction, with BW Team Plasma falling apart for one reason or another, N disillusioned, maybe an early hint of Colress (just show some Looker investigation into a hidden lab, like they used to do with him for Galactic, and, if those two episodes had aired, Looker would have been set up for an inevitable return in relation to Plasma) and the true evil face of Plasma (black uniforms) revealed, perhaps with Ghetsis' face revealed for the first time. Then they're out of the picture along with Ghetsis, to regroup (kind of like Giovanni himself was out of the picture for a long time in Unova) until they return after the league. Plus, they would have the time to also take care of Team Rocket and get them out of the picture before they have a whole B2W2 based arc, although yeah, possibly Operation Tempest wouldn't exist as it exists now. But for Plasma stuff shown before their actual B2W2 arc truly kicks off - it would just go in place of some of these boring fillers that we got, no? Say, the Black Stone episode. Or damn. Team Vanillite! I don't think it would have been that terrible and perhaps more sense/nuance for the following B2W2 plot than what we got in Episode N - with this totally out of whack Reshiram/Ghetsis backstory told to us in 2 seconds.
That being said, the finale at the league that incorporates parts of both BW1 and B2W2 would have been sick. Jumping to conclusions and speculation, Lysandre bragging to Alan about the end of the world and putting him down on his knees did felt kind of like it could have been Ghetsis at the overview of the league revealing the true face of Team Plasma to N, with mind-controlled Pokemon possibly wrecking havoc on the city. But it's more along the lines of whether it was an egg or the chicken that was born first. Whether, at some point, they truly entertained such scenarios and there was a real chance for it during Best Wishes if only there wasn't as much meddling (and mother nature's meddling). Or whether it was something that Tomioka conceived (or suddenly realized, just no shit) only after the fact and when Best Wishes was already over.
By the way, the Japanese editions still show the previews and/or Ash flying off to investigate with Juniper, right? This gotta be the best part in all of this. LOL.
One of these days I'll get someone to explain the appeal of Training Daze.
Years I've been on Tumblr, YEARS now, and I've never known an episode so cradled and cooed over in a bizarre, lock-step frenzy of undiluted praise, as if we all agree it's a blessing upon mankind.
Even the great Holy Matrimony!, too good for this sinful world that it was, never got that kind of senseless adulation.
And God rest its sweet, sweet soul.
I almost suspect this constant deluge of non-criticism serves as a shiny veneer coating the rather insalubrious reality, conditioning the entire fandom to swallow what it's spooning.
Because if everyone says it's good, it MUST be, right?
Is it just another perfectly harmless coincidence that Hoenn, being the first region after Team Rocket's creator left, is also the one to wipe so much established history away?
1. Ash effectively starts all over again with no Pokémon, setting the pattern for every era to come.
2. The entire past of Jessie and James is flushed down the shitter, making their connection much more shallow and conditional.
Prior to this, we knew they'd bonded long before as children, and so joining a crime empire didn't change anything.
But now? Well, if they only met as members, that's all their relationship is based upon.
They might have nothing in common otherwise, with completely conflicting personalities.
I mean, we can't really know if they'd stay together in the real world, can we?
No indeed, and let's be realistic: why would two complete strangers even want to be together?
What, just because they happen to work on the same team, that means they're gonna get married?
Ah come on, that's a bit of a stretch.
I work with loadsa people. I didn't fall in love with any of 'em.
Look, kids. One of these days you're gonna have to accept that people can be Just Friends without deluding yourself imagining all sorts of romantic fantasies.
Yeah. Shipping them is so silly, when you really think about it.
The way her legs cover his belt gives the impression James is boasting some sort of Team Rocket onesie.
3. As part of this Brave New World, the Rocketshipping element all about disappears from the script.
At a push, you have The Bicker the Better and 'But Jessie, sweetheart', and that's it, in four series.
Five if you're counting the spin-off.
Compare that to no hugs, no hand-holding, Sweet Baby James and this hammer blow:
Max: And I thought you were just a nice old couple.
Jessie: No one's ever called us old!
James: An certainly NOT a couple.
Oh? I'm sorry. I didn't quite catch that heavy-handed 'hint'.
SEE KIDS HE DOESN'T WANT HER THERE IS NOTHING THERE STOP SHIPPING THEM RIGHT NOW IT'S ALL JUST YOUR IMAGINATION!!!
Interesting that it started off as James openly rejecting her, but later developed into Jessie barely tolerating him.
I wish I'd been in the fandom then.
I'd love to know how this mythos of Training Daze as a piece of perfect wonder gained ground in the old forums, fans welcoming such blatant disrespect with open arms.
Or how early PoCo shills silenced dissent.
Yeah, this does completely annihilate every fragment of Team Rocket lore that we loved and cherished.
Now here's why that's A Good Thing...
Well no, flower. You can have the Indigo universe or this atrocity.
Pick one.
Go on. Do it. Why is that an uncomfortable choice?
Why would anyone spare a moment for something so contemptuous of its own fanbase it feels able to tear up and trample upon the very characters we care about?
Eh, they might as well I suppose.
No-one ever answers back.
On the contrary, they'll rush to defend, excuse and celebrate every deliberate manoeuvre.
For example:
Oooooooh! But what about the title?
The sub is called The Origin of Love of Youth!, which, I grant you, sounds promising, but mere words papering over shameless actions are no good to anyone.
First, whilst I suppose the translation is flawed, I'm not sure how this can be an 'origin of youth', given Jessie and James no longer meet in childhood, and are instead as old as they ever will be.
As for an 'origin of love', they've got some bloody nerve, kicking off the most openly Anti-Shipping region by burning the heart out of it, before finishing with James declaring he'd sooner die than marry Jessie.
And Pokémon, more or less over now, ended with them STILL not together, with every sign in between telling us it would never happen anyway.
Exactly what 'love' began here?
I expect Training Daze was slipped into a side-series to contain a potential backlash, where it would all be quietly forgotten without overshadowing the rest of Hoenn.
That miracle unforthcoming, the crew were thus emboldened to insert their various affronts to public decency into the main run, so now you can just shut up and like what yer given.
Yet this chilly Year Zero apocalypse leaves a vast wasteland in its wake, coercing fans to gobble up whatever comes along to plug the gap.
Accept Training Daze, and I'll presume you believe Crossing Paths! out of necessity, meaning Jessie is essentially a wriggling pervert with revoltingly warped desires, and if she asks you to come down the cellar then don't you be going.
'Cause yer won't come back.
As for James, you can go two ways:
• Left home at ten — ?????? — Team Rocket.
• Left home recently, and thus spent his life with Jessibelle, settled and uncomplaining, but doing a bunk once she put the banns up.
Take the first road, and there's a chasm of mysterious blackness in his background that remains unfilled to this day, and now never will be.
But opt for the second, and James chucked Jessibelle after leading her on for years, pissing off as soon as she wanted commitment, and was therefore as cruel and faithless to her as Darren the Div was to Orange Jessie.
Well cheers, retcon!
Hang on. I'll see what I can do.
Every recollection James has is always of his time at home, where he's never any younger or older than his missing poster, as if all his memories come from one single year.
There's no proof he was there at a later date, but also none that he wasn't, since we never see him beyond that age.
So thanks to this bollocks, we now have live with Jessie being a depraved sicko chasing after snotty nerds (NERDS, MAN!!!) and James potentially mistreating women.
Hah! You don't wanna ship 'em now, do yer?
And you wonder why I hate canon balls.
OOOOOOOOOOOH!!! IT SO DOES FIT WITH CANON!!!
Oh really? Proceed.
...
...Um...
...WELL!...Well!...Well now.
See...what happened was...well OBVIOUSLY...they split up in the bike gang didn't they? And then... then they went...somewhere else...
AND THEN...then...they just so happened to join Team Rocket...at the exact same time.
HAH! SEE! SEE! IT DOES FIT!!!
The first rule of propaganda is that a lie told enough times becomes the truth by virtue of repetition.
But the way this is regurgitated to shield a multi-billion dollar franchise goliath like poor defenceless PoCo from criticism is truly humiliating, for all concerned.
You'd imagine it was a well-documented fact given how often its rolled out, not an obvious Cope driving me fookin' insane!
How can it be a continuation if the sub's calling itself an origin?!
They're using The Bridge Bike Gang to prop up a shitshow that erases it in the first place, meaning any 'evidence' the former provides can't even exist in this timeline.
Which doesn't matter, as there isn't any.
Nowhere in that adventure are Chopper or Tyra surprised to see them together, nor do Jessie and James make any reference to a separation.
In fact they've not a single unhappy memory of their time there.
And what kind of excuse opens more questions than it answers?
Believe it, and they both left the gang in a huff, disappeared off the earth for an unknown period, before being independently inspired to join the Mafia, which was handy.
Where the bloody hell were they in between?
What argument could be so awful they vowed never to make it up, to the point they couldn't abide the sight of one another, and stormed off, planning never to meet again, for all the rest of their years left upon earth?
What was it even about?!
And how much time are we talking about?
Weeks? Months? Years?
Well a full decade of missing time, according to the above, being as Duh Twenny Fyve and that.
Ooh, but there's plenty o' clues during Training Daze, I'm sure. We just have to eke 'em out.
Ol' Fat Bastard Bullroarer Took introduces Jess to her new colleague, who — GASP! — happens to feature prominently in one of her multiple-choice Shameful Secret Pasts.
All together now:
It's a small world after all!
And that's enough to knock any girl off her crumpet.
Things Jess WILL say:
• Hmm. You seem familiar.
• Eh? Have we met before?
• Well, well, well. Long time no see.
• Hey, James! It's me, Jessie! Whoa, I can't believe this! How've you been keeping?
• Oh! You again!
• EH?! You mean HIM?! Oh no, you can forget that!
• What? JAMES?!
• OH! NO! NOT YOU!
• SO! WE MEET AGAIN!
• OOOH MY GOD!
It's coming, man. You'll see.
...
BUT! But! James will say it! He'll know her, no problem.
...
Not a flicker of recognition. At all.
Nor is there a single second of footage referencing this supposed Big Argument, proving it's an entirely fabricated excuse trying so hard to clean up after PoCo's tornado of death swept through the ship.
So why lie and pretend otherwise?
But whilst we're here, let's have a look at that definitely-not-cheesy thing James just said.
No one's carried me since my momma.
Yeah. The mother you're talking about there isn't your real mother Ma James, is it?
Else you mean no one's carried you since your governess, three nannies and a footman, til he put his back out.
Again, Holy Matrimony! is no longer canon, thus neither is the rest of Kanto, for the simple reason Hoenn James's 'momma' is some rough, chain-smoking fishwife with six kids by eleven men.
Actual documentary footage.
Well, it's the same accent, so I suppose that's something.
Although I will say, if you try to make it fit, it sounds like James did run off as a boy, even if his home was completely different.
So it doesn't work anyway.
Note that the only way you can have both Indigo and Hoenn canon mixed into some no-doubt cosy Frankenstein freak, offering out milk and there-there hugs, is by accepting that Jessie and James will and can separate over the most trivial issues, thereby leading you to also tolerate, and even justify, all the other Team-Rocket-Are-Splitting-Up episodes to come.
And I don't know why any of us would, as every one of them is predicated on Jessie and James NOT being a couple, not a sniff of hidden feelings even, for walking away is perfectly easy when there's no emotions involved.
Hmm. I don't remember any split-up episodes during the first series.
Certainly not. And guess why.
Now this was Nu-Thinking in its infancy, and yet to gain a foothold, meaning some attempt was made to rationalise the change.
But there's no explanation for how Crossing Paths! connects to Pokémon Tech., the bike gang, or even the Chansey School, given they've all to got to fit around Jessie's late-childhood crisis of Nurse Joy cosplay.
Perhaps it shows Training Daze did its job: buttering 'em up enough to take any punch to the gut, as long as it provided Feeble Emo Feelz in compensation.
Swear down, sometimes I think Pokémon only had a coherent narrative when it was gonna be a one-off.
Soon as that dream died it all went to pot.
During Sinnoh, for example, we go from the Jessie of Noodles! Roamin' Off! telling James to eff off home and marry Jessibelle, to the Jessie of Where No Togepi Has Gone Before! who is implied to be sharing a bed with him.
Take them both as true, and she's a manipulative bitch and bloody abusive, with James as her sad-bastard simp.
Nice.
And thanks to retcon magic, they always were like that now.
Because of the Noodles! ending, we're expected to forgot the beginning, where James almost killed himself trying to bring Jessie back.
Seems the writing can't even stay logical in one episode, as according to this she longs to spend eternity with him, but as for her life?
Nah, some other bird can take the hassle.
Everyone says James's childhood was a vision of horror, for growing up the cosetted only son of two billionaires is exactly as traumatic as struggling to survive as a homeless, starving orphan.
And don't let them pesky peasants tell you otherwise.
But then you have Jessie ordering him back to it.
So either his home life isn't so bad after all, or it is, and she'll happily send James into Hell rather than suffer him a moment longer.
It's SO shippy tho.
Oh look, another minger.
Like a Bay City Rollers tribute act with that collar.
If you were charitable, stooping to admit Dr. Shipman was 'alright', even then, does he remotely compare to James?
No!
Should we limit it to the ugly, boss-eyed Kalos style, then STILL James is superior, because he retains at least a portion of his anime roots.
Besides which, I can never forget James was once better animated, whereas for Dr. Crippen, this mug is as good as it gets.
And it's shit.
But, let's give him his due, he seems to possess two fully working eyes, which puts him one up on Daz 'n' Ozzy, even if they are the Fish-Eyed stare of a psychopath.
Of course, bringing him back down to their level is having No Bloody Nose, just a bridge which...goes nowhere.
And what's up with his neck?
Why is it so thin and elongated like a flamin' lollipop stick?
T.A.P's Law: Never trust a man with a long neck.
There's always a kink in it, like their souls.
Necks like that come from peering over walls to perv on silly women changing with the curtains open.
Conversely, never trust a man with no neck either.
That's from lurking in the bushes.
Is it, AGAIN, a coincidence that Jessie gets pawed off on to the most low-rate arse pickings possible?
What are you telling me? That Jessie is THIS worthless she goes for absolute biological crap, and since they don't want her, she is beneath them?!
And as she can't so much as stomach James, he's even worse than her?!
You look pretty today, Jessie.
I like your ear.
I'm irked at how, in a way, Dr. Shite is close to reasonable, at least within the restrictions of Kalos, yet the 'artists' made sure to stay just on the wrong side of average.
Had that flat, lank rug, supplying a chip shop its annual grease quota in one flick, been coloured black, we could've worked with it, turd-polished him up as the 'tall, dark and handsome' stereotype.
But NO!
Instead, they go for a murky shade between brown and grey, i.e. sludge.
Calm yourself, ladies.
Had his eyes been truly brown, then this could fit with that same 'ideal man' cliché.
But I think they might be veering into red.
EEEEEEEE!!! THE SATANIC HUE OF DÆMON SPAWN!!!
Somewhere along the line, him and Darren are in cahoots.
I insult Dr. Hook relentlessly for this episode, but, all facial flaws aside, it's not his fault.
He never asked for Kalos Jessie to throw her screeching fruit loaf at him; for some utterly unknown lunatic to force herself into his life, expecting to take over.
You ought to able to save a bint without her turning out be an obsessive nut claiming to be 'in love' after five minutes.
Really, he showed her nothing but normal human consideration, never led her on, and all the way through, stayed loyal to his midget girlfriend.
He likes her so much his right eye's popped out.
This is all on Kalos Jess.
She's the one abandoning her mates for a bloody stranger she knows nothing about, who might be a bloomin' serial killer for all she's aware.
Come on, every doctor's offed a few.
She's the one expecting Wobbuffet to take on some tarted-up single mother Wobba and her fatherless offspring.
But is he paying maintenance? 'Cause that's the real question.
She's the one not bothering to tell her friends she's safe, happy to let them go on believing her dead.
Oh, thanks a lot, love.
She's the one who knew James was robbed, beaten and alone, meaning he'd have NO ONE for the foreseeable future, and STILL wouldn't help until she had no other choice.
What a bitch, man!
Imagine how this was for me.
Little T.A.P. idolized Jessie. That was who I wanted to be when I grew up.
What do you think it is to see someone you love, the lively, fiery and beautiful young girl, twisted into a selfish, dried-up and soulless husk of woman?
We're supposed to see her as a weak, simpering airhead, who's 'in love' (HAH!) with every dribbling chump in her line of vision, which is bad enough when you realize how far she's fallen from the early years.
Have you NO dignity anymore?
But the actual depiction, beyond that sugary superficiality, is of a cold, callous, truly repulsive monster, with such a lack of concern for James's welfare she had to be FORCED to help him.
And I find myself in a state of cognitive dissonance.
I don't consider Kalos Jess to be Indigo Jessie, because the only similarity between them is they occupy the same space in the universe.
Problem is that the passive, 'mainstream view' is that they are, and so, immersed within it, by definition I'm expected to see it that way too.
I'm pressured by the planetary weight of blasé fandom culture, to see this heartless, vindictive harpie as no different from the girl I once hero-worshipped, and, as usual, she now was this all along, forever rotten to the core, and unworthy of my devotion from day one.
And I hate that.
As with Dr. Death, it would've been so easy to turn this around, scraping over the line of inadequacy with at least SOME redeeming elements.
If, at any point, Jessie had come to her senses, realized where her true heart lay, and ran back to James and Meowth, laughing at her own foolish fancies, I could've blamed it on brain damage.
If, having heard James's anguished plea for help, she'd dropped everything and rushed to his side, just as she did in Noodles!, this might count as the shippy-follows-anti-shippy rule, which I'd have suffered.
But do we get any o' that?
NO!
The ONLY reason she bothered to lift a finger to save her oldest friend was as she realized Dr. Fox didn't want her.
Whaddya yer see in him, Jess? He ain't even a man!
He looks about fourteen!
Meaning if Dr. Who HAD reciprocated, Jessie would've happily left James to fend for himself, potentially alone for life.
Yer fookin' evil bastard, Jessie!
Right at the end, she flings her bouquet from the balloon, for she's resigned to a loveless existence.
No wry smile, a shrug, or even philosophical attitude that eh, this is where she belongs, and alls well that ends well.
Nope, she resents coming back, and would leap at the chance to leave again, if anyone (and I do think it's anyone) offered it to her.
As to Kalos Jess, James is the lowest of the low, the pond slime company she settles for when nothing better is available.
He is the worst possible result, who she now can't even abide as a pal.
Oh charming, this is.
I have only seen this episode once and I will never watch it again, because it broke my bloody heart.
This was it. This was when I realized.
They'll never be together. All your dreams meant nothing.
I had inklings before, but like an idiot I pushed 'em down, unwilling to acknowledge what my own senses told me.
Year upon year of implications and, God help us, 'deconstructions' but this was the episode where the writers' intent was finally out in the open.
And people STILL didn't see it!
Apparently no one thought this hateful, nihilistic tantrum was anything to worry about, even trying to spin it as a positive that she came back at all, despite what it says about her reprehensible attitude.
As sod James and his feelings.
All that matters is Jess gets some half-witted knob-wrench to take her on fulltime.
Meowth can be sold on like a cheap, hand-me-down handbag, whilst James can suck it up and do one.
It's not just the clanging, anvil-to-the-head message that Rocketshipping is dead that got me, it's that it was murdered in the nastiest manner possible.
If it'd carried on as usual, all their romantic interludes fading to nothing, replaced by the anæmic, brother-and-sister creepfest they have now, it would've been a sad, tedious end, but rendered almost unimportant thanks to interest withering away.
But they couldn't even do that!
Instead, it the clear message that James loves her, but Jessie doesn't love him, and thus misery.
Worse, she hasn't a single platonic feeling for James, or even crumb of pity, though this is supposed to be a fella who's stood by her for the last five generations.
Kalos Jess is in fact ice all the way down, without a speck of humanity.
It's not even 'Just Friends' now! 'Cause that was too much to ask for an' all!
How this is meant to gel with Hoenn James's disgust I don't know, but his delight on seeing her, after all she did, downgrades the once-proud, arrogant posh boy into a broken, grovelling snotdrip, hanging around hoping she'll 'settle' for him once she's out of other options.
Fuq's ache, James!
You can do better than her, love. Jessibelle wouldn't have cheeked yer like that.
And then, for utterly no reason at all, Rumishipping suddenly looked attractive.
Remember how bad the montage was too? That gives you an idea of their opinion.
Although I suppose some of it's practicalities:
A. The 'art style' had degraded so badly by then that any 'best bits' from the first four regions wouldn't fit, instead emphasizing the collapse in quality.
The only answer would be to reanimate every single one, and they don't care that much.
B. A real collection of their finest moments would show Jessie as a warm, magnetic character, giving affection towards James and Meowth, which would somewhat undermine her modern portrayal.
Taken literally, imagine being James, running away crying, and the best memory you have of Jessie is almost dying of anaphylactic shock with her.
You know how this was supposed to be the 'origin of love'?
Well, about that...
What, you believed 'em?
You thought, if they didn't plan on Jessie and James being together, they'd actually tell you?
What, and watch you walk away, you and that lovely bank account of yours?
Come on, they've gotta milk yer dry first.
Here's where Zero Tolerance becomes a winning strategy, because we're only in this cesspit thanks to fans putting up with the steady decline in standards.
• You liked the above picture, so you agreed with rewriting canon.
Or, you took a blowtorch to Kanto, melted it beyond recognition, and stuffed Training Daze into the gloop, meaning you accepted Jessie and James can split up.
But that was alright, as it happened offscreen.
No worries.
• You got tearful over the end of Noodles!, and thus overlooked them parting on-screen, with her telling him to marry Jessibelle, confirming that Jessie and James have no romance.
But that was alright, as she soon came running once he was in need.
Also no worries.
• Now, we get to Kalos, after a full region of no shippy scenes between, and lo and behold, Jessie leaves James on-camera, openly pesters another man, and despises James so much she'll knowingly let him suffer.
But THAT was alright, as she... she... she came back didn't she? Thanks to the conventions of the programme.
No worries!
From the day I learnt Cassidy and Butch were back, I KNEW it'd be terrible.
Not just as it always is, but announcing this on Christmas Eve, thereby parading it as a gift, was tempting fate.
When the sub aired, the one surprising element was people actually complaining about the substandard offering, for once.
Yeah, they'd cheered on every other travesty in this post, but NOW things were serious.
Yet strangely, I didn't find it so awful.
It's a bad episode yes, but there are worse out there, certainly in Galar, and the tone was so slapdash and stupid I couldn't take it seriously.
So why all the fuss?
I would guess many viewers were holding on this long, trusting it'd all be worth it one day, but every disappointment was like the tick-tick-tick of a bomb countdown.
And here's where time ran out.
Something about The Good, the Bad and the Lucky! set off so many explosions, as if THIS was the one, THIS had to be the prize, THIS must be what they'd waited for all these decades.
And when it wasn't, then BOOM!
Too little, too late, sunshine. They don't need to please you now.
Team Rocket are gone, and Tumblerries who wouldn't fight are shocked they lost the war.
Yet there are also daft fans out there STILL insisting the happy-ever-after will come in the very, very last installment, if you only wait another twenty years or more, watching and paying as you go, up to when future writers won't have to bother.
Why should they deign to please you when no kids will remember who Jessie and James are by then?
Maybe we did have the ending we deserved, given no one cared enough to make a stand.
And it's not that I begrudge anyone speaking out now.
I only wish you'd said something when it could've made a difference.
Yeah, the retcons and inconsiderate changes were clearly there, though always vague enough (somewhat) to “fill in the blanks.” Which doesn’t mean it was okay for the writers to do so, it wasn’t some brilliant respectable writing, and I also have no idea why people hardly mention that. It was too obvious. At best, fans just didn’t care as long as they had their shippy shots and drama from the episode (that could be put in imagined shippy context). It’s unfortunate reality of things. My mind could play with the idea of them splitting up in the bike gang, maybe not necessarily because they had some big argument, but just like that, because they slightly grew up and had some other ambitions (like wanting to become an actress, wanting to be a nurse, wanting to work at radio etc for Jessie). This is of course my mind coming up with headcanon the writers failed to deliver as actual canon, which sucks, yeah. But I could see it being possible and perhaps just a bit more realistic.
Jessie and James being together literally since birth (almost) and part of some lousy boring bike gang for the large portion of their lives doesn’t really sound like it fits their personalities and ambitions. Besides, that was already undermined in Kanto where it said they both tried to apply to that school from episode 9 (the children there are older than they were in bike gang, I think), so clearly their time in the bike gang had to be very short-lived, merely as children, then a bit older children aiming for that school, so that lives a huge portion of their lives blank, actually. They weren’t in Team Rocket since childhood/teenage years, clearly, right? So while it sucks they outright denied to include some sort of continuity in Training Daze and even implied this was the “origin,” their indifferent attitude during that “first” meeting does not necessarily sounds unrealistic to me. The component of what they have is the friendship between Jessie, James and Meowth, and while Jessie and James might have been friends in childhood too, in a silly bike gang (of children?) together, and then briefly at school, there are different types of friendships. There are some friends that I almost forgotten, in a way, since my school years. Running into them now would be a bit strange, like “oh, what to expect of them now, and is that really them? I can hardly remember them acting like this!” rather than relaxed “hey, it’s you, what’s up, long time no see!” Heck, in some cases you might hardly even recognize the person in their twenties or so, if you only remember them at 12 years old. It depends on the context of course but given Training Daze context... well, maybe they were sort of troublemakers, but they probably haven’t really done anything outright bad or criminal in their childhood when they were last together, before the pitfalls and hardships of maturity. So... you run into this guy or girl in a criminal syndicate now... While I doubt it was intentional and there was certainly a better way to portray that particular angle, both parties choosing to act “cool” and “mysterious” (plus perhaps not revealing they actually share a past in front of their villain instructors) isn’t completely far-fetched, all things considered. The fill-in-the-blanks as headcanon progression from bike gang to school to everything-else-in-between to Team Rocket, where they met Mowth, and bonded - all three together - which sparkled the friendship, does actually make sense. You know what’s the biggest travesty though? With all of these new backstories and everything-else-in-between that was implied for Jessie over the course of all these series... we hardly know anything about James. Yeah, it’s a blank slate, a black hole, nothing. Idk, when Jessie was still dreaming idealistic dreams of career, maybe it’s the sweet innocent James who was already a criminal on the run from authorities and his parents, long before TR? :P
Backstories aside, the main mistake is base the existence and excitement of Team Rocket in the show on... Rocketshipping. While I was never opposed and found it a fun concept/potentiality, in the actual show... clearly they were never seriously depicted like It was something that actually occurred. The writers never treated it too seriously, like something that could actually canonically happen in the show. Some of them might have been shippers, each one in a different way perhaps, oh, and yeah, there was that manga of course with its ending, which outright fooled entire fandom into thinking it can actually go somewhere. You could play around with it maybe. Sort of poetic/melodramatic subplot. Will they, won’t they? Someday? Plus the series has always had a cartoon vibe, you know. Some amount of bickering and over-drama is a norm for the medium, rather than always being outright realistic, like you would have for relationships in the real world. So that’s how you could easily explain away some of these shifts and moods of bitchiness, and yet they remain friends, in the end. Not to say some of it wasn’t horribly written but... it didn’t exactly terribly undermine what they were supposed to represent as friends and partners - until the most recent ones, that is. Personally, I could buy some of the past split ups and manic episodes of selfishness of either Jessie, James and Meowth, if you consider the more lightearted cartoon aspect of it (as opposed to fully realistic depiction) and the circumstances of their emotional turmoil, with defeat after defeat or even being beaten 3 times a day (Sinnoh etc). Shared friendship or not, people just break sometimes or do something stupid under such pressure. Now, XY and onward, this has become less of an issue and they’ve started to act more solid as a team, and they’ve got actual acknowledgment from their superiors, which alleviates some of the tension - so pretty much every argument/split up since then was a bit... senseless and forced, even if I’m willing to give the writing some slack.
Either way, I digress. But when it comes to Roketshipping, the best way to describe it is probably some of these Eastern (Korean or Turkish, for example) tv series and how it’s often depicted there. There is this almost theatrical “will they, won’t they” attitude throughout the plots and sometimes it’s not even too badly written. Sometimes. So you could treat Rocketshipping kinda like that, with all its pitfalls and contradictions, and that’s why it’s got appeal. As long as you don’t fool yourself it’s actually something serious that’s going somewhere... because unlike in these live action tv series... it never was.
But putting these aspects of Rocketshipping aside, there are a few more things that I liked about the Training Daze and - once again - I appreciate the original jap subs more than dub. Dub had some silly translations sometimes... which may have their own appeal, in a fun way, but come on, “no one carried me since my mama” was clearly a bit over the top!
In particular, as I already mentioned, I like the establishment of their friendship as outcast who share a dream, which first happened in Team Rocket between the 3 of them (rather than in some distant past excluding Meowth from it), each somehow unique and mature adult after hardships and bad life experiences, albeit with the spirit of freedom too. Furthermore, come on, Meowth establishment in that episode was just brilliant. I think there was something silly going on in the dub translations there... with some jokes or Giovanni acting all pissed off and wanting to get rid of Meowth as soon as possible. But the original version actually has the boss all intrigued, issuing a command to capture this talking Meowth right away, only for Meowth to waltz into the room and announce he wants to pursue evil, which just intrigues Giovanni even more. Curiously, he actually shares his backstory with Giovanni, so there is a continuity there (”She dumbed me. But, once I’ve gained mastery in evil and gained the boss’s recognition...”). Giovanni doesn’t really want to get rid of him, but since he does treat him more like a shrewd human rather than some stray pokemon to run experiments on or use for battling, Meowth becomes an ideal candidate to “balance” Jessie’s team (who had this bad history with her partners and partner pokemon). The boss is actually a smart calculative guy who knows how to build team work rather than just some dude constantly screaming over the phone all the time, which the dub sometimes made him out to be. Other than that... the episode was also a gold mine on the TR front. When was the last time we got to see some inner workings of TR? Hmmm, like... never since then? It also did great to establish Jessie, James and Meowth as skilled, trained criminals, so all these shenanigans, gymnastics, tech gadgets and athletism didn’t come from nowhere. They were also at the top of their class, so it’s no wonder when we first see them they’re actually somehow renowned wanted agents and their relationship with the boss is on somewhat good terms, and it was even implied they got their first pokemon as gifts from him. There was more appeal to that episode than just rocketshipping shots or overthinking the first meeting inconsistencies, but as I said, this wasn’t necessarily THAT bad, because they did not contradict anything and for Meowth there was outright continuity. In the Japanese version the first exchange between Jessie and James is basically “Do you know my history? (in TR) I’ve had 12 partners...” to which James responds “I’m not interested in your history with other people” So yeah, there is clearly more room for "fill-in-the-blanks” here rather than outright “we’ve changed it!”
So, without idealizing much, there are great things to appreciate about such episodes from the past. Still... what could have been if we had a better quality writing/progression like in this new series now or more continuity openness like Ash was showered with in Journeys... One can only dream...
About time we had some quality back-and-forth discussion on here, 'cause I ain't got nowt to get me teeth into these days.
It's feckin' dead, man!
Every time I search for Team Rocket stuff I get posts about bloody Formula One!
Anyway...
Part Three 2.0
Joobee's Revenge!
I'm somewhat confused, if you don't mind.
You say I should understand Rocketshipping was always unlikely to work given this is a cartoon, and isn't supposed to be realistic.
Well wasn't anime marketed to Western audiences as animation with intelligence and emotional depth?
Pokémon took relationships seriously enough when they pictured Misty having Ash's daughter, so why should Jessie and James be any different?
Yet you also make a valiant defence of Training Daze, particularly them splitting up during the bike gang, parting in general, and not recognizing one another, on the basis that such elements are realistic, and thus deserve credit.
But, which is it then?
In any case, I don't want realism, or whatever passes for it, anywhere near Pokémon.
A fantasy show, by definition, must remain as far removed from us as possible.
Else it's shit.
Yet people are still people, and will act like people do, so I only ask for it to be believable, based on established personalities, and remain coherent within the laws of its own universe.
Canon is one of the most important aspects of fiction for me.
Soon as they start rewriting the past, implying whatever they've deleted was crap and I should immediately transfer my allegiance to their great art, which they'll get rid of too in good time, then the spell is broken, I'm pulled from that world and can no longer enjoy it as I did.
As if they don't care, then why should I?
Accept it once, and there is no canon, nothing concrete to base one's thoughts and ideas upon, because any of it could go now.
So what's left to love?
Now let me examine these three matters:
I truly abhor the split-up episodes for being obvious, formulaic and lifeless.
Week after week Team Rocket blast off, but it's all forgotten by the next installment; setting it up for the same thing to happen again.
I don't mind that sort of repetition, providing the writing adds a little variety (which it rarely does) as it's in the framework of the series.
What I object to is when the day-by-day experience is suddenly IMPORTANT.
I can't believe Jessie, James and Meowth are conveniently worn down by constant disappointment when there's been no hint of any such feeling.
Hoenn onwards is ephemeral: the figures within each adventure haven't had those recent losses because everything resets for the next go and leaves us paddling in shallow waters.
If not, when we reach the Split, then suddenly, stuff they shrugged off without a word before takes place again, and NOW it breaks 'em, simply because this is a Split-Up Episode and so it must do.
No foreshadowing, no slight digs or building tension, nothing that tells you these three have been pushed to the brink.
Nah. They were fine yesterday and they'll be fine tomorrow, but today the plot wants a reaction.
And the triggering incident in question, the one which, remember, is so brutal it (briefly) changed the course of their lives, occupies about one minute of screen time in order to leave room for whinging.
It won't even look as bad as the usual losses, yet it's that causing the rift, i.e. Team Rocket are a bunch of moaning melts who can't take a little hardship now and again.
Feeble tantrums no doubt fit the manufactured situation, but I can't think of it as 'realism' when said 'trauma' also gives out absurd cartoon injuries.
Being blown hundreds of feet in the air, crashing to earth, and walking away unharmed isn't true to life, so how can the exact same sequence be unreal AND realistic?
So if they get over all the physical damage blasting off does them, they can also ignore any supposed secret mental anguish too, 'cause I don't wanna see it.
These farces often constitute The Team Rocket Episode, the single indulgence we're graciously alotted once per series.
And sometimes once per era.
Meaning we sit there, waiting for a decent amount of coverage, and all we get is the smug, simpering slop they served up last time.
And we've gotta be grateful for this?
I suspect the crew just didn't know how to make the most of them without Shudo, and so like Brock, they were kept in merely for fear of what the backlash would be.
But it's sad to think they had such little attachment to Team Rocket they saw no potential in the characters as they were, and decided undermining them instead with lazy 'drama' was the way to go.
Yet this mini-genre of wangst is defined by one insurmountable problem:
Status quo.
You know they won't split up.
I know they won't split up.
Everyone knows they won't, because the show's structure can't let it happen, and definitely not mid-region.
From the outset, it's clear that this is a pointless charade, and nothing will come of it.
It will never be mentioned again, or have even a feather-press impact on the greater whole.
It might as well not exist for all the meaning it has.
Yet they did it anyway.
Going in to these narrative dead-ends means entering a realm of mustard gas where the only severance round here is down the audience's brain.
On one side, we're expected to be gripped by the 'very human' storyline, tears in our unworthy eyes at the sight of beloved souls rent asunder by cruel circumstance, before that triumphant final flourish where they're all back together again and everything's right with the world once more.
On the other, well don't take it seriously or anything and actually be enraged at the very idea of breaking up the friendship.
Steady on, flower. You've seen this one before.
Repeatedly.
You should spot the ending a mile off.
There's a irritating double-standard around Pokémon where you're only allowed to take plots to heart on condition it inspires nothing but torrential gluts of praise and weeping reverie.
But if you absorb it all, and boil from the inside out, then whoa there, It's Just A Kids' Show.
Calm Down.
And it's strange reading objections to Galar's contributions, particularly the last one, coupled with immediate backtracking of how oh it was different in Hoenn and Sinnoh as those rows had better build-ups and, vitally, pay-offs.
Well so what?
Who cares how they sold it to you?
If you accepted Team Rocket fragmenting before your eyes, you accepted it, and thereby permitted everything worse to come.
No one minds the splitting in itself; people are simply annoyed these degradations weren't wrapped up in warm fuzzies and 'shippiness' in compensation.
Waaaaah! The poison tasted like honey before and now it tastes like poison!
I want my honey-flavoured poison back!
Nope. No need to bribe viewers with feelz now we're at the end.
I however hate splitting them up on principle, because I resent how it demeans their original iron-clad bond to some shrugging mundane acquaintancy no deeper than a piss streak.
And just as attractive.
When Pokémon was written as a one-region special (which is all up to and including The Breeding Centre Secret), Team Rocket went through failure after failure after failure, but nevertheless stuck it out, whereas now they're off after the mildest inconvenience.
So in the old way, it's the message that's there's always hope.
No matter how far you fall, and no matter how bad it gets, your mates are gonna be right there with you.
Never doubt it, not for one second.
Now don't say that. If you were worthless, why would they still be here?
'Cause whatever happens, they've got your back.
In a life of chaos, one comforting surety anchors you to home.
But in the Nu?
Well too bad, sunshine.
If you fall, you'll keep on falling, 'cause there's gonna be no one there to catch you.
Friends? You thought you had friends?!
What, you? As if!
Don't think so, love. Not with your face.
Yeah, it's all fun and games in the good times but enjoy 'em while they last 'cause they'll be off soon as the going gets tough.
Alone again, are we? Told yer.
But cheer up, Chuckles. Turns out anyone who'd hang round with you is too disgusting to make it in polite society.
They'll be back once that better life without you doesn't work out.
And look on the bright side:
You can leave them next time.
...
It's just depressing.
When it comes to the younger Jessie and James going their separate ways, I must state from the outset that I am extremely resistant to the notion.
It's not your fault, but by now I associate defending Training Daze with treating PoCo as a ravenous heathen god demanding appeasement with daily virgin sacrifices else the sun won't rise in the morning.
I am tired of the mindset that we should justify their blunders to ourselves, and stamp out any minor objections to their reign of terror, even when they're in our own heads!
I've seen this in other fandoms: the mass goes along in mindless niceties, ignoring the obvious, then one kid break ranks with 'the King is naked' and immediately it's panic stations and mustering the Borg to crush resistance.
IT DEFIESSSS USSSS! IT MUST KNOW PAIN!!!
There's two modes of attack:
1. Flat-out shameless lying that there IS references to the past, and you're just too stooooopid to see What It All Really Means.
Yeah. Amazing how they never prove that with time stamps or screenshots of those very many mentions of Chopper and Tyra or all the 'remember when' conversations between Jessie and James.
I mean, you just can't move for the flashbacks in this episode.
2. Scratting round for any reasonable-sounding (to them) explanation, and then pushing it that oh well, it might have been this way, it feasibly could've taken place as it abides by the laws of gravity.
And if it could happen, it DID. Now shut up.
The usual line is the 'they had an argument', which I'm supposed to entertain like a decent counter-offensive, when there's no bloody evidence for it!
Meanwhile I, who hate Splits, am utterly perplexed to see it's now such a popular trope folk insist on inventing more incidents of it, because we just haven't had enough o' that.
Apparently.
This would be a bigger deal if a childhood friend was on his deathbed.
You suggest they parted to follow their own aspirations, but what law-abiding dreams do they have?
These days Jessie's made to fixate on anything remotely 'girly' that turns up, particularly if it involves rampant exhibitionism, but back in the Indigo League she wanted to be in Team Rocket above all, so I can't envision what got in the way.
Unless Training Daze retconned so much that Contests now Were Always There, and so she joined the circuit, but then why leave?
For James, as we both said, what ambitions does he have in the first place?
This fandom treats him like an undeveloped man-baby who can barely feed himself, and pushes the line that he's nevvah done a single bad fing in his pweshush ickle life.
Then why the hell's he in Team Rocket?!
The only way I can see someone of his background ending up in these circles is if Jessie influenced him, and she went as it's in the blood, which I doubt has applied for a very long time but there you go.
I keep coming back to the same issue:
If this is meant to fit with Kanto, why don't they show it?
How can the only possible way of linking it to the past be making up our own excuses, with no speech or quote backing it up, instead of asking the writers responsible to do it?
There would be something, say James does an action and Jessie stops in her tracks as it reminds her of a boy she used to know, followed by a past scene of two kids playing together, before she confronts him with it.
But there isn't!
There is nothing there, and I don't understand why we must keep up this rancid façade.
But it is interesting that so much effort is put into insisting this one works, when plenty of other retcons abound yet don't elicit a similar reaction.
Presumably it's as they don't blatantly override canon, and so there's a sense of plausible deniability saving the day, whereas Training Daze is quite brazen, and needs defending.
So the more it's done, the more I know they're covering for it, as it wouldn't require all this hyperventilating propaganda to sell it otherwise.
I'm getting the impression you dislike the biker element, and even doubt its existence.
Well when the wider world's an almost adult-free landscape of feral kids running wild after their parents abandoned them, a few banding together to form a gang for safety and support isn't out of the question.
I also see you don't care for Jessie and James knowing one another in youth, as you view the trio as crucial, and so two sides of the triangle connecting previously would... diminish that, in a sense?
That's where we differ, because I want it.
If you watch the early Indigo League, Jessie and James are often allied against Meowth, treating him as a cheeky interloper who thinks he can order them about thanks to his role as Boss's lapcat.
They clearly aren't best buds fresh from qualifying as a team, which is something else Training Daze got wrong, and so besides what canon says, I can only rationalise that dynamic if Jessie and James have a pre-existing bond which Meowth is eased into over the series.
You can adore a pet as soon as you get it, but human beings take years to accumulate proper trust, so whilst I could accept loving Meowth on sight, I can't believe in Jessie and James platonically unless they come replete with a long-standing history.
It's only after Training Daze reconfigured their relationship as of a much more recent vintage that the Splits come thick and fast, as if that was a necessary re-write to sell separation, which tells me it really did rub the past out.
Hoenn Jessie's been through at least ten partners, so Viper's gonna be delighted at pairing her off with an old pal, as FINALLY he's found a fella she gets on with.
It ain't getting any worse, is it?
We'd need a scene of her reacting to James, before signalling for him to play along, followed by an awkward reunion conversation, if she intended to keep their previous life quiet.
As for initial unfamiliarity, Indigo Jessie recognised James from his above missing poster, via a photograph taken before they met.
As does Meowth, and the Twerps, because he hasn't changed a bit!
So how would she not know him after only a few years?
Pokémon Tech. comes before the bike gang.
During Holy Matrimony! James mentions running away from school to join them.
The system puts pupils in the Pokémon League without Badges, and, given Joe is about Ash's age, first-years would be ten years old.
Whilst Big Jess and Little Jim are at least in their early teens, and no different to how they look now, thus this must be closer to the present day, with much less of a gap in the timeline than the purported decade.
Petty thieves mooching on the streets aren't in a position to even sit the entrance exam, nevermind afford the fees.
As in, James's parents sent him there, and I have my own theories on Jessie.
In Red, Blue, and Yellow, all the Biker and Cueball Trainers are portrayed as a threat, with some swearing allegiance to Team Rocket, so The Bridge Bike Gang is a reference to that.
Joining up impresses Chopper and Tyra, so whatever low-level criminality Jessie and James were doing then sounds entirely in keeping with their later career.
In fact, it'd be the gateway to greater law-breaking.
Every agent had to start somewhere and slowly slide into worse, for I don't imagine any went from honest, upstanding fellows to Mafia membership overnight.
This is original canon, the backstories invented with them, meaning Jessie and James were designed with this in mind, or vice versa, so it can't be anything other than true to their personalities, not like some nonsense spun up a decade or more after.
This is just scratching the surface and even then it won't fit on one screenshot.
Training Daze also negates Jessie and Cassidy's early friendship, preferring to show it as nothing better than boring and baseless bitchiness right from the start.
God forbid Jess should actually get on with other girls.
Although The Breeding Centre Secret isn't canon anymore either, so maybe neither is their once-good relationship.
We're supposed to rejoice in seeing Cassidy and Butch again because of these previous appearances and yet not care when said installments are rendered null and void.
It even destroys Meowth's history!
He started off as 'top cat' but a few early Indigo failures combined with an out-of-sight-out-of-mind situation saw Persian taking his place as the Boss's beloved pet.
Therein lies Meowth's motivation for all the desperate scheming to come, and also imbued his story with an underlying tragedy, when you consider he's just a little animal who wants his master to love him again.
And I can well believe it. Feline jealousy is something else.
But according to Training Daze, Persian was always Giovanni's companion, with Meowth sidling up much later, so Persian's gone from villainous usurper to practically the innocent victim defending his home, and Meowth's a creeping scumbag trying to ruin another cat's life.
Indigo canon thus said the Boss initially prized Meowth above all else, whereas discarding him was a sure sign of his truly cold nature, and the least deserving of the loyalty he so inspired.
Now, Giovanni's the decent one, sticking to his old friend without a flicker of temptation.
These days he doesn't so much as like Meowth, 'phoning for help to get rid of him!
And I'm not surprised when Meowth made a prat of himself for all of the time he was there.
Thus in ONE episode, Team Rocket are so badly downgraded their entire foundations are shifted into much lesser territory, with childhood friends 're-imagined' as complete strangers, and Meowth no longer an incredible rarity anyone would be proud to own, but some clingy pest pushed on to the nearest sap at the first opportunity.
I know, I know, dub vs sub.
It still doesn't flow.
But even without these numerous affronts, and judged solely on its own merits, I don't understand what all the fuss is about.
It's so forced and empty, a rushed re-write skimming the surface, with no depth, logic or explanation to everything that's going on.
We're offered 'pre-franchise canon', unfolding before it all began, which definitely wasn't made up years later.
(I'm pressed to go along with this pretence, which doesn't improve my opinion.)
Except it's so obviously a prequel, as in written with hindsight, where things happen simply because of what's in the present, nothing to do with how it's 'meant to be', or whatever cheesy message I should see.
Jessie starts off as some surly bitch ruining the chances of blameless individuals with her inexcusable bad attitude, so clearly she's the difficult one, but the Boss just keeps her on, no questions asked!
It can't be she's too good at the job to lose when she isn't even an operative yet, besides needing to be something special to warrant squandering ten or twelve others.
And this is from Hoenn, where she's thick as a brick, so it certainly isn't that.
Back when they joined Team Rocket together, Jessie and James were equally as prepared and trained to work in the field, where it's only natural they stayed paired up, else what'd be the point?
Here there's long list of previous colleagues Jessie's effed over to give a false idea she's waiting for something, and whaddya know, turns out it's James.
Now who could've predicted that?
But it's so transparent he's 'the right one' merely because he's who she's with in Pokémon, i.e. it's a foregone conclusion set in stone, which says nothing about James's abilities or inner value as a person.
Quite the opposite. If you take this as true he's borderline incompetent.
As Jessie's run through around a dozen team mates, she's trained with each of them and gained a lot of experience along the way.
Whereas James only does it once and near enough almost dies in the process.
Nu-Canon in consequence re-positions him no longer as Jessie's equal, but vastly inferior to her, someone she essentially took pity on and 'settled' for.
Oh, no! But...you see...she saw him be nice to Meowth.
Yes, that's just the kind of criminal mastermind she wanted.
And none of the previous partners had Pokémon they loved?
Not one ever mentioned what hopes and dreams they had for the future?
So even though Jessie dumped a plethora of earlier candidates the moment they put a foot wrong, she'll happily take James, who buggered up every task they had, and Meowth, who can't make a cup of tea without going arse over tit, simply because that's who we already know she took.
And I'm supposed to cry over this heavenly beauty?
True, plenty of heavily flawed episodes are out there.
But none of them get treated like the Second Coming of Jesus.
I'd also like to know why the flamin' Mafia is suddenly conducting itself like the S.A.S., weeding out recruits via assault courses and mountaineering.
Seems crime's that bad in Pokémon Land it's simply overrun with applicants.
Yeah. Don't bother teaching noobs how to use a gun, fix a machine, steal and fight.
Nah. What we need is sweating like a pig and hiking.
Even the Red Snorlax test involved legging it from collapsing floors and indoor tidal waves, as if that's what to expect in a normal jewel heist.
I know you like them completing physical challenges because to you it proves what Team Rocket became in Unova was what they always were, and therefore you say criticism of Gen. Five is illegitimate, but that's not what everyone else sees.
No one would remember if it weren't for That Scene, and even then, the amount of coneheads spouting about Jessie and James sharing a gene pool proves it hasn't lasted beyond its initial audience.
Although, with them, has anything?
On a side note, tracing their Unova selves back to Hoenn is an idea with which I both agree and disagree.
I've theorized that Jessie, James and Meowth were debased into weak morons in order to prepare the groundwork for Unova, by which time the hypothetical audience would be so tired of the cringing that they'd welcome The Serious Side with enthusiasm.
So went the plan. But one based on the presumed attitudes of the Genwunners the Hoenn-era production team knew about.
Yet by Unova's arrival, the Nu-Genner influx had watched eight years of fannying about, so for them that's who Team Rocket really were, hence why they're now infantilized as 'dorks' and 'nerds' with 'one brain cell', remarks you never saw during the Kanto and Johto period.
And there's no way of convincing them Unova's worth a look.
Where I disagree is that although there are hints of Unova in Training Daze, it has no relation to the Indigo League, an era it pissed all over and threw in the bin.
If the script disregards canon events, why should I trust its characterisation to be true to the past?
It's just so deflating to realize they have such a condescending view of the fanbase they know they can coast doing the bare minimum and we'll lap it up regardless.
Somehow it's cut it off from both the past and future, cancelled out with Noodles! Roamin' Off! pretending Chris was right there with 'em in the academy days, when no one had bloody seen 'im before.
It's Red Team uniforms for all three, meaning this takes place before they qualify, as in during Training Daze, and us pinhead viewers just forget they were a trio back then.
The second-most overrated episode has thus demolished the first.
Genius.
Best I can make of it is Chris is supposed to be that Joobee fella, and magically went from crook to straight businessman after supping on a Pot Noodle.
Oh aye.
Yet for that to work, I've gotta accept James is seriously worried about the career prospects of some bloke he's never seen before, with Jessie as concerned even though she didn't give a toss about his welfare and left him to his fate five minutes earlier.
Well, that and:
What about that Joobee lad? Let's give him a story.
Great idea! Hang on, do you remember what Joobee's name was?
No, I don't remember what Joobee's name was.
Let's call him Yusaku.
I hate this vacant, received-wisdom culture of piety surrounding it, where you must discuss it only in a hushed and reverential tone, NEVER doubting its shining holiness.
And if you're a Team Rocket fan, especially a Rocketshipping one, everyone assumes this shower o' shit MUST be your favourite episode.
NO!!!
I only watched it for completion's sake and I resented doing that.
The idea anyone could sit through it for enjoyment is beyond my comprehension.
If we lived in a just world, the general (and still generous) consensus would be:
Yeah, it's got its moments but you can't deny there's problems with the concept.
In which case I'd take a much more blasé attitude, but the relentless fawning tips me over the edge.
Have you ever been in the situation where the sheer overflow of suffocating adulation for worthless crap makes you despise it even more?
Well here I am!
Were a canon-compliant version to exist, where Jessie and James enrolled as friends, you can bet it wouldn't be anywhere near as popular.
The default setting is protect PoCo at all costs, hence the more empty and superficial it is, the more blather and puff we need to hide it, else someone might notice.
Otherwise I wish, I wish I could see the appeal, and exactly what warrants rabid hysteria, but I know if I asked it'll all boil down to That Scene, and it's not good enough
(Of course, the great irony is that if Jessie and James knew one another before, collapsing like this would be a regular occurrence of kids larking about, and nothing out of the ordinary.
Whereas blushes and flustered embarrassment is the reaction of two strangers in an unfamiliar intimacy.)
I'm bombarded by wall-to-wall GIFs and clips until I'm sick of the sight of it, but nevertheless I thought it was nothing more significant than physical closeness, and no different to previous hugs and hand-holding.
Then you told me what it actually means, or is interpreted to mean...
And I hate it to even greater degree.
Ewwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!
I had no idea that's what it was.
Not an inkling.
Shows how naïve I am.
I've been skipping round this here fandom for the last four years whilst completely unware everyone else was dreaming up such a filth, and all without once warning me what was hunched up in the corner, just waiting to pounce.
What a liberty.
I'm telling yer, I feel this on a personal level.
And if the writers are prepared to indulge in seedy symbolism, I'm curious as to what what other messages they're sending.
This may not be so shocking in the Grand Scheme, but within the confines of post-Shudo Pokémon, it's certainly leaning on the boundaries of acceptability.
Is it then, a further coincidence that such daring implications come in the very episode where Jessie and James are stated to have just met, rendering any sort of... association between them no better than a cheap one-night stand?
Where the very scene so many shippers hold dear as confirmation merely wipes it over using a particularly soiled rag, tainting their relationship with rather tasteless implications?
There's no romance to that.
Nothing higher. Nothing pure.
It's just nasty.
Don't get me wrong. I love a bit of innuendo usually.
I wouldn't mind if it happened during the Indigo League. It suits the unhinged, anarchic atmosphere.
He's clearly touching her up in The Legend of Dratini, and it doesn't remotely bother me 'cause it's funny, besides their then-status as long-term pals, and, I would argue, as an item.
But there's something about the bland, bleached tone enforced since Hoenn, gaining ground with each generation, purposely watering the franchise down for kids and kids alone, and yet throwing up a scene like that, which even if not intended as such, is seen as smutty, that really doesn't sit well with me.
And that feeling ain't never gonna ease unless the heaving praise and inescapable hyper-fixation for less than two seconds of footage regurgitated again and again from screen to screen cools down.
When I first watched it I couldn't believe how brief it was in contrast to the frenzy generated, so realistically I think James falling on top of Jessie by accident is slinging shippers a bone, but isn't supposed to have any prurient connotations at all.
But they WILL see it, won't they?!
Again, in all likelihood it's an innocent blunder blown entirely out of proportion, and had I seen it long ago, when shielded from shippers, I'd have taken it in as wholly meaningless and wouldn't feel this way now.
But when instead I've suffered it after year upon year of drowning in other people's overwrought fantasies, where I am well aware of how it's received and how I'm expected to react, and now, even later, when I discover exactly what's projected on to it, what the writers intended is almost inconsequential.
All panic aside, why did they include a suggestive scenario only when the history justifying it had gone?
I agree with you somewhat regarding Rocketshipping.
Ash and Misty were always the canon couple, and endgame from the Mewtwo Strikes Back deleted footage, with Jessie and James at best a B-plot romance, but it grew in the collective imagination alongside Team Rocket's general popularity.
Yet if fans love something, which doesn't hurt the show, then I'd just go with it, considering the audience are only responding to hints they added anyway.
Except ever since Shudo left, I have the impression that no one in the writers' room really likes Team Rocket, or at least there aren't enough of them, because all their adventures from that day are predictably underwhelming, being either the insufferable split-up saga, or a supposed 'shippy' interlude that is extremely anti-shippy when examined properly.
I've known from Kalos they'd never have a happy ending, but now I see it'd been determined by Hoenn, hence why their shared past disappeared.
I mean, you wouldn't erase all that if you liked their characters, would you?
And it's been down, down, down, from that day on; Team Rocket switching to witless during Hoenn and Sinnoh, evil for Unova and Kalos, then witless and evil during Alola and Galar, trying to shake the shippers off.
But none of it worked, and by now
Rocketshipping is such an enormous portion of the fandom writers are obliged to humour it once in a while, and managed to con plenty of people it was still possible right up until the end.
Training Daze and Noodles! aren't actually 'shippy', but the fans kidded themselves they were because they wanted them to be.
Hell, I bet they killed off this continuity and started from scratch in Paldea just to be free of us for good.
BUT...
Simply because they changed their minds later doesn't mean Jessie and James were never supposed to be together.
It's no good if they feign ignorance now and give it the old 'It Was Always This Way' speech, when they've deliberately led shippers on for years.
No one forced 'em to add That Scene to both Training Daze and Noodles!, the only purpose of which was precisely to stir up shrieking excitement and swooning fits.
If you call it The Origin of Love and Youth!, you are telling fans that Jessie and James are in love in the current series, and this is the origin story where it began, i.e. how they met.
It interesting the dub chose a joke name instead, perhaps because they'd seen the plot further down the line and knew Hoenn wouldn't deliver what it promised, so in that sense it's a more honest presentation.
Whilst it's a play on 'training days', I wonder if the 'daze' is also a nod to confusion, as in:
Eh? When did this happen?
Yet if the anime wasn't intending to finish with them married, then how was it supposed to end?
Come to that, how is it going to end now?
Unless Paldea tanks in the ratings I doubt we'll be seeing Team Rocket any time soon, and if we do, it'll be the same old routine, not the hoped-for farewell event.
It's entirely possible the writers don't plan on bringing them back, barring an emergency, and if so, what are we supposed to think happened to them?
• They left Team Rocket eventually, and settled down with absolute barrel-scraping, brown-haired non-entities who don't deserve it so good?
• They stayed with Team Rocket until death?
And if it wasn't a massive explosion taking 'em all out simultaneously, you gotta presume accident and infirmity took their toll until one was left to grow old and die alone.
Nice.
I maintain that, just as I know Team Rocket can't always have been evil because I've never liked a single evil character in anything (villains yes, but ones capable of redemption), and I started to dislike them only when they displayed genuine evil, there must have been something to Rocketshipping given I never ship anything without canonical permission.
If I like a piece of fiction, I respect the laws it lays down, and if they say two characters aren't attracted to one another, I accept this.
Not that I force myself not to feel it, more like shipping will never occur to me.
Plus I just can't be bothered investing time and emotion in a whim with no chance of coming true.
Also, given the colossal amount of Rocketshippers there's been across the years, to the level it invented shipping, there had to be some evidence to back it up.
By the same argument, although I'm loath to admit it, if so many younger fans believe Jessie and James to be brother and sister, there's got to be substance to that too.
After all, nothing in Alola and Galar says otherwise, suspiciously.
Since there's nowt doing round here, whenever I see these posts I shall ask where they got the idea from, as I want to know.
No response so far.
I do find the RAGE this provokes a good laugh though, when I'm quite laid-back about it.
For the most part.
I mean, I've heard worse.
There they go, poppin' an artery at the audacity of the kids not respecting canon.
And all I can think is:
But you luv Training Daze! You don't respect canon either!
What kind of example was that to set the little 'uns?
See? Ripping up the past was a-okay when they liked the result, but NOW it's different.
Perhaps the real question is why the rest of us are so adamant they aren't related.
Answer: they weren't when we were kids.
And we, against all available evidence and subsequent experience, idiotically assume some canon will remain intact.
Yeah. And when we were kids there was only one Mewtwo.
As for this picture...
What did they expect?
If it fooled the fandom, then who fooled 'em?
If you release an official image, sanctioned, stamped and signed off by Nintendo, sent out with approval from on-high, don't be surprised when fans believe what you say.
Are they really moaning people listened and took them at their word?
Well who's fault's that?
The Electric Tale of Pikachu might not be an exact adaption, but it was sold to children as all the same characters in manga form.
They knew full well what they were encouraging and did it anyway, so I'm not falling for this faux-bewilderment stunt, acting as if they can't imagine where such a notion began.
If it worried 'em so much they could've easily made their intentions plain, but they never did, across all the decades until it was over, knowing a hefty chuck of the audience would be out the door once they realised there was no point stopping.
I wasn't aware of this image until much later, but how much of the self-abasing servility PoCo's enjoyed is the now-grown shippers hanging on in there because of it, suppressing all criticism on the promise they'd get their way in the end?
And now said shills have served their purpose, Master's got the bloody nerve to turn round and deny there was any chance of romance in the first place.
Fookin' hair.
These hideous side-show freaks aren't Team Rocket, thus no stapled-on love confession would've meant anything to me.
I'm beyond their reach now.
But Anti-Ships from the early days were so repulsive, and for nothing else, I resent the smug bastards winning in the end.
PoCo know they could've pleased plenty of people with one quick scene, mostly their own cheerleaders, the type breaking their backs to pull 'em out of the pitfalls and plot holes they dug themselves, and STILL they wouldn't do it.
Fecking ingratitude, man!
You'd have thought they'd feel some appreciation for all this first-class grovelling, enough to grant one final hurrah, a single second telling 'em the last twenty-odd years of devotion was a life well spent.
But NO!!!
Once upon a time viewers complained about Tracey until Brock's exit was reversed.
Precisely what rewards has this latter-day arse-licking bonanza brought to the table?
Pokémon lacks a coherent narrative; there is no way every installment fits together given the wild inconsistencies.
Yet if you were to take it as such, you can say Ash has gone from rookie to World Champion, and so it was worth the effort.
Jessie, James and Meowth, meanwhile, started off as Team Rocket thieves trying to catch Pikachu, and finished as Team Rocket thieves trying to catch Pikachu.
Nothing's changed.
They're in the exact same job and exact same situation they were in the beginning, and gained the grand sum of sod-all from their time on the show, but lost everything instead.
So what was the bloody point?
I find it truly dispiriting, and, by now, predictable, how many self-declared fans really don't care about Pokémon at all.
No one's bothered about quality, or asks it to have an ounce of self-respect.
Nah. As long as it supplies those all-important hollow Feelz, then nothing (NOTHING) is off limits, no matter the damage it does.
If Jessie cut off James's head, PoCo simps would rush to go off wittering on Why This Needed To Happen, with the rest weeping over the 'shippy content' when she patted his corpse.
I wonder how much of this is a mass outbreak of The Emperor's New Clothes syndrome, which is quite sad in itself, but not nearly as pathetic as the hypnotic hold PoCo has over so many people.
And they just won't stop!
Between spinning the 'positives' for the finale, they're telling us to stay watching for probably another two decades up until the very, very, very, this-time-we-really-mean-it Last Ever Episode Evah, because THEN it'll all work out.
Piss off!
Then again, these false idols are a failing of many fandoms, and so whatever inspires it can't be anything The Pokémon Company have actually done, or, at least, they're not the only ones up to mischief.
I wish The Faithful would tell me why they're so compelled to defend the old lumbering fatberg, for all it may be an unrequited love, but no one will, as you can't rationalise the irrational.
So in conclusion, I love having something to write about.
Wow, that was a lot. Well, you're mostly not wrong about this one thing and that's something I never actually deny: It's not like this series has some perfectly established continuity. It's all fleeting mess sometimes, with different writers having their go at it and yeah, clearly they cared very little about TR since Shudo's departure. I wish we had a series with TR with better standards and more interesting progression. Imagine that... if only...
Since I don't just invalidate faults or try to pretend the sun doesn't shine when it does, it was always difficult in the fandom yeah. But with me it mostly comes down to 1) Being aware it's all shit, series after series of episodic formulaic episodes with little-to-no larger continuity 2) At the same time, appreciate some of the little things that could actually make sense or go along well enough for continuity, with some of these things even intentionally written that way (presumably), with the caveat being that the general (shitty) rule that always guided this franchise is *do not confuse new viewers, past does not matter except when we want it to matter* Yeah, it's shitty and always has been, but what can you do. I assume this is also why we couldn't get the version of the scene you proposed, with there being more context that's outright spelled out, with spoken/behavioral hints of Jessie and James knowing each other as old friends in Training Daze.
Well yeah, dub isn't sub, and some of these things, let's say what you said about Jessie and Cassidy, are actually made a bit more clear in the subs. OS Jessie actually knows Cassidy (in the subs) and mentions they always competed and that Cassidy was annoying which was back then in Indigo League, so how they portrayed it in Training Daze isn't wrong, with the bitchiness and all. As for James, he hardly knew the two. Anyway, as I said, it's all shit, in the end :P So we might just talk our own preferences and ideas here but most of it works because it was never too clearly defined in the first place. For example, you said you think it destroyed what Meowth was supposed to be to the boss in the first place but I don't think that way. Like, come on, Persian was always Giovanni's pokemon, if you go by the games, so somehow it's hard to imagine he just caught him at the beginning of Indigo, and then you also have the Mewtwo movie and the related comics/radio drama, where it's implied he had Persian at least for some time now before the events of Indigo even take place, so there is that. In my mind, I guess it would be more like Meowth becoming his favorite Pokemon for a time (akin to how Jessie and James were implied to be agents of some renown in his eyes) and yet, as indicated, Meowth was still a field agents so the relationship would probably work differently than Meowth sitting on his lap 24 h a day. Maybe sit on his lap and do some stuff in his office while at HQ at times and otherwise more of a field talker via transmissions but enough cat appeal for Giovanni to be completely disinterested in his Persian he owned. When Meowth's team started to fail and bore him, well, he just has the Persian out of a ball and finds his cuteness more appealing now, in his own words. But yeah, like, not even in Indigo everything is very detailed and makes perfect outright spoken sense.
And I like the Bike Gang or even the idea they might have been pals before Meowth. I'm just not sure it's very convincing when it's just Bike Gang alone because of the gap that would exist and members of the Bike Gang don't seem to be very aspirational, in a sense. They are like stuck in the Bike Gang since childhood to adulthood, and initially they're like worshipping them at the mention Jessie and James are Team Rocket now, like it's something they could never aspire to. If Bike Gang was a regular entry to Team Rocket, by this logic, they would all become at least TR grunts rather than be stuck like this. So it would look more like you need some effort and aspiration for "higher" crime, not just many years of Bike Gang resume. Also, in Shudo's commentaries through the book about anime background and what not, it was revealed (and also hinted on the show itself I think) adult Jessie wanted to be a radio host or tv star, etc, and she even worked (I think it was radio?) the job for some fleeting moment, but of course failed at it, something that was never framed as something James would have any particular knowledge of. It doesn't scream Jessie/James pals at Bike Gang -> Jessie/James pals at school -> Jessie/James join Team Rocket. There is like a giant hole and gap here that reasonably needs filling in. And the later backstory with Jessie trying to be a nurse kind of align well with it, shows she wanted to live a "straight" adult life at first. But yeah, one could only wonder what James was doing at that time. LOL.
Nah, seriously, nope. There was no conspiracy to "prepare" them for BW since Hoenn :P I mean, no, the showrunners don't plan THAT far ahead. Sometime they don't even plan far enough within one series :P It's evident, no? And it's not under consistent control anyway. BW had a different head writer who most likely influenced some of the ideas and direction, though it was interesting that at least they took some care to lay some ground/drop hints during the later portions of Sinnoh. But it was nothing big in any case. How this train runs just doesn't work that way, sadly it isn't as pre-planned. It's more like the stuff they went all out with in BW was actually something anime Team Rocket (as an organization) was always destined for, due to how differently they were always portrayed from their game counterparts (the world conquest goals) + the visible advance in modern tech which naturally influences the tech depicted in the anime itself (yet another inconsistency/something that can't and won't ever make perfect sense, for natural reasons, and I can hardly imagine the anime being received well if characters were still using visually vintage tv screens and 2000-esque tech panels). So going back, the stuff from Training Daze makes sense to me. Petty crimes are part of it but for fields agents specifically to be able to take part in these big science projects and larger thriller heists comes with the "worldwide organization for world conquest" territory/trope. In the anime it isn't just about profit and slowpoke tails. The military drill makes some sense.
Anyway, yeah... it all comes down to some acceptance, that in the end this is still a shitty episodic property to promote mons that follows its own shitty rulesets. And even then it mostly manages to screw up and underdeliver, even compared to some of its competitors and sadly people buy that :P So yeah, there is stuff to complain, even without being overly dissatisfied with the general lack of solid well-spoken continuity. That's why I don't mind some of the past break ups. Sure, they could have set it up consistently throughout many episodes with each failure contributing to consistent feeling of discouragement, with hints and foreshadowing, and cracks showing in their union, and then in the break up episode they finally crack under the weight, but... well... this is the show where the fight between Groundon and Kyogre was a one minute slide show at the time, so seriously, what are we talking about again :D With so little care for TR (after Shudo's time) it's a wonder I have this sort of "soft continuity" to begin with (not outright spoken, not outright consistently set up, but still sensible and somewhat plausible). For me it just all fell apart with distaste when it all fell apart on itself by chasing its own tail after BW, at which point it could no longer be "unspoken" "plausible" "fill in the blanks" because it directly - in a spoken outright way - contradicts itself on many occasions, with no consistent sense of "unspoken progression." You might say I should accept it if I accepted it back in Sinnoh etc, why shouldn't they break up on a whim or have a heated argument that lasts a minute and contributes to failure? Since it worked back then, why can't it now? Is this hypocrisy? Well, not exactly, because back then the writing was at least decisive and wasn't telling you they were also respected members of their organization while they were splitting up over being unsuccessful *while, in yet another episode, it was telling you they're actually considered failures.* Nah, back Sinnoh Hoenn it was consistent failure bad luck terribly beaten up stroke of events. BW was at least a consistent professional focus and trying to keep their shit together, aware of their history of failure, and it wasn't entirely without help because they got some tech and Zager's chopper for this. And they didn't break up at any time, the only time they did (and so many people believed it lol) was a ruse. But having these schizophrenic constant failure disaster / but also pro and boss likes us / but also we are said to be TR failures / and also let's break up on a whim because we fail / but also we're respected and have nice life in a place to call home and finances for nice food / but also we don't have money we poor we need extra jobs. It's like, wow, nothing adds up at all, no matter how much wiggle room you're willing to give it. The food part is particularly telling. Back then in the old days they were visible poor, they never really ate well, they didn't have a place to call home with a fridge and all that. BW clearly they had some supplies and the food/money just wasn't the subject, they were supplied by HQ. But then it's all over the place
Not sure if they ever reappear in the anime. If they ever do, please let it be without Ash and Pikachu, or even better perhaps, make some kind of reboot (a real one, clearly different universe, perhaps even characterization differences/backstories done anew) and establish their characters anew for new viewers and more seriously this time, in a storied format, not just episodic. The legacy of these characters can certainly be felt but they hardly ever reached their full potential.
Man, between the announcement yesterday of a live action series, and now a collaboration with Hatsune Miku, Pokemon has been kind of unpredictable lately. 😂 Introducing Project Voltage!
Starting from Sept4 until Sept18, they will promote 18 artworks with the Pokémon Miku would choose if she was a type-specialized Trainer, and from Sept29, songs/music videos will be released from their Youtube channel, and will contain samples of music and sound effects from Pokémon.
Meh. Someone call me when they release a full-fledged side anime in the style of what they’ve been doing with these over-glorified short-lived YouTube videos or full score OST by Miyazaki for BW-SM period. Everything else sounds like they’re just doing this cheap tik-tok “fluff” and this live action series (about a regular person going back to play a game boy? really?) sounds like a freaking joke. What kind of brain washing is this? Next gen game = even bigger letdown graphically and engine-wise, is it? LOL.
What makes Spinel an intriquing villain to follow in Pokémon Horizons is that, he's very cunning, clearly doesn't mind crossing lines in what is ethical and all, but... his main partner Pokémon is a Pokémon that evolves through FRIENDSHIP.
He is SHOWN to care for Umbreon. His Umbreon is shown to care for him. There's no hint of ill will towards either side. Spinel clearly, absolute certainly, cares for his Pokémon, Umbreon being the number one partner. This has me very intriqued on his character and makes me wonder what is ultimate motive in helping Gibeon is.
He seems information-hungry in how he tried learning whatever he could of the pendant when stalling for time to leave. When he made a breakthrough in figuring out Liko is the key (note, Amethio did not say a word about it), he snaps. Like he unlocked some huge information that makes him unable to control his collective coolness :D Idk, he just seems super intriquing to me and I am definitely interested in learning more about him.
hey i hope it’s okay for me to add onto this (if not lmk and i’ll delete it!) but i have also been thinking about this, especially the point about what makes him work with Gibeon!
i’ll put it under the cut bc it accidentally got kinda long. whoopsie
Spinel is clearly very intelligent and thorough, taking a more analytical approach gathering info on the RVT in comparison to Amethio’s tendency to prefer a face-to-face battle. With his skills in information-gathering as well as pokemon battling (even if his pokemon individually might not be the strongest, he clearly knows how to utilize their strengths well, as we’ve seen with Magneton and Beheeyem already) he could do well in any number of jobs or tasks, what have you. Surely with his intelligence, he would understand the potential risk of working for Gibeon.
So is it some sort of personal loyalty or debt? Is it a case of him having an insatiable curiosity, and Gibeon promised him thrilling mysteries? Is he even loyal at all and is actually more like a mercenary type character, planning to dip as soon as he gets what he wants from Gibeon? (These are all me just spitballing, i feel like there’s some deeper reasoning and i can’t help but remember him saying something like “we explorers exist solely to fulfill Master Gibeon’s wishes,” so i really don’t know, unless that was more literal and the Explorers genuinely were made.)
Anyways i don’t really have anything of substance to add, it’s just a case of having to wait and see and me being really excited and having all sorts of ideas haha. I can’t wait to see how everything unfolds!
He seems to be loyal and straight to the point with his tasks as long as they are considered regular ones but as soon as things turned out to be too interesting he started snooping around and withholding information. I can imagine his pokemon will have to rescue him from even bigger trouble once he losses himself in the research and/or figures out Gibeon's plans. Although, depending on what's the entire deal with GIbeon, Spinel might be actually the ideal candidate to have "in the know" other than the older guy, who clearly has some idea what's going on, I think, so what awaits Spinel for this course of action might be actually a promotion not punishment. But we really know nothing about it which makes this series very interesting indeed
WhiteTomorrow! @its-whitetomorrow - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
