Do you feel as if James' character is ignored in the more recent seasons?

C

Cybersai

Registered User
Joined
Mar 8, 2005
Messages
28,895
Reaction score
225
This is something I was thinking about. A lot of the characters still in DP have changed a lot since their first appearance, Ash matured considerably, Gary is a researcher (although we hardly ever see him, so I don't know if he counts as a DP character), and Jessie became a coordinator...a successful one too.

I know we talk about Brock being neglected all the time, but what about James? Unlike Jessie, he was never given any change in his role over the course of the series. We've seen all different sides of his personality, his parents and his upbringing, flashbacks to his past, his love for Pokemon like Mime Jr, Chimecho, Cacnea, etc...but otherwise he was never changed as a character much.

Outside of the eps where James catches or releases a Pokemon, when have we last had a James-centered episode? Do you feel as if the writers have ignored him as an individual, and only treat him as a TR member now?
 
You can see this in the summer school arc. James and Meowth have been shafted a bit. They've succumed to Jessie.

Everybody remembers how James started out, all gay and frilly. And it was awesome. I dont really remember when James stopped being so girly. The last I remember was his Johto episode when he dressed like Moltres.
 
I think the last James centered episode we had was the Pokemon orienteering episode where he won with Mime.Jr.

Nah, not really. James just seems to be treated like a wimp who can be bitchy in PUSA. Don't know about the original series.

I also think they couldn't really find a hobby with him. I mean Meowth dreams of the Boss and Jessie does contests. What can James do, not challenge Gyms, not breed?

Perhaps in 5th Gen they'll have something similar to contests in their participation.

@Mooties: personally I'm glad he stopped being so...flamboyant. It was getting on my nerves a bi lol.
 
Yes, he's being completely ignored! My only big complaint about the summer school arc is that once again Kojiro does nothing. The rare times Team Rocket is allowed to do anything these days it feels like only Musashi gets to do stuff, while Takeshi has participated in a number of events.

It really does feel like Takeshi gets to do more than Kojiro nowadays.

Edit:
Mooites said:
Everybody remembers how James started out, all gay and frilly. And it was awesome. I dont really remember when James stopped being so girly.
Click to expand...

He was only like that in the 4Kids dub.
 
Team Rocket in general has been shafted lately. It isn't so obvious with Jessie, as she has her role as rival Coordinator, and Meowth functions as translator and occassionly interacting with the twerps' or one-episode Pokémon. But James doesn't really have a specific niche that supports any non-TRio characters, so he's been more background lately. :O

It makes sense in-character, as James is the most submissive of the trio and will usually follow the orders of others. You gotta wish he had more individual roles, though. Although I'm struggling to come up with what they could do with him, aside from maybe returning to the crossdressing days of old.
 
Huh? I thought James was getting a ton of good character moments, and a lot of the TR-focused episodes seem to be about him. I'm pleased. And this is coming from a James fan, mind.

If anyone in TR is being neglected, it's Meowth. He's gotten nothing resembling development in years.
 
Lil Brother said:
Although I'm struggling to come up with what they could do with him, aside from maybe returning to the crossdressing days of old.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I never understood why the writers stopped James' crossdressing habits. He did it a lot in Kanto and a few times in Johto, but since then its almost never happened again.

Its actually disappointing, I always liked those scenes.
 
I think it would be interesting if Kojiro had sometime to do . . everyone has their own designated class, while James is just apart of Team Rocket.

He's smart, and I bet they could give him a really good new thing if they wanted to.
 
If every character brought up got as much attention as everyone wants, there'd have to be about 200+ episodes, with each about an hour long. The fact is, for some characters to get development, others have to take the back seat. We're not going to sit here with Ash, Dawn, Brock, James, Jessie, Meowth, the rivals, etc... all with a consistent journey. James is fulfilling his role as the comical antagonist with a sensitive side. What more do you want from him? Should he and Jessie both become coordinators? It's not gonna happen. Realistically each character is not going to have some kind of on-going adventure throughout the series.

The up-side to James is that he's had great character development throughout the series. He's had more dimensions to his character than almost any other, great coverage on his background story, and despite not being anything like a coordinator or something - still maintains entertainment episode in and out.
----

He was only like that in the 4Kids dub.
Click to expand...
If you're referring to the voice (which, obviously, you would be) then yeah, that was Eric Stuart's doing. But his character as a whole, Japanese or not, maintained frilly or feminine mannerisms at times, in addition to the crossdressing habits and such. So it wasn't really dub only.
 
Trainer'sInsomnia said:
If you're referring to the voice (which, obviously, you would be) then yeah, that was Eric Stuart's doing. But his character as a whole, Japanese or not, maintained frilly or feminine mannerisms at times, in addition to the crossdressing habits and such. So it wasn't really dub only.
Click to expand...

I can't think of anytime he had frilly or feminine mannerisms other than the rare times he crossdressed. Kojiro's voice is so deep at times it's hard to think of him like that in general.

I'm hoping the next generation of games come up with some new side quest that Kojiro could do. I have no idea what else they could have him do.
 
Scott85 said:
Yeah, I never understood why the writers stopped James' crossdressing habits. He did it a lot in Kanto and a few times in Johto, but since then its almost never happened again.

Its actually disappointing, I always liked those scenes.
Click to expand...

The last time James Crossdressed was in that Ninja Battle Frontier episode, where he was dressed as Jessie if I'm right.
 
Just before I saw this thread I was about to post asking a similar question. It used to be that James's disguises were always more feminine than Jessie's. However that "motif" seems to have been dropped. I wonder why?

My guess is that there were complaints about James's "flamboyancy" in a show for younger audiences and perhaps it was stereotyping a certain type of person.

not sure though
 
I think James care more about his Pokémon, just watch the ep Cacnea left and the ep after.
 
The whole reason Musashi's getting more screen time than Kojirou is because she's created this whole Musalina secret identity for herself that allows her to participate in regular activities with Satoshi-tachi without being detected. Thus, it instantly doubles the amount of plots she can have. That's why she was so prominent in the summer school arc. Heck, she's actually winning contests now, and I wouldn't be surprised if she makes it to the Grand Festival. Perhaps Kojirou could find some new role to play within Musashi's endeavors, thus giving him more to do on the show.

Still, when Kojirou does get the spotlight, it's usually pretty well done. His depression after giving up Sabonea was good for a subplot, at least.
 
They've always created secret identities for themselves. Kojoro and Nyasu have secret identities in the summer school arc too, it's just that those identities happen to be janitor type people.
 
Rocket Girl said:
They've always created secret identities for themselves. Kojoro and Nyasu have secret identities in the summer school arc too, it's just that those identities happen to be janitor type people.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but the main difference is that Musashi keeps using the same identity, and thus Musalina has practically become her own fully-developed character. Kojirou and Nyasu generally change disguises as the scenario dictates.
 
I think the problem is after 600 episodes you can only do so much with a character.

The main problem is just keeping characters too long and not really changing the format of the show. Hence all the complaining about Brock that's been going on for the last couple of years, the characters are stuck in their same roles and they can't really change since the format of the show is still the same.

With Ash it doesn't matter as much, but a lot of the other characters are starting to show their age.

Its why I hope the DP series wraps up Ash's adventure, the 5th gen is going to be mighty stale if we're forced to sit through the same cast yet again.
 
For old rabid fans like you, maybe. The target audience is still composed of very young children for whom the cast is still fresh.
 
I don't think characters being stale ios that much of an issue. Only 3 of the characters(James, Brock, and Meowth) could really be considered stale. And even then, at least James and Meowth have new mottos and Jessie's careers to keep them going.

Brock may need just a tad bit of reformating.

And someone said something about crossdressing and slight gayness in James not appearing anymore. Well, harley sort of fitted that bill for a while.
 
I've never seen that much gayness in James. Then again, I didn't watch the English dub as a child.

I still don't think he's gotten stale, especially when compared to Brock and Meowth.
 
Please note: The thread is from 17 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
Back
Top Bottom