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What is your opinion on Pokemon Journeys Team Rocket?

The Gacha, for me, just feels like the literal definition of a dues ex machina, or at least a broken watered down version of one, given that they always lose in the end. The fact that it requires Meowth's charm, there's a bunch of Poke balls in there that Jessie nor James know much about, there's papers letting them know what pokemon is in the ball like it's a children's toy, and don't even get me started on how Pelipper finds Team Rocket at the exact moment, flies to them at the exact moment, and doesn't get lost despite the thing getting lost and distracted multiple times when being sent to get ice cream. There's a weird plot hole there that I don't think anyone has addressed, and as small as it is, it bothers me a lot. There's no logic to it, no humor, and nothing really related to the world itself. It's just kinda there.

That perfectly summarizes Team Rocket in this series. They literally have no purpose in the narrative; they're not even there to provide conflict anymore, so there's really no reason to keep them around. Their goal is supposedly to catch Pikachu, as Journeys has had them say multiple times before, but we don't see them trying anymore? They just mention it on occasion to keep them believable, but this just makes them feel bland and one-note. The first focus episode they had was a loose rehash of an old OS episode, they had to deal with Morpeko for a good amount of time until the thing vanished into magical off-screen land, and they're receiving no development whatsoever. They just exist and are there. No conflict, no development, no impact on the narrative-you could lose nothing of value from Journeys if they had been removed entirely.

And that is the biggest problem with Team Rocket in this series for me.
 
They’re an afterthought but to be fair I don’t want them appearing in most eps again either.

Easily the most dated part of the older seasons, particularly Johto, AG and DP is that Team Rocket were in every single episode even ones they had no real reason to be in like the big battle episodes where all they did was waste screentime away from a battle. Besides that many old fillers also only had TR appear for about 5 minutes sprinkled throughout the ep to just steal Pikachu or the Pokémon of the day and get blast off in the end. That was just as repetitive.

I think people who haven’t rewatched Johto, AG or DP in a long time have probably forgotten how repetitive their roles were in most episodes back then. Just because they appear in an episode doesn’t mean they’re getting good screentime, since it was just the same routine most of the time. It’s why I said in the other thread sometimes it’s difficult to marathon the older seasons because you see the same repetition in most episodes back to back, mostly due to TR being shoehorned into a lot of episodes they could have been skipped in. Do people really think they had a reason to be in every single Johto, AG and DP episode? Probably not.
 
Picardluke said:
They’re an afterthought but to be fair I don’t want them appearing in most eps again either.

Easily the most dated part of the older seasons, particularly Johto, AG and DP is that Team Rocket were in every single episode even ones they had no real reason to be in like the big battle episodes where all they did was waste screentime away from a battle. Besides that many old fillers also only had TR appear for about 5 minutes sprinkled throughout the ep to just steal Pikachu or the Pokémon of the day and get blast off in the end. That was just as repetitive.

I think people who haven’t rewatched Johto, AG or DP in a long time have probably forgotten how repetitive their roles were in most episodes back then. Just because they appear in an episode doesn’t mean they’re getting good screentime, since it was just the same routine most of the time. It’s why I said in the other thread sometimes it’s difficult to marathon the older seasons because you see the same repetition in most episodes back to back, mostly due to TR being shoehorned into a lot of episodes they could have been skipped in. Do people really think they had a reason to be in every single Johto, AG and DP episode? Probably not.
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Have you watched SM? Because it literally utterly destroys every argument about the TR issues you’ve brought up in previous sagas.
 
Team Rocket is in Journeys?????

But in all seriousness, they are being thrown aside for terrible fillers and that one development episode that comes every 60 episodes. I miss TR being there in every episode because it added some plot at least. TR’s Pokemon is being treated worse. James’ Morpeko is assumed dead because it hasn’t been seen since JN072. Also why do they use the Gacha, it’s annoying and they should be using Morpeko. Jessie should have caught Chewtle and that way TR would have some presence in Journeys.
 
Oh yeah, I've just realised we haven't seen Giovanni (in the flesh might I add) since episode 3. Yes, since the start of the series.

Normally we'd see him appear every now and then to see how the TRio are doing or even with some other things (ya know, like with the whole Nanu thing in S&M that went nowhere) but here, it's like he can't be bothered at all.

They care so little about Team Rocket as a whole in this series that it's just embarrassing. The TRio barely ever show up and when they do they are reduced to the most basic of their traits (and they haven't been too funny either aside from one or two moments), Morpeko evacuated to off screen land, Matori's proven herself to be an absolute joke and errr, Giovanni who?
 
If it wasn't for that one episode back in September then we'd be in the middle of the longest Rocket Trio-less gap in the franchise's history.

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Part of me wonders if the showrunners saw how much people hated the Rocket Gachat and just decided that the best solution was to just stop having the Rocket Trio appearing altogether.
 
Why hasn't Morpeko reappeared since its capture?? An important person in the staff/directors seems to dislike the Team Rocket, that's my feeling… I also think that the writers don’t know what to do with the Team Rocket in this series… Something is blocking them. I have 2 absolute fears: seeing Team Rocket disappear and the return of their BW version ... Now it’s seems the 2 nightmare are together. (The gachat machine is a very bad thing too…)

I hope to see the cute and fun Team Rocket show up on December 3rd too and not only the serious robotic version of the preview…I'm so afraid…
 
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Jez said:
Why hasn't Morpeko reappeared since its capture??
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Not that it change much, but to be complete, I think Morpekko has reappeared at least once since its capture. However, it spended more time with Ash than with James that episode.

Its a shame we don't see more of it. It could be more in its relaxed form now its caught, it would be nice to see. However, I think it's a hard character to write because of the way it was writen up until now.

In the end, it's hard for Morpekko to reappear if TRio doesn't appear as much.

It would be funny, since it knows were Cerise Lab Parc is if it went back in the future just to eat some more, and leave again afterwards. Raichu (and Inteleon) would be happy to share some food again. Greedent less so.
 
Journeys really feels like the series where the staff and the story has outgrew Team Rocket. Ash's story is centered around battles, which have been proved to work better without Team Rocket, Goh's story is about him overcoming specific Pokémon challenges and Chloe's story is mostly slice-of-life stuff about her understanding the Pokemon world. The problem is that the writers don't make an effort for them to make meaningful contributions in those stories, as well as the other parts of the series:
  • Pokemon development episodes: They have had decent roles, but with all of the cast sans Grookey and Eevee being fully evolved (I'm not counting Pikachu for obvious reasons) I can see this type of episodes becoming much less common in 2022.
  • Fillers: Sometimes are used well, sometimes they are just there to pad the runtime.
  • Their own focus episodes: They have had 3 complete episodes so far (19, 24 and 70) so compared to SM they are very far in between. My guess is that when there are delays and hiatuses they are the first type of episodes to cut. Obviously, the lack of their own Pokemon also helps.
  • Subplots in episodes about something else: In SM they had plenty of them, but in Journeys they are almost impossible to find, which is a shame because it's one of the healthiest ways they could appear.
In conclusion, not only the writers feel less interested in them but it also feels like they are denying TR of chances to shine unlike in XY and SM. Does that mean they will be gone next series? Actually, no. It will happen when the producers want it to happen, whether it's in their lowest or highest point. But if it does happen, I'm sure that the outcry will be loud and that it will even reach fans who have left the series.
 
Please note: The thread is from 3 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.
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