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Why were the black TR uniforms even designed?

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Cybersai

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Am I the only one who doesn't get this? They gave TR new outfits at the start of BW, which went up to BW25 until they reverted back to white. But since TR's personalities didn't change back, why didn't they just keep them in their black outfits the entire arc?

At this point its now been around another 25 episodes of TR in their white outfits, with no indication if they'll ever switch back to the black ones.

Why did they even redesign TR in the first place? Its as if they gave Ash a new outfit, but then reverted him back to his Kanto clothes for some reason.
 
More importantly: Why did they even redesign Sakaki/Giovanni in the first place? He's a mafia boss, not a general from Gundam...
 
martianmister said:
More importantly: Why did they even redesign Sakaki/Giovanni in the first place? He's a mafia boss, not a general from Gundam...
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Because his orange outfit reeked of 1998.

Giovanni should return too.
 
Maybe the writers just decided it was a bad idea to redesign TR after all and changed their outfits back to white.
 
Well, we don't exactly know what happened to the Rockets during the Plasma arc... But I'm making the assumption that black/trench coats means they have an active task that contributes to the Rockets vs. Plasma plot, and white means... they don't.
 
Dunno, I guess it was to just introduce their new sinister approach.
 
Maybe because the black uniforms symbolized (as much as a kids' show would allow, of course) a change to seriousness. Back to white, they basically went back to their goofy selves. So I'm guessing after the TR/TP arc, their trenchcoats still "work" as the black uniform, but now that they are back in white, TR can still be their old selves...somewhat.
 
H.M said:
Maybe because the black uniforms symbolized (as much as a kids' show would allow, of course) a change to seriousness. Back to white, they basically went back to their goofy selves. So I'm guessing after the TR/TP arc, their trenchcoats still "work" as the black uniform, but now that they are back in white, TR can still be their old selves...somewhat.
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Even with the white uniforms, they've acted pretty much the exact same they did at the beginning of Best Wishes. They're still as serious as ever.

I'm pretty positive that the black uniforms represent when they are getting orders from the boss or doing something under his guidance. The white uniforms represent their independence; doing their own thing or with guidance from a TR member outside of the boss (Seger/Zagar). The white is also what separates them from the normal TR grunts.
 
Who knows. Just another thing on the list that proves they don't really know what to do with them this series.

Dreamy said:
I assumed that they designed them so that people (ie. the children who watch) won't confuse Teams Plasma and Rocket.
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Those two are to iconic already to be easily confused with Plasma...
 
IDK what to think until we see Plasma again. Either a) the writers thought black was a bad idea and changed them back to white, which would be kind of an embarrassing failure of attempting something visually new. I hope it's not because of that, because that would mean we won't see them in black again and herpderp the black uniforms were reeeeally nice-looking. That's why I hope b) it's strongly related to big projects that directly include Sakaki, like luring Plasma out of hiding. Maybe they will switch wardrobe every six months?
 
I was really disappointed when they went back to the white ones, tbh. They looked like such bamfs in the black ones. I thought maybe they'd go back to the black ones every time they got a new serious mission, but it looks like that's what the trench coats are for.

Another thing, they went back to the white ones in the episode where Kojiro caught Desumasu. The black uniforms are meant to be taken srsly, feeding Desumasu food and asking it to be your bro doesn't exactly give off a BAMF vibe.
 
They also stopped using the new Isshu motto music.

And the motto in the third gym battle episode was originally animated with them in their black uniforms, remember?

I'm thinking the writers' fucking up of the trio didn't go over as well as they had hoped and that they're now trying to backpedal a bit. It feels like they're trying to transition back to having the trio the way they were before the series (nevermind the fact that we got zero transition the other way around) by doing things like having them go back to white, giving the trio more goofy moments, not featuring Sakaki as much, having them blast off again, having Nyasu be in-character finally, etc.

I also wouldn't rule out the possibility that the writers have no fucking clue what they're doing.

Highway Unicorn said:
Another thing, they went back to the white ones in the episode where Kojiro caught Desumasu. The black uniforms are meant to be taken srsly, feeding Desumasu food and asking it to be your bro doesn't exactly give off a BAMF vibe.
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Walking around for about two dozen episodes without a single pokemon on-hand wasn't exactly doing him any favors, either.
 
Maybe the writers/animators prefer the white ones? Or maybe they were planning on having them go back to comic relief, only to abandon the idea, but decided to stick with the white ones?
 
Dogasu said:
And the motto in the third gym battle episode was originally animated with them in their black uniforms, remember?
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That's probably why Team Rocket's new uniforms were nothing more than a palette swap, so they could easily be changed back to white if need be.
 
Mystery to me. But that it has something to do with the missing episodes seems most probable. In my opinion, the episodes being skipped is the worst thing to happen to the anime thus far, besides Electric Soldier Porygon.

Or like some people have suggested, they wear the black uniforms when they're under Sakaki's direct orders, but in downtime, switch back to white.
 
WatcherMark said:
That's probably why Team Rocket's new uniforms were nothing more than a palette swap, so they could easily be changed back to white if need be.
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Why even bother to change them back? TR's personalities didn't change back. So why not leave them in their nice shiny new outfits, then the same white ones we've seen for 600+ episodes?
 
Because the writers don't care about us and have this need to make everything go back to normal. It's a thing in cartoons for everything to always go back to normal. lol
 
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