Team Rocket

Team Rocket are a criminal organization, with their headquarters in the Kanto Region and the Johto region and a branch in Sevii Islands. They are headed by Giovanni, who also doubles as the Viridian City Gym Leader.

Team Rocket's main goal was obtaining powerful and rare Pokémon to help their criminal syndicate in the hopes of someday taking over the world. They obtain these Pokémon by regular capture, or more often, theft. In addition to this they also perform inhumane experiments on Pokémon to further enhance their power.

Anime
Team Rocket, in the anime, have a Base of Operations in Kanto and are headed by Giovanni. Their headquarters were once located in between Pallet Town and Viridian City but has since been destroyed. It is now in an unknown location inside of a large canyon. Team Rocket has also been shown to have branches in the Johto Region and other areas in Kanto.

Jessie, James and Meowth
Featured more often than the Team as a whole are Jessie, James and Meowth. These three are a small group of members that follow around Pokémon Trainer Ash Ketchum. They were first shown in the episode Pokémon Emergency! in an attempt to steal Pokémon from the Viridian City Pokémon Center, and were defeated by Ash. Ever since then, they have mainly focused their attention on Ash in hopes of stealing his Pikachu. However they always fail and have been defeated hundreds of times with them blasting off into the sky. The trio's persistence has led them to every region Ash has been to including Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova and currently in the Kalos Region. Since Ash started going to regions where Team Rocket branches are not located, they also double as founders of new branches in the region, although according to Cassidy, this is just a plot to keep them away so that they won't ruin Giovanni's plans. So far they attempted (but failed) to form new Team Rocket branches in the Orange Islands, Hoenn, and Sinnoh.

Jessie, James, and Meowth are generally considered failures, as they almost are never successful in their schemes and are incompetent. Giovanni regularly refers to them as "a bumbling trio" and never wants them around his big plans as they "can't do anything right". He thinks that this trio is so incompetent that he even considered firing them but he does not because he cannot allow incompetence to enter his office after their leaving. Despite this fact they always strive to please their boss, and are very persistent in doing so.

Although they have been defeated by Ash and his friends at times, sometimes they are shown to be great strategists when trying to catch Pikachu. They have shown great use of mind strategy against Ash and his friends in the episode Bound For Trouble, and they lured them right into the trap before catching Pikachu, and also in We're no Angels!, they are seen using back opponent's mecha weapon to counter back their opponent. Throughout almost the whole series, they have at least one Pokémon that knows smokescreen or haze (e.g. Weezing, Seviper, Yamask) that would temporary blind and immobilise their opponents to aid themselves during their missions. They proved to be more superb strategists in Best Wishes! Season, such as in the episode Crisis from the Underground Up!. Other than that they are also experts in disguise. Their disguise dressing are most of the time successful that no one suspects them as Team Rocket until they reveal themselves.

In the 14th season (Black and White), they received a promotion to advanced agents after they make a contribution to disbanding Team Galactic by helping Detective Looker sneak into Team Galactic headquarters at Mount Coronet. However they took all the credit to their boss, lying about single-handed defeat of Team Galactic and J|Pokémon Hunter J, and they no longer serve as comic relief and have become more of a serious enemy. With their promotion, they received the official Team Rocket Grunt black uniforms, but they later changed back into to their original, white uniforms in Battling for the Love of Bug-Types!. In Best Wishes! Season 1, they didn't "blast off" yet and most of the time they will quickly retreated when they failed to capture Pikachu or any other Pokémon they have planned to steal by escaping in air via para glider or jetpacks, but after they returned in Season 2 Episode N, they started "blasting off" again. The trio have gained impressive athletic, hacking and infiltration abilities since arriving in their promotion and have made capturing Pikachu less of a concern, instead focusing on major Team Rocket plans that will ultimately lead to conquest of Unova and the entire planet.

Other Members
Besides Giovanni, Jessie, James, and Meowth there have also been other Team Rocket members featured multiple times or having large roles. Another duo is Butch and Cassidy, who have been in multiple episodes and are the rivals of Jessie and James. Along with them is Attila and Hun who pursue Jimmy as Jessie and James pursue Ash. There are also non field agents that work as scientists such as Dr. Namba and Professor Sebastian. There have only been a small number of Team Rocket Officers shown but such officers include Domino and Vicious. These high-ranking officers work solo and are considered the best in Team Rocket.

Members
The following are members of Team Rocket. (Members with an asterisk to the side of their name means they are part of the manga).
 * Bosses: Giovanni/Madame Boss*/Masked Man**
 * Rocket Executives: Archer/Ariana/Proton/Petrel/Grey*
 * Elite Officers: Miyamoto*, Domino*, Vicious*
 * Officers: Tyson*, Attila*, Hun*, Keane**
 * Spies: Annie* and Oakley* (dub only)
 * Agents: Cassidy*, Butch*, Jessie, James
 * Manga Agents: Ken**, Al**, and Harry**, with Carr**, Sird** and Orm**
 * Sergeants: Viper*, Lt. Surge**
 * Commanders: Karen**, Will**, Sabrina**, Koga**
 * Scientists: Professor Sebastian*, Professor Fuji*, Dr. Namba*, Dr. Zager*
 * Others: Wendy*, Matori*, Rocket Scout*, Mondo*, Sham**, Pierce*, Christopher*

* - Anime only

** - Pokémon Adventures only

Games
Team Rocket has appeared in various games including the Generation I, Generation II, and Generation III's FireRed and LeafGreen games. In Pokémon Yellow, Team Rocket's Jessie and James also appear in several locations and battle the player.

Kanto
Team Rocket in the original, Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen games appear throughout the game. They first appear in Mt. Moon and then are conducting their plans in Saffron City, the Game Corner in Celadon City and the Pokémon Tower.

According to the Lavender Town residents, Team Rocket killed several Pokémon, including Marowak. Pokémon Tower was built in honor of the dead Pokémon. Team Rocket's main headquarters used to be in the Game Corner at Celadon. They were careful to guard the secret button, but the player eventually discovers the button, which introduces the player to Giovanni whom the player battles occasionally. The two times the player fights him, Giovanni leaves behind the Silph Scope and the Master Ball.

Towards the end of the game, Giovanni is revealed to be the missing Viridian City Gym Leader and he was attempting to rebuild Team Rocket in his gym. Like all of his encounters with the player, he is defeated and gives up the Earth Badge.

Sevii Islands
In the Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen versions, they also appear in the Sevii Islands. A pair of them appear in Mt. Ember where they search for the Ruby and in Icefall Cave where they are fought off with Lorelei's help. After a scientist retrieves the Sapphire from the dotted hole, the player can access their warehouse on Five Island and defeat the Grunts, Admins and the Scientist to get it back.

Johto
They return to Johto three years later. In Azalea Town, they threaten to cut off Slowpoke tails and sells them. When the player reaches the Lake of Rage he/she will discover that Team Rocket was behind the Red Gyarados incident, and will join forces with Lance in an attempt to pull the plug. Team Rocket is eventually defeated, and in a last resort they take over the radio tower and hope to contact Giovanni, but are once again stopped. They are disbanded the last time.

Trivia

 * The duos in Team Rocket, in English, are named after infamous outlaws. Such as the American outlaws Jesse James and Butch Cassidy, Hunnic warlord Attila the Hun and Annie Oakley, an expert sharpshooter.
 * The anime gag of blast offs may have originated from Team Rocket. According to the episodes, Jessie, James, Meowth, and their Pokémon have blasted off over 700 times and stopped their gag when they reached Unova, but the gag returned in Adventures in Unova. Other Team Rocket members have blasted off as well, including Butch and Cassidy and several Team Rocket Grunts.
 * Jessie, James, and Meowth are considered to be the three stooges of Pokémon because their plans never work and are actually more funny than evil. However, they lost their position as the three stooges when they reached Unova.
 * In the Pokémon Adventures manga, Giovanni reveals what the initials for Rocket stand for: Raid On the City, Knock out, Evil Tusks.
 * It is noted that Team Rocket and their Pokemon has blasted off more than any other characters in the series, however seperatley Jessie has blasted off more than 500 times excluding James and Meowth; James has blasted off more than 400 times excluding Jessie and Meowth; Meowth has blasted off more than 600 times doubling Jessie and James blasts off; Wobbuffet has blasted off more than 200 times; and Inkay and Gourgeist each have blasted off more than 100 times. Butch and Cassidy have blasted off 10 times in the series with two of their blast offs being caused directly by Ash and co and the other eight caused by Delia Ketchum, Ritchie, Professor Oak, Gary, and Tracey.
 * Sometimes when the three blast off, Jessie's Wobbuffet, James' Inkay, and Jessie's Gourgeist can be heard.
 * Team Rocket and Ash Ketchum seem to have a difficult relationship, despite both being hostile to each other. They are also instances when Ash and Team Rocket seem to care for each other. In "Noodles Roamin off" Ash even jokingly mentioned Team Rocket and their blast-offs in a positive way.
 * Sometimes, after Jessie, James, and Meowth have agreed to try what they think is a genius plan, they will in unison sing a rhythmic, rhyming short song about how it's going to make them rich. This started happening progressively more up until they reached Unova.
 * Team Rocket have appeared more than any other villainous group.
 * One of Team Rocket's line in their motto "A rose by any other name's just as sweet" is a nod to "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" which is a famous quote from Romeo and Juliet.
 * Team rocket has been included in almost every episode.