James

James (Japanese: コジロウ Kojirou) is a member of Team Rocket, an evil team which tries to capture rare Pokémon. His trio has a keen eye on Ash's Pikachu.

Anime
In the anime, he is a common member of Team Rocket and in many ways, is the anime representation of the Male Agent. During his adventures in trying to capture Pikachu, James is part of a unit made up of himself, Jessie, and Meowth. He is close friends with the two of them, and is known to make personal sacrifices in order to keep them safe, as seen when he sacrificed his bottle cap collection to help Meowth in the episode Meowth Rules!. Although born into a rich family with loving parents, he runs away from home to avoid Jessebelle to whom he was supposed to marry later on. With a very caring and thoughtful personality, James can sometimes have a hard time dealing with the "rotten things" he and his team mates do from various times to get what they want, but in the end he fulfill his obligations with less-admirable results. He also gives out information on Pokémon whenever Meowth cannot do it himself via Index cards.

Out of the Team Rocket Trio, James is the most emotional and most caring towards others, as well as his Pokémon. In A Hole Lotta Trouble, he told Ash that he just wanted to have a fair battle with him rather than resort to their dirty tricks suggested by Jessie and Meowth. In Training Daze, he takes it upon himself to help Meowth whenever he gets stuck in the Obstacle Courses. In episodes like Sweet Baby James and Once There Were Greenfield, it also clearly shows his emotions and feelings towards his Pokémon when they are departing each other. It also shows his love and good cooperation with his Pokémon as seen in Off The Unbeaten Path and Holy Matrimony!, with his Growlie and Mime Jr. He is especially careful and cautious with his Chimecho, treating with additional care and not letting it suffer in battles, just like how Misty treats her Togepi. Due to His great care of his Pokémon, most of his Pokémon like to have physical contacts with him when they came out of their PokéBall. He also tend to be good to people who treat him well, like his grandparents, as seen in the episode Sweet Baby James. He was also seen comforting May when her Munchlax got sick along with his Chimecho in the same episode.

As of his, Jessie's and Meowth's promotion and transfer to Unova, James has become a highly skilled stealth artist, an excellent hacker, and is often successful in many missions with his team mates, to the point of the trio becoming a serious enemy for Ash and co. The trio were key in Team Rocket's Meteonite plan, taking order directly from Giovanni himself as well as his secretary. James and his team-mates worked together with Pierce and met Doctor Zager. Once the plan culminated, James and his team-mates were asked to be as they please in Unova, so they continued working hard to do Team Rocket good and now work closely with Zager. Ash has also become less important to them but they will still antagonize him if he interferes in their plans.

Voice Actors

 * Ed Paul (Season 1; IL002-IL008) (temp.)
 * Eric Stuart (Seasons 1 - 8, Movies 1 - 8) (4kids)
 * Jimmy Zoppi (Season 9 - present, Movie 9 - present) (PUSA/DuArt)
 * Japanese: Shin-ichiro Miki 
 * Italian: Simone D'Andrea
 * Greek: Fotis Petridis
 * Dutch: Bram Bart (ep1-ep368), Paul Disbergen (ep368-present)

Trivia

 * James' most recurring Pokémon are -Type. It is also interesting to point out that said Pokémon are the ones who show the most affection towards him via physical contact, even if James is annoyed with it. His friendly relationship with Gardenia also seem to emphasize that, as she claims that "those who own Grass Pokémon cannot be so evil", which is also true to some point if one considers he is the "less" evil member of the trio.
 * A running gag of the series is that James is almost always the female when he and Jessie disguise themselves as a couple.
 * Jessie and James are more successful in the Unova region.
 * James has stated that his hair color is lavender, not blue, in AG135: Numero Uno Articuno.
 * Jessie's and James' English names are derived from the notable outlaw Jesse James.
 * In one episode of the Anime (which is banned in the US) James is shown swearing at Kaiser.
 * In Pokémon XD: Gale Of Darkness, there is a trainer in Mt. Battle in zone 35 that has a Cacnea and Chimecho, who asks if you've seen anyone with the same Pokémon. This is an obvious nod to James, when he had those Pokémon in the Hoenn region.
 * Sometimes, Meowth calls him "Jimmy", a sort of nickname for people named James. He normally calls him that when he is confused about something that James knows or has said.
 * James has twice been the reason that a Magikarp has evolved into a Gyarados, once aboard the St. Anne , and another time during the Orange Islands series.
 * Both times, the Magikarp has evolved out of rage.