Who else actually felt sorry for villains who constantly lose?

Who else actually felt sorry for villains who constantly lose?
For example I always wanted Team Rocket to win no matter how evil they may be because they try so hard.. What are some examples for you Sup Forums?

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every episode of tom and jerry

Planton. willie e coyote

With a combination of him being so fun to watch, not being truly evil, his fantastic minions, and Sonic being at a few times almost insufferably smug, I often rooted for him when watching the show.

Not Sup Forums, but by halfway through Mazinger Z, I wanted Dr Hell to win.

...

I think it's a fact that everyone rooted for Wile E.

There were probably plenty of people who rooted for Jerry, but I sure as heck didn't. He was a complete wad to Tom when he did nothing wrong at all.

>Who else actually felt sorry for villains who constantly lose?
I do. I'm an Imperial-fag from Star Wars. I know, every single Imperial character that is shown will die a painful and unfair death, and yet, I will find these characters more interesting than the main cast of protagonists and antagonists.

>jesse was an extremely impoverished kid who grew up in a bad scene, ends up hopping from one dead end to the next just trying to scrape together a happy life from the limited skills her background gave her
>implied to only work for team rocket because the alternative is likely homelessness
>meanwhile james is legitimately a really kind and caring friend to jesse and a skilled pokemon trainer
>he gets by on sound tactical decisions and having a strong bond with his pokemon rather than dumb ass luck and plot contrivances (like Ash)
>still gets curbstomped because lolbadguy

Remind me why they weren't the protagonists again?

They have won now, though.

youtube.com/watch?v=uIb5ZECHBl4

They're too old to be marketable to the demographic of children. That is also why Ash never ages and is still 10 years old (especially thanks to the Alola art style that makes Ash truly look 10).

Speaking of Pokemon Sun/Moon James still continues the tradition of charming Pokemons into following him instead of anything Jessie would do.

Wow, that's really well animated.

Last time I saw any of the pokemon anime they were wearing the black Team Rocker uniforms and were legit threats.

Then some disaster happened in Japan again that killed the current overarching plot... again, and their contact and the big pay off episode for their story arc that season got scrapped.

I've always been a little unnerved at how I tend to prefer villains to heroes.

>That heroic theme as Mimikyu goes in for the final blow.

That're not even trying to pretend we're not rooting for Team Rocket.

Why would I feel sorry for them? Team rocket stumbled on scams that worked countless times. They bring it on themselves

Yeah.

Didn't mind villains losing in general, like as a concept (ex. a Disney villain getting killed or whatever), but when it's a TV show and every episode they fail it just gets tiresome because they never had any hope of winning in the first place. Can't think of any examples offhand because now it feels like shitty writing to me-- a character that always loses but is still meant to somehow come off as a threat.

Strangely I wasn't bothered by Tom and Jerry/Road Runner shit though. I guess for that certain characters tending to lose was more the premise of the entire thing and so I didn't care.

Probably because villains are usually presented as immoral but GROUNDED characters. Why do you think the most common formula of an anime for example is this:

"Villain is educated and has a logical plan that has a lot of thought into is. Hero is a literal dumbass, who usually likes to eat a lot, and punches things around to overpower others with the power of Bad Writing."

Is it any wonder people root for the villains who obviously have to think, and work hard to achieve their schemes? Villains do not have to rely on the power of friendship to even pay their subordinates, they got to have actual merit and value to satisfy their underlings and keep them on their pay roll. A hero never has to worry about that shit because "Muh friends" is enough to destroy all logic and nonsensical gather a large amount of followers.

So again, villains though evil live by the grounded rules of reality often enough. That makes them more intriguing and even charismatic.

Has there ever been a show about a character like that who has to regularly fight different dumb shonnen protagonists?

Because that sounds like something I'd watch.

Each week another super powerful idiot comes to town who could kill everyone or destroy everything by accident and the main character has to use his wits, contingency plans, personnel, and whatever else available to them to keep that from happening.

I would understand if you were rooting for Ashura, but Dr. Hell?

What, you wanna give them a participation Pikachu? They are huge failures and deserve to lose when they are constantly beaten and outsmarted by a teenager

>What, you wanna give them a participation Pikachu?
Well, if you look up here.

>Team Rocket
>Evil
Also they won just a few weeks back

I just realized how horrible it must be for villains like this. Years of planning and turmoil only to lose in a a day or a week at most.
It's even worse for ancient evils who spent who knows how long locked away only to lose right away.

>dies irae

Hitting a downed battler is just poor sportsmanship, but Mimikyu just hates that rat so much. What a hero.

Anyway, back on topic, I always thought this motherfucker should have won at least one race.

Ash is truly the worst, I still don't know anyone who likes him.

You know it begs the question, what would reoccurring villains like TR do after they win? All they've ever done is go after Pikachu and the only reason Giovanni thinks they're any good is because he thinks they helped take down the region's evil team when it was Ash.

>Hitting a downed battler is just poor sportsmanship, but Mimikyu just hates that rat so much. What a hero.

That was almost certainly intended to be a kill shot on Mimikyu's part; pretty much everything it says is creepy to the point that Meowth just refuses to translate it.

>Its "talking" just sounds like it's constantly choking
He's my ace in S/M but that's just damn creepy

>cucked by Bewear

Worst comes to worst James is loaded.

>Remind me why they weren't the protagonists again?
They kept on trying to steal people's Pokemon.

Famalamma, you gotta remember that Dick Dastardly was so goddamn fast and good at driving that we was able to be ahead of EVERYONE in the race at all times. With time to spare to set up traps. And then even more time to watch them set off the traps and then move up ahead of theme again with his insane skills.

Winning the races was meaningless to him. To him fucking with everyone was his own personal challenge.

Set their sights on a new target?

Remember though, his inheritance is blocked off unless he marries that S&M queen who looks like Jessie that will lock him in a leather dungeon.

>Dick_Dastardly
always seemed like the classic example, really. I guess it helped that the stakes were mostly just a race, but also that he seemed to sabotage his own chances so much

Yeah, he's a villain who does it for the sake of villainy. A true craftsman of the art of dickery where the scheme is its own reward.

Weird how the character he's based on actually did win the race, but refused to accept his victory due to the way in which he won.

Were there even prizes for those racers?

>Remember though, his inheritance is blocked off unless he marries that S&M queen who looks like Jessie that will lock him in a leather dungeon.
So, kidnap the crazy bitch, have Jesse pose as her, get married.
Or just, I dunno, STEAL the fucking money.

This is James we're talking about. He's too mild mannered to do something that devious.

Jessie and Meowth would have to be pulling the strings, and James wouldn't have any of that.

Remember, James' parents faked their own deaths just to lure him back home. He wants no part of that bullshit crazy pie.

>the character he's based on
Evil Knieval?

it's a matter of pride, making his own way in the world without so much as paying lip service to his parents or their fortune

I thought he was based off of Professor Fate from The Great Race, but I might have that wrong since I think that character was inspired by Terry-Thomas' "British cad" act in various other race films from the time.

>This is James we're talking about. He's too mild mannered to do something that devious.
Kind of means he's in the wrong line of business then, doesn't it?

>He's too mild mannered to do something that devious.
Honestly him and Jessie and Meowth can probably lead much better lives outside of TR. They're masters at disguises, are amazing cooks, and are super good actors. Plus Meowth can talk which can probably make bank somehow.

Oh yeah, I used to root for his crazy ass every week. I knew he'd probably suck at leadership because his plans to seize it were always terrible, but Megatron's plans were always stupid too, so it seemed like Starscream should get a chance to call the stupid doomed plan of the week once in a while, if just to wipe that smug grin off Megatron's stupid face.
Transformers ended for me when Starscream's voice actor quit. (Same for G.I. Joe, where he was Cobra Commander, the best damn villain in 80s TV. I continued to watch for a while, but it was never the same without him.)

I always thought it was stupid of Giovanni to not see the value in a TALKING Meowth who can translate pokemon speak.

That's worth way more than any Pikachu.

Not sure if I remember right, but didn't he just use Meowth as a servant to just bring him food but paired him with Jessie and James because he was annoying? Giovanni seems to only want pokemon that are powerful, Meowth talking isn't something useful to him based on that goal.

A translator could easily get information from wild pokemon about the whereabouts of other pokemon, their territories, their strength levels, where to find them and when.

Seriously, Giovanni deserves all the failure he gets for dropping the ball this hard.

Meowth just doing the things he does for Jessie and James (recon) on a larger scale for the organization as a whole would be a huge boon for them.

What abount Baron Fel?

Jessie and James are actually fairly complex.

They see all other Pokemon as objects to gain, but are still against excessive cruelty.
They see Meowth and Wobuffet as an equals and their own Pokemon as friends.
Their Pokemon have very strict ideas of trainer/Pokemon responsibility, with Koffing outright refusing to obey ANYONE other than James himself and literally stating that "regardless if James does bad things, neither he or Koffing are bad people".

Then there's James's semi-retarded Victreebell and the Gyarados who hates him. Both products of his apparent skill/luck regardless of his inability to raise anything properly.

Shit, in the first movies they actually got their shit together and helped save the world so they do have some degree of responsibility.

Why they're wasting their childhood (both are 16 remember) chasing some ten year olds isn't clear though. They are clearly allowed to remain in TR despite never really achieving anything more than intel simply due to some residual plotline from the original game where Giovonni becomes obsessed with the protagonist AKA Ash. He gives no fucks in the anime, so its a bit strange but helps to remember they never really cost him money either; only losing at his gym once.

In reference to their relationship to Giovanni in the anime seeAlso
>both are 16
Is that official? Because the english dub made them seem older but then again that's how most english versions of Japanese media goes.

They tried to use Meowth to make money once, he got stage fright and froze up.

I love TR, but they bring about their own misfortunes on themselves. They're easy as hell to sympathize with, but at the same time they're still criminals.

>Chris Latta
>quit
user, he died.

>it's a Seth MacFarlane gets it right episode

youtube.com/watch?v=1jHU2bbLJIQ

Huh, I had heard he quit, and THEN died.

Guess he quit life

In one of the mangas they are 16. In the Japanese anime they were Ash's age until the series implied they were older teens. In the US version they were simply older teens. Then in one episide an old woman claims Jessie is 120 with Jessie saying that's ten times her real age, making her 12 although Meowth snarks about her terrible math. She puts down an application as age 17, and in a Japanese audio story CD they are identified as in their early 20's. Later episodes going into the backstory of the two imply James is old enough to marry as an adult and Jessie had flunked out of two colleges, making them at the absolute youngest 22. Yet characters who are under 18 call them kids.
So...they are young. That's all that can be said.

Bonus facts I learned looking that up.
Apparently in the Japanese version Jessie's mother was a Team Rocket researcher killed by an avalanche trying to find Mew which is why she grew up poor, as a foster child. Apparently she kept failing everything she attempted and was backstabbed by every romance until she got into a bike gang with James.

Yeah, I checked and IMDB says he quit working on Transformers in 1987, and quit working on G.I. Joe in 1992, but he died in 1994, apparently of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Extra fact. In a lot of Pokemon parodies characters are shown fighting Pokemon themselves or physically using one as a weapon against another. In the setting, Jessie is the only character who has done either by ohysically kicking a Pokemon into unconsciousness before catching it and using one like a (water)gun.

Ash punched Mewtwo if that counts.

Also, apparently he got called to his son's school once to talk to the principal, because his son kept telling everyone that his dad was Cobra Commander, like for real you guys, and when he got there Chris looked the principal in the eye, put on the voice, and said "but I am."

Glorious.

According to Power of One, they're both mentioned as 25 in the Japanese sub.

That was nearly a decade ago, user.
They've probably retconned that by now.

God I'd date Meowth

I don't know if even a single year has passed in-universe.

At first they bled money like crazy, but it's because they were good members to begin with that they were trusted with those funds. Johto had them constantly being followed by Delibird to collect their debt. Giovanni sent them to Hoenn to make it ontheir own and to leave him alone, telling them to build a base for Team Rocket in Hoenn. However they reported the presence of rival teams (Magma and Aqua) and then took credit for them disbanding. Giovanni didn't necessarily trust them, but sent them for intel in Sinnoh since another Team was emerging. They ended up teaming up with Looker who mistook them for good guysto fight Team Galactic, and told Giovanni they were responsible. It's why he started trusting them more as competent members of Team Rocket. Basically their greatest asset was being better at dismantling rival teams than actually helping Team Rocket. Considering they had a hand in taking down Galactic, Plasma, and Flare, it seems they have pretty good job security.

From the start of Ash's journey to the start of his journey in Kalos, he's still the same age in the dub.
Even though the first movie had him mention a whole year passing since first meeting Pikachu.

Sometimes it's better not to read too much into 20+ year videogame commercials.

There are literally more episodes of pokemon then there are days in a year.

Exactly my point.
Never mind that many of them take place over multiple days.
I can somewhat see why people enjoy those ridiculous "Ash is in a coma" theories.

Holy shit I haven't thought about Miyamoto in years.

Or "humans are Pokemon, Ash and his friends haven't evolved into teenagers".

Considering that Pokemon and humans were once the same and even married it's in-game canon, in case you didn't know that at least has some backing to it.

I mean, it doesn't stop it being ridiculous, but it's got something behind it.

It's a bit of a disappointment, but on the other hand it lets team rocket win occasionally or do other things without forcing the writers to have them blast off (and thus lose) every time.

Wait, does it mean you can fuck Meowth and it won't be wrong?

Biologically, it should be fine.
Cultural standards change, though.

Also Meowth lost the ability to do certain moves at the cost of speaking english

I have literally never heard that theory before.

It's kinda neat, actually.

Wonder what she'd look like in the newer style.

The first episode my father ever saw was the one where James returned to his parents' house and gets harassed by the girl who looked like Jessie. He legitimately thought Team Rocket (or at least James) were the protagonists. That being said, James pretty much was the protagonist of that episode, with neither Ash, Brock nor Misty doing really anything other than being there.

It's hard not to root for him when he's easily the most entertaining part. Plus I really liked Scratch and Grounder. I'm not sure if it was pity for their stupidity or not.

...

Jack Spicer. The only reason I watched all the way through Xiaolin was because I wanted him to get a win that wasn't instantly reversed and/or was significant in some way.

I always thought that he was a reference to Snidely Whiplash.

Where did it say you can marry?

I knew they ate pokemon in ancient timed, but when did it say they married?

Jap diamond/pearl in the library

If I recall correctly didn't Jessie want to be a pokemon nurse but just couldn't afford the schooling? And I remember that James ran away from home to escape his arranged marriage with some sadist. They are pretty much victims of their circumstances.

The anime creator stated he added James and Jessie because there were too many rules about what he could and couldn't do with ash and company and wanted some characters he could write with absolute freedom

Yeah sure use like 6 Pokemon against Pikachu wathever

Jessie was impoverished and alone.
James was a lonely rich kid with insane parents.

Both I think ended up at the same pokemon school, then flunked out and joined a bike gang, then separated for a while.

Jessie went on to try nursing, but couldn't make the grade and I forget what James did.

Then they met again when they both joined Team Rocket.

Eh, it started for just Baron Ashura, but towards the end, my sympathies just expanded outwards to both him and Brocken, especially once Gorgon began insulting them all the time. They were so, well, pathetic.

The one time he tried to win fair and square he should have won it.

The Pokemon that did most of the fighting are ones that Team Rocket either just acquired or haven't had all that long while Pikachu has participated in hundreds of fights.

It's pretty much like somebody beating the final boss right out of the gate with their starter and the first few Pokemon they encountered.

>both are 16 remember)


Retcon.

They were 25 originally.

>For example I always wanted Team Rocket to win no matter how evil they may be because they try so hard
Then go watch Pokemon Black & White season

But I heard that season is awful

>having a strong bond with his pokemon rather than dumb ass luck and plot contrivances (like Ash)
Are you implying that Ash doesn't have a strong bond with his Pokemons?
You recall wrong
>However, because she was not a Chansey, Jessie couldn't do things like use Sing to soothe Pokémon, instead falling asleep herself

Willy E. Coyote.
Does everything right, still universe and all laws of physics play against him.

Take the latest Pokémon movie
>Join the villain with his plan capturing Magearna, a Mon/Robot hybrid.
>Use Magearna as source of a giant weapon
>They're winning
>Meowth notes that Magearna is suffering/in pain and close to dying.
>They IMMEDIATELY turn on the villain.

Same with the final battle against Lysandre. I fucking love it when TR get's heroic or dangerous

Jessie went to a nursing school not knowing "Pokemon Nurse" in that case meant Pokemon who are nurses (she thought it was mixed) and nobody told her until graduation day due to her actually being good at it.

Jessie and James met at and flunked out of the same tech school before that.

She also tried dancing and failed, while her first love succeeded. Instead of doing Pokemon beauty contests like most failed performers she hooked back up with James and joined a bike gang, then Team Rocket.

Now I guess she's a Rocket professor.

There's been like seven retcons back and forth.