Pokemon’s Anime Now Has A More Dangerous Team Rocket Than Ever

The Pokemon anime franchise has seen many changes over the course of its run. Varied visuals, characters, regions, Pokemon, stories, and more, but there have always been a few constants. Along with almost never changing Ash and Pikachu, Jessie, James, and Meowth of Team Rocket have always been around chasing after the duo. Their motives have varied from season to season, and their competence has varied wildly as well. Although they’ve always been strong trainers, their shenanigans (and maybe narrative convenience) often keep them from making any major progress. But that might change with their run in the newest iteration of the series.

Not only did they make their return to the newest iteration of the series with their best intro sequence yet, they are the most dangerous than they ever have been. Because this newest series returned them to the Kanto region, tight oversight from Giovanni himself has given the duo a whole new edge that’s probably going to cause chaos down the line.

In a previous episode of the series, Giovanni gifted them with a special Gacha machine full of powerful Pokemon. In the episodes since, each time they have arrived they unleash two new random Pokemon with powerful attacks. This was the case with Episode 8 of the series, and it showed them at their most dangerous yet as the two random Pokemon this time around were a Machamp and Beartic.

Ash and Go were participating in a special arctic race in the Sinnoh region, and were stuck on a boat when Team Rocket tried to capture all of the racing Pokemon. It’s here that the two use Machamp and Beartic, and these Pokemon have been trained well. James even goes the extra mile and has Beartic use Thrash on the ship itself, and nearly throwing off one of the new characters introduced for the episode.

But while they are at their most dangerous, this randomness of their usable Pokemon makes it even more nailbiting. There’s a chance that some of the random ones won’t be too great (which is unlikely given that it was devised by Giovanni himself), but they’re no longer locked down by whatever Pokemon they manage to come across in the region of the season. Ash and Go are going to have to watch out and make sure they take Team Rocket seriously from now.

Are you excited for this new edge to Team Rocket? Think they’ll be the same anyway? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter! Pokemon: The Series, is now airing new episodes weekly in Japan, but unfortunately is still not officially licensed for an English language release as of this writing. There’s also a brand new film on the way to Japan this Summer, Pokemon the Movie: Coco.