Team Rocket

is a fictional crime syndicate in the Pokémon franchise. Team Rocket is a primary antagonist in the original Pokémon video games Red, Green, and Blue, as well as in the long-running Pokémon anime TV-series. In the latter, Team Rocket is primarily represented through the trio of characters Jessie, James, and Meowth, who are major secondary characters throughout the Pokémon TV-series. Team Rocket is portrayed as a serious crime syndicate in the video games series, stealing and killing Pokémon. In the TV-series, Team Rocket has a largely comedic role, as they repeatedly fail to steal Pokémon while operating increasingly flashy mecha. The Team Rocket trio in the anime is beloved by Pokémon fans who relate to their roles as young adults and their queercoding. In video games Team Rocket first appeared in the video games Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue, where they are portrayed as a serious and affluent crime syndicate. The games present Team Rocket breaking and entering, murdering a mother Marowak, and chopping off the tails of Slowpoke to sell on the black market. In Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal, it is revealed that Team Rocket's leader Giovanni had disappeared after being defeated in the original games, and the syndicate is disbanded. Giovanni himself reappears in the 2009 remakes Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver. Each subsequent set of Pokémon video games has its own villainous teams, such as Team Aqua and Team Magma in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, and Team Galactic in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. Team Rocket and Giovanni returned as a major antagonist team in the 2017 video games Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, as "Team Rainbow Rocket"