The most famous villains in the Pokémon franchise are without a doubt the members of Team Rocket. While casual fans are likely to think of the trio of Jesse, James, and Meowth and their slapstick antics in the anime, Team Rocket is actually a massive mafia-style organization with a huge role to play in series lore. Despite featuring heavily in the anime and in several games, there’s still a lot that’s not known about Team Rocket, however—especially when it comes to their leader.
The leader of Team Rocket is a man by the name of Giovanni, who uses his role as Viridian City’s gym leader as cover for his more illicit activities. He’s famously associated with the large cat Pokémon, Persian, and is often shown petting it in his lap while communicating from the shadows. Persian makes sense as his Pokémon in the anime, as it draws a contrast to the less successful Meowth of the Team Rocket trio, but why is it that Giovanni has such strong ties with Persian in other media? With many other, more powerful Pokémon at his disposal, there’s never been a clear reason why Persian would receive such special treatment. Even the most dedicated of fans likely won’t have an answer to that question, but an obscure manga from the early days of the series offers one explanation.
While the title may sound like a modern day Isekai manga, How I Became A Pokémon Card is actually a series that provides some context to the scenes depicted in the artwork of early Pokémon trading cards. The scenes depicted in cards are usually pretty self explanatory, but TCG artist and creator of this manga, Kagemaru Himeno, uses the opportunity in some interesting ways. The most noteworthy might be chapter 17, where the manga explores the story surrounding the Persian card from the original TCG Jungle set.
The manga’s Persian is shown fleeing from poachers, becoming injured in the process. A young boy stumbles across the Pokémon curled up under a tree (as depicted on the card) and tries to help it, but it’s very defensive and takes swipes whenever he tries to draw close. This goes on for several days, until the boy finds Persian unconscious. He carries Persian to a Pokémon doctor in town, who tells the boy that Persian will be okay after treatment. But when the boy leaves, the doctor calls the poachers, who come to take it away. The boy sees the poachers coming and pleads with the Persian to trust it, and together they destroy the poachers’ truck and escape. There’s then a shift to Giovanni musing to his Persian about their long relationship, before a trainer (likely game/manga protagonist Red) shows up for what he believes will be his final battle.
It’s interesting to compare this backstory for Giovanni and Persian to his later activities as an adult. The incident would seemingly give Giovanni reason to dislike Pokémon poachers, but Team Rocket’s primary activity is stealing and trafficking Pokémon. Indeed, the manga’s poachers are shown only in silhouette and appear dressed in a manner similar to Rocket grunts. Did Team Rocket exist before Giovanni, or was he the founder, as has sometimes been implied? Is it possible that Giovanni worked his way up to be the boss of Team Rocket as part of some quest for vengeance?
The story does offer a reason for why Giovanni is willing to respect the rules of Pokémon battling and surrender to Red after being defeated: he, too, has strong bonds with his Pokémon, and can acknowledge that Red’s prowess is a result of the bonds that he shares with his team. In most incarnations, Giovanni disbands Team Rocket after his loss to Red in Viridian City. While this origin story doesn’t redeem Giovanni or make his actions as boss less evil, it does provide a bit more nuance to a character that’s often rather one dimensional.
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