Rocketshipping General Discussion

[ii kanji]

Hey! Most definitely here and ready for Rocketshipping spam Let me start by sharing this AMAZING animatic I just found!! (People are so talented it's just unreal.):




Tell us a bit about your Rocketshipping background? How did you get into it?

 

[Chrysurus]

AGH THANK YOU FOR EXISTING Aaahhh this was the BEST video to wake up to. I had no idea these existed out there I always love them for different characters and fandoms and the like!! Also right?! People are so talented it blows my actual mind. I’ve read some real ART and seen some real ART.
I do art myself though I rarely draw people :,,) I’m more on the realism/animals side of things but this freaking fandom has got me drawing team rocket left and right. The power of fandom and pairings getting me to draw people HAHA

Do you write or make things? What do you like best?

I got into team rocket on complete accident. The greatest things are unplanned haha. I’ve always been DEEP into Pokémon, playing every game and collecting cards like they’re life energy and smogon and everything. But, I was never too invested in the anime.. Ash kinda bored me I suppose. But then I decided to lazily rewatch the original series on Netflix, not expecting to get into anything at all, and learned that OG Ash is a fucking savage monster and team rocket basically stole the whole show for me.

I remember back watching the anime thinking ‘Bruh uh team rocket’s kinda gay for each other right now, right?? >.>’ then looking around the room at whoever I was with and realizing they weren’t picking up what I was picking up, so I’d let it slide and move on with the day.

Well all that potential has finally manifested into the shipping hell I’m in now and I’ve been binging the series since.

This is already hella long so I’m gonna stop there. So what is your rocketshipping story?? :3

 

[Chrysurus]

SOME LIL ART I MADE OF AN INCORRECT QUOTE THAT I LOVE

 

[ii kanji]

OMG that art That is so supremely perfect!! I love those incorrect quotes, this one is bang on and you've got their facial expressions down pat!! Please share more art if you have any?!

Do you write or make things? What do you like best?

I do draw, although tbh I haven't had a great deal of time recently, I think this is the last thing I drew back in Feb this year:




I also make videos (although, as above, "make" may be a strong word given how slow I am lol):

So what is your rocketshipping story?? :3

I love your story haha, it's quite similar to mine give or take 10-15 years lmao. I was a kid during Pokemania and loved the anime including Team Rocket (I definitely assumed Jessie and James were a couple because that's just the kind of child I was/am), and then rediscovered/fell back in love with the anime on daytime tv when I was off school sick aged 13. I liked the TRio hella more than twerps this time around and when I watched the Training Daze thing on a rented VCR from the library the penny finally, completely and irretrievably dropped and I've never really looked back! Gave up on the dub/started watching the original around the time DP started in 2006 and since no one else I knew in person wanted to talk to me about my very specific interest I joined the forums in 2008 and... the rest is history

Where are you up to with your PokeAni binge?

 

[Chrysurus]

AAAAAGH You gotta be kidding me!!! You're a legend!! Your X&Y AMV happens to be my favorite one I even commented on it and whenever I hear that song, I see parts in my head ;;U;; <3 YOU SHOULD MAKE MORE!! And your TRio art is HECKING CUTE!!! I'm just floored by how many artists are out there making their magic, whether that be drawings, writing, videos, you name it. Super great to see new content :,,)

ALSO aghhs thank you so much for the compliments on my art, the fact you think I got their expressions and stuff down means a LOT :,,) I'd be totally down to send more in here I make a lot of sketches and stuff, usually nothing too big because I only have so many hours of free time with my job right now haha. I don't think this place allows NSFW-y things, yeah? I will send the cute ones :3 Here's some sketches of our TRio I made the other day!

Your story HAHA yyeesss awwhh Training Daze was end game for me, too :,,) So good. Damn I am late to the party though ah well glad you are still here after all these years to talk to! I am fine with the English Dub since it's what I grew up on and kinda "know" them as, voice-wise. English dub as in Rachael Lillis and Eric Stuart. When the voice actors changed, I couldn't really make the jump to the new version, especially for James. I do like watching the Japanese version when I can but don't know where to find it reliably after S1 - do you know where I could find it online for free with subs? I actually watched the OG series in German for a while as I was learning German and wanted something easy and breezy that I knew haha, and that was super fun. I'm curious, do you not like the dub since you said you switched?

I'm on Johto League Champions 07 right now and have seriously slowed down my episode watching out of fear for the coming voice actor changes. I'd love to watch it in Japanese if that's accessible, I'm sure it's out there somewhere!

 

[ii kanji]

AAAAAGH You gotta be kidding me!!! You're a legend!! Your X&Y AMV happens to be my favorite one I even commented on it and whenever I hear that song, I see parts in my head ;;U;; <3 YOU SHOULD MAKE MORE!! And your TRio art is HECKING CUTE!!!

Aww thank you Tbh I always feel that X&Y video is pretty basic/a cop out but it was so easy and it’s so hard to find just nicely put together Rocketshipping AMVs! I’m more proud of this one which I feel tells more of a story though the shipping is a lot more subtle:




I deffo wanna make more videos (I have 3 WIPs lol) but like you finding the time in between working and living my life is hard!

ALSO aghhs thank you so much for the compliments on my art, the fact you think I got their expressions and stuff down means a LOT :,,) I'd be totally down to send more in here I make a lot of sketches and stuff, usually nothing too big because I only have so many hours of free time with my job right now haha. I don't think this place allows NSFW-y things, yeah? I will send the cute ones :3 Here's some sketches of our TRio I made the other day!

View attachment 153177

View attachment 153176

Aaah these are so adorable! I love that you still use OS style eyes <3 Do you have a platform you’ve posted your art on like a Twitter or Tumblr or DA so I can have a leisurely scroll through?

I am fine with the English Dub since it's what I grew up on and kinda "know" them as, voice-wise. English dub as in Rachael Lillis and Eric Stuart. When the voice actors changed, I couldn't really make the jump to the new version, especially for James. I do like watching the Japanese version when I can but don't know where to find it reliably after S1 - do you know where I could find it online for free with subs? I actually watched the OG series in German for a while as I was learning German and wanted something easy and breezy that I knew haha, and that was super fun. I'm curious, do you not like the dub since you said you switched?

I'm on Johto League Champions 07 right now and have seriously slowed down my episode watching out of fear for the coming voice actor changes. I'd love to watch it in Japanese if that's accessible, I'm sure it's out there somewhere!

I think it was a combination of the VA change and a desperate need to watch the episodes as they were coming out that made me switch to the original. Once I had that exposure and was used to it, I couldn’t even bear to come back to the 4Kids dub because it’s just… so much worse. JJM are such watered down versions of MKN, especially in terms of their bond and particularly as a shipper once you get used to Musashi and Kojiro being nice to each other, it is really painful to see them being horrible in the dub!

I still think it’s great that the dub is out there because it makes the show accessible all around the world (how else would I have watched the anime?!) but personally I’m done with it forever. I will PM you about the Japanese version though unfortunately, whilst raw versions are out there for every episode, subs after Kanto and before DP don’t exist for the vast majority of episodes.

 

[Dave43]

who the fuck are Guardie and Kojiro!?

 

[typewild]

So this is currently just a ~theory~ but for the Cassidy and Botch episode coming up (still can’t believe it’s real!!), people believe that the duo has retired from Team Rocket and are currently running a restaurant or a Pokémon nursery based on their outfits. If this is true, I wonder if it would at least plant the idea in Jessie and James’ heads that retiring from TR wouldn’t be so bad, and that they could still stay together

 

[ii kanji]

I think the upcoming episode is ripe with possibility for shipping opportunities! For a start, every fake-split episode from Guardie and Kojiro up until the XY one has not had at least a sliver of shipping (after all, there’s a mandatory reconciliation inherent in the premise).

Of course, it might be more like the Johto Delibird one, but regardless there are still possibilities in that. As you say, they’re almost certainly going to be given pause for thought of Yamato and Kosanji have left the organisation amicably and are still together. (If I’m honest I don’t fully believe that this isn’t all just a ruse yet, but regardless it will make the TRio ask questions.) But it also occurred to me that what if Neoshipping is implied or maybe even confirmed to be canon (even if it’s a fake-out!) - now THAT would raise some big questions.

The fact that Madonnya is here means romance will definitely be present as a theme in the episode.

Anyway, lots to speculate on, I’m really looking forward to the drip feed of information to come probably more so than the episode itself

 

[typewild]

makes them start thinking that there’s more to life than the Rocket Gang. Holy crap.

 

[Mango]

Don’t mind me, just signing into my Bulbagarden account for the first time in (checks watch) 13 years to slide into the rocketshipping thread!! I was just kind of excited about this upcoming episode featuring Butch and Cassidy (real talk, although I’m still an avid Pokémon player, I don’t keep up much with the anime anymore these days—but I check this thread a few times a year to see if Jessie and James have smooched yet after 20+ years of waiting. This long and painful process will probably continue for another 20+ years but oh well).

Anyway enough about me, let’s get to some interesting (??) stuff!

So I checked out the seiyuu interview someone posted pictures of on the episode preview thread. (Quick disclaimer, my knowledge of Japanese comes from playing too many mobile games and taking a handful of classes where I somehow managed to coast by on my meager conversational skills while retaining little to no kanji because I am garbage at learning anything visual)

But there was a particular bit that caught my eye because the kanji 恋愛 were there…and I recognized them as two of the kanji used for love (koi + ai = ren’ai/romance) so I was like oh? OHH? (And was then immediately disappointed by the rest of the text around it, but I thought it’d be worth sharing anyway.)

(Please note that the OO part relates to kanji I have no idea how to transcribe or translate so I could use some help with that)

So Megumi Hayashibara says “よく「ムサシとコジロウに恋愛感情ないんですか」って聞かれるんだけど、もちろんそういうOOを楽しんでくれるのは良いんだけど、そうじゃないんだよね。” [“I’m often asked ‘Aren’t there romantic feelings between Musashi and Kojirou?” Of course it’s good to enjoy that kind of [can’t read these kanji sorry!], but that isn’t the case, you know.”

To which Shinichiro Miki repeats the last bit “そうじゃないんだよね。”

The rest of the interview is sadly a little beyond my skill level but I’m sure it’d still be interesting to read in full. Even when they’re sinking my ship. The seiyuu all have such a good grasp of the characters and their motivations and the bond they share from what I’ve read in other interviews/published works. Like Hayashibara’s book “The Characters Taught Me Everything” had a nice bit about how at one point she sat down with the writers and had a talk with them because she felt they were making Musashi too mean to her teammates, and even though an actor giving advice to writers isn’t typically done at all in the seiyuu industry, they listened to her because she had so much time and experience playing the character. And she talked about the friendship shared by all the members of TR which I thought was really heartwarming/nice. Romantic or not, it’s pretty clear they’ll always be together, so I’ll cling to that. Haa.

I also took to JP Twitter (as one does as a thirty-something lady procrastinating on her day off) to see if there was any conversation about it. What I got from it was people being excited for the return of Yamato & Kosaburou, and things like “The people behind the characters have said before that there’s nothing romantic, but I’m not discouraged. It just drives me to be more of an otaku. Let’s keep creating fan works” and “It’s not a romantic relationship, but it’s the kind of relationship where they can change clothes in front of each other”

I think the silver lining in all this is that even though the ship won’t likely be canon, people on both sides of the Pacific see the potential there and are still really passionate about it. So while I’m disappointed by the lack of any official inclination to get these two together (despite the constant hugging/hand holding/deep and enduring trust the likes of which most actual couples would be jealous of lol) I’m gonna hope we at least get some good fanfic out of this episode.

Whoops I wrote an essay. Okay, time for me to slither back into the woodwork, looking forward to doing this again in another 13 years!!

 

[ii kanji]

Hi Mango and thank you so much for providing that translation and views from Twitter!

Truthfully it does feel a little disheartening to hear this stance (again) but it certainly goes to show how pervasive the ship is that the voice actors have felt the need to publicly address this twice in recent years

I still don’t believe the ship is sunk since the anime has proven ample times that it will happily ignore the seiyuu’s views (I don’t think a single wish these guys expressed in the pre-PM19 interview was fulfilled!) but at the same time I’m with them on every other issue and think the production have done quite a lot of ballsing up so… I feel a little torn as to what is right and what I should feel in a meta sense. I believe in death of the author and by extension this applies to the actors too, but I have so much respect for their opinions in this case that it’s confusing!

But regardless it’s so heartening to think that whether intended or not, we’re far from alone in this big beautiful belief in love between Musashi and Kojiro and that we can all continue to enjoy and interpret the anime’s little gifts as we like!!

 

[typewild]

My phones not letting me post images at the moment, but... because of that one scene of James and Cassidy blushing from the preview, I’m hoping for another ‘kick the fire extinguisher’ scene from Jessie haha

 

[Mango]

Hi Mango and thank you so much for providing that translation and views from Twitter!

Truthfully it does feel a little disheartening to hear this stance (again) but it certainly goes to show how pervasive the ship is that the voice actors have felt the need to publicly address this twice in recent years

I still don’t believe the ship is sunk since the anime has proven ample times that it will happily ignore the seiyuu’s views (I don’t think a single wish these guys expressed in the pre-PM19 interview was fulfilled!) but at the same time I’m with them on every other issue and think the production have done quite a lot of ballsing up so… I feel a little torn as to what is right and what I should feel in a meta sense. I believe in death of the author and by extension this applies to the actors too, but I have so much respect for their opinions in this case that it’s confusing!

But regardless it’s so heartening to think that whether intended or not, we’re far from alone in this big beautiful belief in love between Musashi and Kojiro and that we can all continue to enjoy and interpret the anime’s little gifts as we like!!

Aw thanks that was nice to read, you have convinced me. I am gonna KEEP BELIEVING IN LOVE. :,,)

…I say that, but also I got a reading for the kanji I was missing in that sentence…it is “mousou” (wild idea/delusion.) OUCH my poor rocketshipping bones. But to add onto your nice thoughts there about interpreting things for yourself and the shared perception of the pairing across cultures—shipping isn’t just about debating if it’s canon or not canon obviously, it’s about what you like/what makes you happy, and the community. (A community which I have largely just stared at from afar for 22 years, but man those were some good times staying up secretly past my bedtime and reading cringey fanfics on some angelfire page or another.) And it’s a bigger community then I even could have imagined back then, and a very enduring one.

Anyway tl;dr INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIP AND (probably) WORLD PEACE THROUGH ROCKETSHIPPING

My phones not letting me post images at the moment, but... because of that one scene of James and Cassidy blushing from the preview, I’m hoping for another ‘kick the fire extinguisher’ scene from Jessie haha

Okay my first reaction to that was EXCUSE ME JAMES AND CASSIDY ARE DOING WHAT

…but then I remembered that Jessie kicking that fire extinguisher was pretty much the absolute pinnacle of AG, so…yeah. Yeah.

…Yeah.

 

[Teamrocketfan]

Couldn't figure out how to log into my account from years ago so here I am with a new account to discuss upcoming TR episode

The recent interview Is slightly disheartening but after 17+ years of being a committed Rocketshipper I'm not about to give up on it now

Also, what IS exactly going on here? Definitely potential for another jealous Jessie moment like PP said lol.

 

[Mango]

Thanks for the pics! I guess they’re giving Raticate a snack (watch your fingers there, James)! :O

I thought this tumblr post here had some pretty solid predictions; but I guess we’ll have to wait and see!

 

[typewild]

I just watched the episode without subtitles, but some very cute moments came out of it!


Jessie encouraging James to stay with Cassidy because she saw how happy he was was super sweet! It seems she thinks they could be together romantically since in the flashback from HER perspective, James and Cassidy are both blushing. It really shows how much she’s grown since AG (still wished we got a fire extinguisher moment, though, but oh well). Her tearing up when she left him behind is a nice parallel to XY063 when James did the same to her. I like to think that she went through the same cycle of thoughts that he was shown to go through when he ran away from her.

I also don’t know what was being said in this scene, but when she was falling down into the sand pit and James and Meowth come to rescue her, the camera pans up to only James showing that she’s only focusing on him, even for a brief second. I like to believe it’s a call back to THAT scene in Training Daze but this time with Jessie in the pit and James coming back to rescue her. He’s always gonna be by her side no matter what <3

The nice thing about being a TRio fan is seeing the slow, but surely present growth that the team goes through, and through it all, their bond persists and continues to be refined. We also get lovely parallels like the ones above reminding us of their promises to each other since their history is so rich after almost 25 years.

Yes, they did dabble with the possibilities of quitting Team Rocket, only to go back to their normal routine. But who knows? The thought has been planted in their heads, and we may eventually see the idea make a return in the future. They just need to acknowledge that quitting the team doesn’t mean that they can’t stay together anymore.

 

[TRNatalie]

I know I’m very behind in responding to this thread but wow!

Jessie encouraging James to stay with Cassidy because she saw how happy he was was super sweet! It seems she thinks they could be together romantically since in the flashback from HER perspective, James and Cassidy are both blushing. It really shows how much she’s grown since AG (still wished we got a fire extinguisher moment, though, but oh well). Her tearing up when she left him behind is a nice parallel to XY063 when James did the same to her. I like to think that she went through the same cycle of thoughts that he was shown to go through when he ran away from her.

I also don’t know what was being said in this scene, but when she was falling down into the sand pit and James and Meowth come to rescue her, the camera pans up to only James showing that she’s only focusing on him, even for a brief second. I like to believe it’s a call back to THAT scene in Training Daze but this time with Jessie in the pit and James coming back to rescue her. He’s always gonna be by her side no matter what <3

I was really apprehensive for this episode because of JNs general treatment of TRio but waking up and reading this on Friday (Really sorry this took awhile) lifted my spirits so much! I haven’t gotten to sit down to watch the episode and while I’ve since found out some things that bother me about it (although I suspect a lot of it comes down to Journeysisms/higher ups and executives such as that damn Gatcha), this restores my confidence in the writers, especially Yonemura, that they can still write strong nuanced quaTRet especially Musashi.

What I find most interesting about this is, as you’ve said, the role reversal from episodes like XY 63 and DP 117. I also can’t help thinking of the moment in DP 117 where Musashi encouraged Kojiro to go his own way and find his own happiness rather than making Kojiro follow her.

And like, we’ve seen moments before where Kojiro is gone but comes back to Musashi whether at her lowest point in Training Daze where he comes to her despite being all bandaged up or Holy Matrimony where she and Meowth believe they lost him to all the riches and he appears and takes Musashi up in the balloon, gestures that, while beautiful and powerful and really say something, are more… peaceful, low-key(?), quieter (?) but this is the first time in canon we’ve seen him come back to her to save her

That dynamic of the girl who’s always been alone but finds someone who will always be by her side, the person who is usually so strong able to rely on someone else, and the boy who always ran away finding someone he can’t run away from is something that draws me heavily to this ship and it’s why the seiyuus statements don’t really bother me especially with the “The Characters Taught Me Everything” book in mind (although the statements do make me side eye Butch and Cassidy being separate in the recent episode (the poor Neoshippers man)) IMO, you can’t take away stuff like that/moments we’ve seen showing such.

 

[Mango]

I experienced last week’s episode vicariously, in real time, by stalking JP anipoke Twitter at 4 in the morning and man was that a trip. Just randomly reading stuff as it popped up like “they’re inside a Whaloh” and “it’s that BGM!” and “It’s Kosanji!” and “LOL Morpeko!” and trying to piece it together like what??? It felt like a lot was happening in a very short amount of time. Haha. It definitely didn’t live up to my expectations, but it sounds like it was fun with a few neat moments scattered throughout for the TR fans.

And hey we got this real cute official art out of it via the official Twitter!

 

[ii kanji]

This parallel



It's somehow even more heartwarming when you remember that this episode was animated by Iwane/Shimura and that that scene was animated by Iwane when he was working under Shimura way back when.

Honestly though I can't pretend I enjoyed the episode on its own merits. It's a shame because you get the sense that they've really tried, ya know? Like someone assigned this to Yoneumura/Asada/Iwane/Shimura, went to the effort of bringing back Yamato and Kosanji, got the seiyuu out for a promotional interview .etc. And there are moments in the episode when you can feel like Yonemura is harking back to better episodes, such as references to the handhold above, Kojiro pulling Musashi. But the episode itself is so badly paced that there is no time to explore any character's motivations enough to get any emotional satisfaction.

Let's take Musashi leaving Kojiro. It happens in a split second, barely giving Kojiro enough time to tear up and shake hands before she runs off and then immediately they've moved onto the next scene. No chance to even imagine what's going on in their heads. Equally, Kojiro coming back is waved away with 'Yamato chucked me out because Morpeko ate her out of house and home' and... that's it. It's a lame reason in and of itself, which makes me wonder if it's just an excuse, but the way the episode is written doesn't give enough breathing space to actually wonder that within the remit of the episode.

In contrast we have a few seconds dedicated to Musashi's headspace in Guardie & Kojiro and the Hoso, as we did Kojiro's in DP 117 & XY 63. Even their silly AG break-up episode allows more space for psychological insight than this one.

What we're left with is something that feels very shallow and, I'm sorry to say, antishippy in its sentiment since neither seemed that bothered about either splitting up or reuniting. The Kojiro/Yamato inference also doesn't get balanced out with jealousy or lack of interest on Kojiro's part.

The only positive take home for me is Musashi's rescue fantasy because it shows she has grown from expecting to be abandoned to expecting her friends to turn up and come to her aid. It's something at least.