The Rocket trio's lack of screentime in Sun & Moon is honestly kind of appalling

[Puddle]

I'm watching Diamond and Pearl at the moment, and just five episodes in I'm already finding that Team Rocket has far too much screentime. Early episodes of the anime - not just DP but other seasons too - always seem to end up culminating in a fight against one of Team Rocket's mechas, even when there was plenty of storytelling potential already.

To give an example, I would have found "Gettin' Twiggy With It" a lot more satisfying if it had focused solely on Turtwig's characterisation and its struggle with responsibility - there's plenty of conflict there for a twenty-minute story. Other threats such as angry wild Pokemon, natural disasters, and other human villains can be used to add some more action when needed, without needing to rely on Team Rocket every time. I appreciated how "Following A Maiden's Voyage" had a swarm of Ariados as its main antagonists.

I do love Team Rocket, they might even be the best characters in the show, but I think they're at their most effective when used sparingly. I haven't seen many episodes from the later seasons, but I think I'd prefer having Team Rocket pop up every now and then rather than in every episode. If you're never sure when they're going to show up, seeing one of those menacing mechanical claws burst out of the bushes and grab Pikachu must be a lot more surprising!

That being said, if people feel that Team Rocket aren't appearing enough (nine consecutive episodes without them does seem rather a lot) then perhaps a compromise needs to be found. I'd be fine with them appearing in, say, every third or fourth episode, or even more frequently than that if we get to see them going about their lives, rather than them being the main antagonists all the time. (From what I've seen of the Bewear storyline in Sun and Moon, it seems like it could be a nice change of pace.)

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Team Rocket was better in SM than Ash. Then again, everyone in SM is better than Ash.

SM TRio is awesome and they needed more focus but I’m happy with the focus they got. Also Bewear is god.

 

[SammyW27]

At least in SM and XY it was quality over quantity. They may not have shown up as much, but were in top form!

Not only do they have less screentime than ever, but they're not even as good as they were the last 2 series. They're even back to randomly popping in worthless fillers to make them less unwatchably dull...and it's not even helping as much as it used to...

 

[snowmint]

Why is it that they use Team Rocket sparingly nowadays? Does it have to do with their actors costing alot to use?

 

[Kurolegacy]

Why is it that they use Team Rocket sparingly nowadays? Does it have to do with their actors costing alot to use?

I’d imagine that it’s to not backslide into the period of the series where TRio were the main source of conflict in an episode. With the one-off episodic nature of the current series, it’d be even easier to fall back into that trend.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Could it be that their appearances are fewer because the new writers doesn't care about them that much?

 

[Daren]

Could it be that their appearances are fewer because the new writers doesn't care about them that much?

Interesting thought. I've guessed that the big staff shakeup after XY as a possible reason for a lot of what has changed in the last few years but hadn't considered it might be affecting TR's screentime.

 

[MarshiyanMisutaa]

Looking through Journeys' writing credits:

Reiko Yoshida and Toko Machida are new, but they're like guest writers, written only three and one episodes respectively. Neither of them used TR.
Junichi Fujisaku is a SM era writer, written five episodes, TR appeared in three of them.
Yuka Miyata is also a SM era writer, written six episodes, TR appeared in all of them except the last one, overall getting decent focus within episodes.
Shoji Yonemura is one of the old writers, written 15 episodes, TR appeared in six of them, mostly in minor roles. Doesn't seem to care about them despite of his past record with them.
Akemi Omode is here since BW, written eight episodes, TR appeared in five of them, she seems most interested in using them.
Michihiro Tsuchiya is a new writer, written 11 episodes, TR appeared in eight of them, overall gives them decent focus even though their roles are minor in most of these episodes.
Yuko Kakihara is another new writer, written only four episodes (is she another guest?), TR appeared in half of them. Despite of her last episode, I don't think she care much about them.
Tomioka is one of the old staff, but he's responsible for Satoshi's battle episodes, so TR is not his focus.
Aya Matsui is another one of older writers, but again her main interest is Koharu episodes in this series.
Deko Akao is another new writer, and TR appeared in a lot of her episodes, but I don't think she's really cared about them other than using them as irreplacable bad guys.

 

[cricketlaxwolvesbandy]

Interesting thought. I've guessed that the big staff shakeup after XY as a possible reason for a lot of what has changed in the last few years but hadn't considered it might be affecting TR's screentime.

The staff shakeup was a HUGE MISTAKE

 

[SammyW27]

@marshiyanmisuta

Nice research!