Team Rocket's Meowth

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Meowth
Pokémon information
Type	normal
Gender	Male
Ability	[[Pickup (Not yet activated)]]
Trainer	None
Debut	Pokémon Emergency!
Current location	With Jessie and James

"Go west, young Meowth, go west, to Hollywood!"

— Meowth

This Meowth is a normal-type Pokémon who is a member of Team Rocket that travels with James and Jessie. In Unova, Meowth briefly left Team Rocket and traveled with Ash and his friends; however, this was later revealed to be a ploy and Meowth returned to Team Rocket. He is one of the few non-Legendary Pokémon that is capable of speaking human language without using telepathy.

Biography

Anime

Early life

Before joining Team Rocket, he was just a normal Meowth living on the streets of Hollywood (AKA "Tinseltown"). He had been abandoned as a kitten and was left to provide for himself, often violently rejected by humans for trying to steal food.

He joined a gang of street Meowth led by a Persian. They annoyed humans in Tinseltown in a typical alley cat fashion, such as stealing food and rummaging through trash cans. Eventually he met a female Meowth named Meowzie, who he fell in love with. However she rejected him, in favor of the attention of her rich human mistress. Wanting to impress her, Meowth began learning to become more human-like. With a great amount of time and effort, Meowth learned to speak human language (with a New York accent) and walk upright. However all his efforts backfired, as he was again rejected by Meowzie, who now saw him as a freak. With his heart now broken, he decided to join Team Rocket (mainly due to the fact that the word "Rocket" was the first word he learned to speak and understood its meaning).

According to Meowth (himself), he claims to have been Boss Giovanni's personal pet (or "Top Cat"). However as a result of his incompetence, he was later replaced by a more majestic Persian, the evolved form of Meowth.

Partnership with Jessie and James

File:Ep545 Stunned Team Rocket.jpg

Eventually Meowth was assigned by Giovanni to work alongside Jessie and James. Though he often bickers with the duo (originally considering himself their superior/boss), he bonds with them, the three ultimately becoming their best (and usually only) friends. After their first run in with Ash Ketchum and his Pikachu, they become obsessed with stealing Ash's Pikachu and presenting it to Giovanni to regain his good favour. All their attempts however ultimately ended in failure, and usually an excess amount of abuse and humiliation. This tenure continued throughout Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh, with the trio only earning a bigger laughing stock status within each region.

As of his, Jessie and James' promotion and transfer to Unova however, Meowth has become a highly skilled stealth artist, an excellent negotiator and is often successful in many missions with his team-mates to the point of the trio becoming a serious enemy for Ash and co. The trio were key in Team Rocket's Meteonite plan, taking order directly from Giovanni himself as well as his secretary. Meowth and his team-mates worked together with Pierce and met Doctor Zager.

Once the plan culminated, Meowth and his team-mates were asked to be as they please in Unova, so they continued working hard to do Team Rocket good and now work closely with Zager. Ash has also become less important to them but they will still antagonize him if he interferes in one of their plans.

During a mission in Unova, Meowth was fired from Team Rocket. After he was fired, he was found by Ash and Co. being beaten by a wild Scrafty. He then decided to travel with Ash and help them on their quest. Later, Iris tried to catch him, but failed to do so. Meowth later reveals that his expulsion from Team Rocket was nothing but a ploy to take Ash and his friends off guard whilst Team Rocket stole hundreds of Pokémon from Nimbasa City's grand Pokémon Center. This plan was foiled by Ash and company and Meowth rejoined his true allies Jessie and James.

As their tenure in Unova continued, their obsession with Pikachu returned and as a result their serious attitude faded. After just barely remaining on Giovanni's good books through their defeat of Team Flare and handing in their Unova Pokemon as supposed stolen goods, the trio reunited with their team mate Wobbuffet and set upon returning to shadowing Ash's team throughout Kalos in attempts to capture Pikachu.

Manga

Main article: Team Rocket's Meowth (A&P)

Personality

Meowth fits in perfectly with his human comrades of Team Rocket, he is conniving, prideful and mischievous. His ability to talk only makes him equally outspoken. He sometimes views himself as a boss and the leader of them, being as he builds all the contraptions and thinks of all the plans, though is sparsely taken seriously (and like James can be rather submissive to the even more domineering Jessie). For all his faults however, he is loyal to Jessie and James, and never lets a few fights get in his way of being friends with them. He thinks highly of their boss Giovanni, and dwells on becoming his "top cat" (having a disdain for his Persian as a result).

Meowth is very good at lying, as he often tricks Ash and company to believe he's on their side. Pikachu is the only one who doubts Meowth's loyalty because he always seemed to betray them. Despite their rivalry, Meowth has arguably the most sociable moments with Pikachu, especially since they are often forced to team up for real. In some cases he laments they could easily be friends if not on opposite sides.

It was shown with Meowzie that Meowth had a heart and if he wasn't convinced by Team Rocket, he would be a normal Meowth that didn't care at all for stealing Pokemon. As often as he likes to consider himself a dastardly villain, he is also often shown to be rather jaded and even philosophical at times. He often looks at the moon and laments his directions in life.

Meowth sparsely battles, he explains learning to walk and talk came at the expense of his battle abilities (he claims he permanently lost the ability to use Pay Day in particular). As such, most instances he is forced to fight prove pitiful. On rare occasions however, when passionate or incensed enough, Meowth can be very formidable in battle. He has also proven quite able as a performer as well, helping Jessie win several contests and showcases.

Meowth has yet to evolve. He often expresses a contempt for his evolved form, Persian. He is in fact jealous of Giovanni's Persian and has a desire to fill in for it as the boss's "top cat".

Known moves

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Improvised Move

Fury Swipes of Love

Voice Actors

• Inuko Inuyama (Japanese)
• Nathan Price (English; IL002-IL017,IL019-IL031)
• Maddie Blaustein (English; IL018, IL032-AG145, Movies 1 - 8, Pokémon Chronicles, Mewtwo Returns)
• Jimmy Zoppi (English; AG146-Present, Movie 9 - present, The Mastermind of Mirage Pokémon)
• Charis Grigoropoulos (Greek)
• Jan Nonhof (Dutch; IL002-AG104)
• Bas Keijzer (Dutch; AG092-present)

Trivia

• In Beauty and the Beach, Meowth was voiced by Maddie Blaustein, since the episode aired in America when she took over for Nathan Price.
• A trend Meowth has in the anime is that he falls in love with female cat-like Pokémon: in Kanto, before he met Jessie and James, he fell in love with a female Meowth named Meowzie, in Hoenn he fell in love with May's Skitty and in Sinnoh he fell in love with a female Glameow. In Unova he fell in love with a male Purrloin who he and Ash's Oshawott both thought was female. Also, in the short "Eevee and Friends" he fell for Espeon, Glaceon and Leafeon.
• It appears that Meowth also falls in love with Meloetta in "Meloetta's Glittery Recital" along with Ash's Oshawott.
• Meowth acts as a translator for Team Rocket and sometimes Ash and his friends, translating what other Pokémon are saying.
• He claimed he was learning Night Slash in Jumping Rocket Ship!, but never uses the move because it seems too scary for him to use.
• He was allowed to go to the Unova region despite being a Kanto Pokémon as he was more of a regular Team Rocket member than a Pokémon.
• Meowth has been known to break the fourth wall several times, his partners have been known to do it a few times too.
• It has been revealed that Meowth is still a wild Pokémon as Pokéballs are able to grab him, but none have successfully captured him as none of the trainers who threw the Pokéballs fought and weakened him first.
• The first time that he said Ash's name was in The Beartic Mountain Feud! when he was translating Pikachu. Also, it is the last episode that features a whole episode that Meowth was with Ash and his friends.
• Meowth doesn't seem to know much about type matchup, as in Gotta Catch Ya Later, he tried to attack a bunch of Haunter with Fury Swipes, which would have no effect, and then, was scared by Night Shade, which would not affect him as a Normal type.
• He, Gastly, and Slowking are currently the only Pokémon that can talk without using telepathy.
• Throughout his entire run in the series, Meowth has won only six battles he's participated in alone.
• In contrast to the ever present running gag of Ash's Pikachu electric shocking him and his team since their first appearance, it took until A Frenzied Factory Fiasco (876 episodes after his first appearance) for Meowth himself to land a single attack on Pikachu (Fury Swipes in that instance).
• Team Rocket's Meowth represented his species in both of their "Who's That Pokemon?" appearances in the US dub. Curiously it took until Capacia Island UFO!, the 790th episode in the series for them to appear in the US segment.

References

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