| “ | So! I must say, I am impressed you got here. Team Rocket captures Pokémon from around the world. They're important tools for keeping out criminal enterprise going. I am the leader, Giovanni! For your insolence, you will feel a world of pain! | „ |
| ~ Giovanni threatening his enemies. |
| “ | The ultimate goal of Team Rocket is to use Pokémon to rule the world. I, Giovanni, am its leader! | „ |
| ~ Giovanni's most famous quote. |
Giovanni (in Japanese: サカキ, Sakaki) is the main antagonist of the Pokémon franchise.
He is the leader of Team Rocket/Team Rainbow Rocket and the (former) Gym Leader of Viridian City, as well as the father of Silver.
In Japanese, he was voiced by the late Hirotaka Suzuoki and Kenta Miyake in the anime, Rikiya Koyama in Pokémon Origins, Akio Ōtsuka in Pokémon Generations, and Kōji Ishii in Pokémon Masters. In English, he is voiced by Ted Lewis in the anime, Pokémon Puzzle League and Pokémon Chronicles, Craig Blair in the anime temporarily, Jamieson Price in Pokémon Origins, Richard Epcar in Pokémon Generations, and Andrew Russell in Pokémon Masters.
Personality[]
As the leader of Team Rocket, Giovanni is power-crazed, cruel, and sadistic toward people and Pokémon. He is willing to harm anyone who he views as even a slight threat to his power, including children and Pokémon. He wants all extremely rare, legendary and mythical Pokémon to rule the world such as Mewtwo and views most Pokémon as mere tools, frequently ordering them to be tortured and experimented on. Despite not being the best father to Silver (going as far as temporarily abandoning him to improve himself as a trainer), Giovanni cares about his son, craves for his admiration and hopes that he will one day understand him.
He also appears to care about his grunts to an extent as he retreats when he feels like he failed them. According to his conversation with Silver, he strongly values teamwork and feels personally responsible for Team Rocket's defeat, indicating that he's a responsible boss. Giovanni considers himself to be the greatest trainer in the world but faces defeat with some degree of honor, accepting his loss, acknowledging the player's strength and even complimenting on their skills.
In Pokémon Masters, he shows a rather abrasive and condescending attitude towards the player but sees potential in them and encourages them to become strong in order to face him and stop his evil schemes, which shows his strong liking for a challenge. Despite claiming to see Pokémon as mere weapons, he appreciates the player's viewpoint that they are more than that and thinks that the world should be full of different opinions, which indicates that he's a rather open-minded person. His view may also not be entirely sincere because ironically, he seems to share a strong bond with his Mewtwo, as he himself admits.
He also has a cynical world outlook, believing that the world is made up of people who deceive each other every day. Despite thinking that not everything is black or white, he acknowledges himself as a bad person but thinks that it's wrong to assume that everything bad people say or do is necessarily wrong. He complains about being "doomed" to remain a criminal in every world, possibly hinting his disdain for his lifestyle. He also claims taking no pleasure in hurting people for no reason. He doesn't view power as inherently evil or good but just as a mean to win, perhaps explaining his obsession with strength. In the "Father or Foe" event, it's shown that he's a very pragmatic person and that he's capable of manipulating others as he predicted that Ghetsis would turn on him once he caught N's Zekrom and thus pretended to be Ghetsis' ally just to betray him when the latter subdued N's Zekrom.
In the anime, he viewed Jessie, James, and Meowth as useless failures when they failed to capture strong Pokémon and went as far as trying to kill them to claim their insurance policies. However, he recruits them for an important mission in Unova when they claim to be behind the defeat of Team Galactic. Since the Sun and Moon series, thanks to the collaboration of Jessie, James, and Meowth in the defeats of the rival evil teams (Team Galactic, Team Plasma and Team Flare), his relationship with them becomes much better, since now he encourages them to continue progressing in their plans and shows pride in seeing that they obtained something, such as "capturing and sending" the Alolan Meowth or obtaining a dark type Z-Crystal, their new confidence in them is now enough to entrust them with their secret weapon in the Journeys series. He also trusts Cassidy and Butch as they've almost never failed him. He views his Persian as his top cat, which is one of the very few individuals he cares about besides his mother, who he highly respects.
Trivia[]
- Prior to the reveal in Heart Gold and Soul Silver that Giovanni was Silver's father, it was first teased during Fire Red and Leaf Green where the player battles Team Rocket Grunts during the Sevii Islands. After one Grunt is defeated, he asks if the player was Giovanni's son, but rejects the idea because he had red hair.
- His manga counterpart from Pokémon Adventures has a connection to the Viridian Forest (where people who are born there are granted special powers) similar to the protagonist Yellow of the Yellow chapters and Lance, but it is unknown what his special power is.
- According to Pokémon Adventures, Giovanni's birthday is on August 1st.
- In earlier episodes, Giovanni's face is never seen, until the episode "Battle of the Badge". This, along with his Persian, gives him a resemblance to James Bond and Inspector Gadget's arch-nemesis', Ernst Stavro Blofeld and Dr. Claw.
- Giovanni is also the first criminal boss in the anime to have shown to have Pokémon of his own, not just controlled legendary Pokémon at some point, the second one being Lysandre, and the third being Guzma.
- Despite being the overarching antagonist of the show (and Ash's overall archenemy), Giovanni has little screen time. Ash instead battles his subordinates Jessie and James in almost every episode in the series. He only ever directly faced Ash in a two-parter late into the Black and White series, although the two also met briefly in Pokémon: Mewtwo Returns!.
- However, Giovanni does not remember Ash due to how Mewtwo erased his memory.
- Giovanni appears after the post credits in Pokémon: I Choose You. He is seen walking through a hall full of notes about Mew. After this, he meets with Mewtwo in full battle armor, saying "Let's begin.", hinting his and Ash's future rivalry in Pokémon: Mewtwo Returns.
- When Giovanni is defeated for the third time in his gym, he awards the player with TM26 (Earthquake) and reveals that he was the one who made it when he ran his gym "far too long ago...".
- In Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let's Go, Eevee!, it's revealed that it was a gift that he made for the trainers who defeated him to help them with their Pokémon League challenge.
External Links[]
- Giovanni (Pokémon) on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
- Giovanni (Pokémon: The Series) on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
- Giovanni on Bulbapedia
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 Villains
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Team Rocket Team Aqua Team Magma Team Galactic Team Plasma Team Flare Team Skull Aether Foundation Team Yell Macro Cosmos Elite Four Others See Also | ||