36078


I have seen so many episodes of Pokemon. Many episodes have Team Rocket trying
to steal Ash's Pokemon by disguising themselves, or with other predicable
methods. Still, they are easily recognizable as Team Rocket every time. Why
are Ash and his friends fooled every time, when Team Rocket's actions should
be predictable by now?


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2016-08-29T06:29:18.743
36077
2021-05-17T21:28:51.807
2016-08-29T06:47:40.633
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question
pokemon
Why are Ash and his friends fooled by team rocket again and again?


It's not that Ash and co. are constantly fooled by Team Rocket again and
again, but rather that Team Rocket has a specific role in the show. In order
to keep Team Rocket in the show, they have to have a purpose for each episode,
and thus have been constantly after Ash's Pikachu since the original few
episodes. To us, it seems that Ash is "dumb" or oblivious to Team Rocket's
schemes, but in all reality it is due to the writing staff trying to keep them
in the show (you have to remember that Pokemon is considered to be a
children's show).

I found from
[here](https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100224155237AATXwFa) one
reason for why Team Rocket still appears in Pokemon:

> Because they are popular comic relief characters, and if they were ever to
> get rid of them, a boatload of rocket shipping fangirls would freak out and
> hate Nintendo and stop buying games and watching shows, therefore
> bankrupting the company. How else would they manage to make those episodes
> last 22 minutes without wasting our time with another predictable plot to
> capture Pikachu?

At this point, Team Rocket has become a staple of the Pokemon universe, and it
would feel empty without them. There are other Pokemon watchers who feel
similarly to you, as stated
[here](http://www.azurilland.com/forums/pokemon/pokemon-anime-
manga/524743-has-team-rocket-gotten-old-for-you):

> The comic relief they provide is a necessary part of the show, but I'm quite
> certain they could think of better ways of working it in. Not quite the same
> as how you feel about strangling them, but my brother has actually started
> cheering them on because he wants them to actually win for once so that they
> aren't completely irrelevant. Plus it would be fun to see Ash totally lose
> it when Pikachu is gone for days on end ;) The thing that really bugs me
> though is how they have no concept of how you're supposed to pull off crimes
> anyway. I can think of several instances off the top of my head where if
> they'd kept their traps shut (no pun intended) without constantly going off
> into their motto that they might actually have succeeded. They also think
> that as soon as they've got a net around something that it's theirs. Team
> Rocket is always shocked when the Pokémon fight back. Finally, who the ****
> travels in a hot-air balloon when you're trying to be inconspicuous?!


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2016-08-29T06:44:19.093
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2016-08-29T06:44:19.093
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answer


One way to understand this is that the disguises are made obvious for the
viewers, so that we are always aware that it is Team Rocket. From an in-
universe perspective, the disguises must be fairly effective, because they
always fool everyone.

From [TV
tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PaperThinDisguise):

> The external reason for the flimsy disguise may be that the creators want to
> signal the presence of a disguise to the audience before the other
> characters catch on (a sort of Reverse Whodunnit).

Another point to consider is that this is a cartoon. In the real world, it
doesn't take much alteration to one's appearance to make it hard for other
people to identify you. But in a cartoon, where detail is lower, it's a lot
easier to pick out characters so long as the alterations are minor and their
features are prominent enough (such as having giant purple or red hair). If we
consider Ash and friends seeing things more like we see them in the real
world, and less like the cartoon world we see them in, then this makes a bit
more sense (Jesse's hair is still pretty distinctive, though).

Some sources on how easy it can be to fool people with simple disguises:

<https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20121207-do-disguises-fool-surveillance>

<https://www.wikihow.com/Disguise-Yourself>

<https://gizmodo.com/its-surprisingly-easy-to-trick-people-with-a-
disguise-1832767214>

<https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fxap0000213> (scholarly
article mentioned by above gizmodo article, access required)


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