Giovanni (Pokémon: The Series)

**Giovanni** is a character in the anime *Pokemon: The Series*. He is the boss of Team Rocket and plans many of their operations, while posing as the head of the Viridian Gym.

He was voiced by Ted Lewis.

## What Makes Him Magnificent?

* He's an efficient boss who prioritizes agents who get him results.
* Despite his annoyance with Jessie, James, and Meowth, he never fires them and lets them do what they want provided they stay out of his way, and as the series goes on he starts treating them better.
* It's implied he may have good intentions in wanting to rule the world, as the Team Rocket motto states their goal is to preserve the world's peace (while the dub gives Butch and Cassidy a more evil-sounding motto, this isn't present in the original).
* He is able to pose as a respected member of the community and become the head of the Viridian Gym.
* He has Jessie, James, and Meowth invite trainers to a party on the St. Anne that he's secretly sponsored, having many of his agents sneak onboard to try to steal all their Pokemon.
* He builds a Pokemon theme park as a front to bring in funding for Team Rocket.
* He supervises several of Butch and Cassidy's missions to steal large numbers of Pokemon and bails them out of jail when they're captured.
* He manipulates Mewtwo to his side, enhancing its powers and using it to beat Gary in a match.
* He's able to track down Mewtwo with Domino's help and captures its clones to force Mewtwo to submit.
* He monitors rival villain teams in Hoenn and Sinnoh and uses Jessie, James, and Meowth to draw them out.
* He promotes Jessie, James, and Meowth and starts showing more trust in them, supervising a series of missions in Unova, and he praises them when they succeed at something.
* He tasks the trio with finding an energy source in Unova, and they manage to transmit him the data despite their operation being stopped, and he puts a team of scientists to work to find a use for this energy.
* He supervises a series of missions aimed at obtaining the Meteonite, which he plans to use to force businessmen to submit to him. He tasks them with breaking into a research lab and hacking its data, and stealing a meteor fragment from a museum so they can analyze it. These missions are successful and allow him to find the Meteonite's location in the Desert Resort.
* He defeats Ash in battle with his Persian and is nearly able to bring Meloetta under his control. When the plan goes wrong and he's brainwashed by the Reflection Glass, he's grateful to Jessie, James, and Meowth for saving him and admits they should abort the mission.

## What Makes Him a Baddie?

* He wants to take over the world and is ruthless in achieving his goals.
* He has Pokemon stolen from their trainers and threatens anyone who stands in his way.
* He once assigned Jessie, James, and Meowth to a hazardous blimp squad while noting that he's only maintained the insurance on them, suggesting he didn't care if they died.
* He threatens Mewtwo's clones to make him submit, and is willing to perform potentially lethal experiments on him.
* He intends to use Meloetta and other Legendary Pokemon to take over the Unova region.