Part 37: Omni's Asides - Giovanni

Pokemon Special Differences: Giovanni

Giovanni in Adventures is kind of awesome.



Initially introduced to Red as a man interested in Fossils, Giovanni was already the leader of Team Rocket and the absentee Viridian Gym Leader. His plan was pretty simple all things considered, by gaining access to a trade route through the hidden base in Celedon, Saffron, Fuscha, Cinnebar and finally back to Viridian, He could genetically alter Pokemon and release them back into the wild to build up their battle strength for his schemes. Since he was never at Viridian Gym, trainers just sort of stopped going to the town, meaning, the Pokemon were growing wild and violent without anyone to really put them in their place. Giovanni's response to Red defeating Team Rocket is "I need you on my side." and makes it the condition of their gym battle, if he can beat Red, Red will join him.



Giovanni is aces as a trainer, being one of the only ones who can calculate how long it takes for a trainer to grab the ball, throw it, order the Pokemon and how long the attack will take. He's able to make snap judgement decisions and lead the battle towards a conclusion he's already planned out. And the thing is as ruthless as he is, and as much as he's willing to endanger the trainer, he's not going to cheat. Hell to start with he threw his pokeballs to the ground and informed Red that he'd take the disadvantage in speed, but Red did the same because he wanted them to fight as equals.

Red eventual victory was through out planning Giovanni, (Also a particular laps in the manga forgetting that ground types aren't affected be electric moves)




By charging Pikachu's attack inside the Pokeball and not waiting to relase, due to the insulated glove he took from the defeated Surge, he was able to move past Giovanni's predictions. But Giovanni doesn't stop there, he returns in the Yellow arc as Lance attempts to wipe out humanity so that Pokemon may rule the world. Giovanni did not appreciate that, seeing as conquest over the Kanto region was still his desire and he was far from done with his ambitions. He again shows off his smarts as an expert battler by easily taking Lance down despite his overwhelming firepower and invisible attack set up.









Disappearing after the battle, Giovanni would not return until the Fire Red/Leaf Green arc, Where his admins have been sent to retrieve Silver, in short Giovanni's son. There's sort of an implication that half of Gio's reasoning for wanting to set up Team Rocket was a desire to find his son who had been kidnapped. But there's also the conquest dream. His other goal in the arc is to have his rematch with Red. For that reason he used Red's DNA to stabilize Deoxys, and fought him upon his Sky Fortress, because he's Giovanni and naturally he would have a sky fortress. It's a pretty intense battle between two legendary psychic pokemon and two trainers with the skill to push them to the limit.





Giovanni's defeat also reveals that he's ill and very much running out of time, wanting to have one last shot at Red and to find his son and bestow his crime empire upon him, unfortunately due to the fact the Skyship crashed, his meeting with his son is in an inferno while his son is unconcious. Which leads to Giovanni being probably the second best dad in the series, or the best, depending on how you feel about Norman.




Unfortunately the FRLG arc ends upon a cliffhanger and we wouldn't discover Giovanni's fate until HGSS had been publicized, there, as expected since it's Pokemon. Giovanni had survived and was cured by some of his subordinates. While he very much turned on the organization to stand by his sons side, once he had been properly defended, he returned to lead Team Rocket, as he still has evil ambition in his heart. He does, however, tell Silver to get strong training under Lance so that he may be able to defeat him one day.