Giovanni Appreciation

When did it start?

It all started when I was a little kid sometime in 2011. Back then, the Black and White arc of the Pokemon anime was airing, and I'd sometimes catch it on tv while eating breakfast on Saturday mornings. I was instantly enamoured with Pokemon, particularly with Team Rocket, who became my favourite part of the show. As I got older and started playing the games (my first was Alpha Sapphire, can't believe it's over ten years old now oof), though my love for Team Rocket dulled as I was exposed to different characters and stories, it never disappeared.

Flash forward to high school. I was still a Pokemon fan, though my focus had shifted to other interests. Then, I rediscovered Pokespe, which I used to read as a kid at my local library, and I was hooked once more. I had never read past the Yellow arc before then, but now I had quickly read all the way to the HGSS arc instead of doing my homework. At the same time, I had recently gotten into playing Crystal and Ultra Moon, and my interest in Pokemon enjoyed a sudden and powerful renaissance.

But Why Giovanni?

To be honest, I'm not fully sure. He doesn't have much in the way of a character, at least in the games, and what little characterisation he does get is insanely inconsistent between his appearances. In a way he's sort of like a different character in every appearance, just with the same skin (and even then, that varies too lol). Despite that, he was a pretty grounded character (no pun intended), and had a simple charm to him, both in design and motivation. In a world full of colourful characters, simplicity stands out. That's why so many people resonated with Larry. It may also be a reason why I grew to adore Giovanni and gens 1 and 2 in general. He genuinely looks like a typial boomer or gen-x (or extremely unfortunate millenial) office worker I'd see on the street, with his not-overly-formal suit and receding harline, which he bravely does not attempt to hide. All I know is that despite having almost 30 year's worth of pokemon characters to choose from, my brain decided to make him my favourite fictional character of all time.

Quick Tangent

However, after my initial exitement, I soon became disillusioned at the amount of fanfiction that seemed to treat Giovanni like he was this evil monster who's committed every crime under the sun and whose favourite hobby is treating his son as badly as possible. Some of those works would also portray Silver as some helpless victim, which I found... interesting. While people are free to have their own interpretations of characters or even project onto them, sometimes it can go a bit too far in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I'm just as guilty of conflating fanon with canon, but in my opinon it's worth consulting the source material especially if you want to do something like a character study. That's not to say that Giovanni is a good father, but as far as I know there is no canon evidence of abuse (don't worry I haven't forgotten about the Celebi event! That whole thing was Giovanni's fault no matter what his intentions could have been). Despite my personal reservations about relying too heavily on your own headcanons (if they change the character so much I would consider just making an oc inspired by them instead), as long as nobody is being harmed, I suppose it's not that big a deal. Anyway, maybe I'll be brave enough to post a fic of my own one day. Maybe.

Which Giovanni is your (least) favourite?

Character-wise, my favourite is Pokespe! Giovanni. He actally has a personality and more than three lines at a time so that's an instant win. His rivalry with Red is very interesting, particularly how he acknowledges and respects him as a Champion. His and Silver's story is a refreshingly different take on their relationship, and I love how although he's a clearly bad person, he's given small moments that endear the reader to him. I also like Origins! Giovanni. Since it was a mini-series meant to show off mega evolution, I cut it a lot of slack in terms of pacing. It treated Giovanni quite well with the 20 minutes it had. Aesthetics-wise, my favourites are Anime! Giovanni before he got the dictator fit in B&W and LGPE! Giovanni. He looks much better with a bit of a tan I think.

My LEAST favourite Giovanni has got to be HGSS! Giovanni. The Celebi event followed up on FRLG's changing of Giovanni's motivation, which was now world domination. It also ruined his whole thing about quitting the Mafia/Yakuza to study Pokemon, which would have been pretty cool to see. Regardless, that doesn't matter because HGSS Giovanni doesn't exist; he's a mass-hallucination imposed on us by the government to make us all hate Giovanni :). Honourable mention goes to RR!Giovanni, not cause he's particularly terrible, but because everyone seems to forget he's an alternate universe version of Gio and not the guy we met in the original and remake timelines (looking at you Pokemas).

Shipping

I'm gonna be super honest and say that I don't really ship Giovanni with any other character. To me, Giovanni's just a chronic bachelor who, despite having great charisma, doesn't succeed in proper romantic relationships. In terms of Giovanni ships I see pretty often, such as the Executives, Ghetsis, Cyrus, Nanu, and Rose, while I don't personally ship them, I do think that their dynamics are/could be very interesting and fun to explore! For a lot of people, the most engaging way of exploring dynamics with different characters is through shipping, which I totally get. I just prefer to explore character relationships through a platonic or familial lens. We all resonate with different things, which is what makes the internet so interesting.

Regarding the debate over Silver's mother, I don't think that Ariana is the mother, considering how pokemon characters don't always look like their known parent (think Lacey or even Silver himself). If we follow that logic, was the mystery mother a spouse, partner, or just a one-night stand? Perhaps Silver was adopted? My personal theory is that Giovanni wrote to a stork (a Bombirdier maybe?) and asked for a baby. The simple answer is that it just doesn't matter, since she's clearly out of the picture and thus not a current part of Silver's story. That won't stop me from believing my theory though.

Headcanons

Coming soon!