You are a heretical blasphemer and I will stop at nothing to see you pay for your crimes against Pokémon. To allow you to escape justice would be a dereliction of my honor. I live now only to see you brought to destruction. But no hard feelings!! 
4 Likes
To actually attempt an answer at the OP, this is what I think
I think this is right. The Team Rocket set came out in Japan November 21, 1997.
Not coincidentally, Gold and Silver were first publicly shown at Nintendo Space World in November 1997. Meaning the Team Rocket set was released right in the middle of the GS development process. They also had a prototype male sprite ready at that time suggesting that they had already started the process of the grunt design.
RBGY sprite
Spaceworld prototype
Final sprites
Cassidy/ヤマトfirst appears in episode 57 of the anime, first airing in Japan on August 6, 1998 (almost a year later). Clearly inspired the same character design.
Based on this, it seems like the character on the card is based on the Gen II Female grunt, unless there’s some other earlier design origin I’m not aware of.
An alternative theory is that the card art was actually drawn first and both the sprite and Cassidy were based on that artwork.
6 Likes
So the games were first? Then TCG followed by anime?
I may be wrong - was this the first appearance of Team Rocket
Second followed by TCG 1997 Rocket Gang
Lastly the anime
If so it’s crazy how alike the TCG and anime are and must have took some inspiration from the TCG
1 Like
It seems that the Jessie and James design was being developed in late 1996 by Ken Suigmori as seen below [1]
Note how similar the design is to the card art below.
The anime began April 1, 1997 in Japan and obviously ran with this character design.
Interestingly, CoroCoro Comics in April 1997 show Jessie & James in a dark outfit similar to the card art and basically all other TR design prior.
The sprite above is actually from Pokemon Yellow (September 12, 1998). Pokemon Yellow was obviously heavily inspired by the anime: Pikachu as a starter, Jessie & James, getting all the other starters through the gameplay, rival starts off with an Eevee, Gym leaders teams match the anime.
So in this case, it seems like the “Here comes team rocket” art (or at least the character design) actually predates both the anime an the video game appearances of Jessie and James
6 Likes
lol with that HCTR close up, Sugimori really can’t distinguish different characters. Both of them have the same face.
Same with a lot of the old artwork. So many characters look alike with the same face.
I believe I can answer the whole debate of cards taking from the anime…
1 Like
Promos and special decks can feature anime-only characters (Ash’s Pikachu GX, Team Rocket’s Mimikyu GX) or even real life people (Shining Imakuni, M-Sachiko EX, Nicole Fujita Pikachu)
None of that ever happens in the main sets. Lt. Yoshida is in the Detective Pikachu set, but that’s a special promotional set
2 Likes
Ash Greninja is in the games. Its A Pokemon from the anime, in the games. same with ash hat pikachu, from the anime, in the games, i bet you the same character sheets apply.
I’m not going to get involved in the debate but I always thought that was Cassidy and completely forgot about the TR Grunt sprite in Gen 2. Of course, I did ask the same questions that have been asked in this thread but brushed it off since Jesse/James were also on a card in the same set so I assumed it was possible to have an anime reference in the cards.
More interesting is why a TR grunt has an anime-inspired white uniform in the games yet - ironically - the lookalike, Cassidy, in the anime wears black.
This is one of those thought trains that makes me think of that Comic Book Guy scene in that Simpsons episode where he says, “oh no, I’ve wasted my life” just before Springfield is hit by an asteroid.
3 Likes
As @pfm basically said, it wouldn’t be far reaching to assume that the NPC inspired the character.
The reason why they are black in the anime is because black clothes in anime TR were considered to be a “higher rank” of grunt if my childhood memory is right. There is even an eoisode I believe where Jesse and James are promoted and wear black (or maybe it was a dream sequence?). They probably just wanted some level of separation - hence the hair color change too - so it wouldn’t be an exact rip.
My understanding is that a lot of NPCs would go on to inspire anime characters and anime characters would inspire NPCs.
2 Likes
