Rocket Member is an unfinished Pokémon fan-comic by hopelessromantic721 on Deviantart. It's a Meowth/Pikachu themed story where all the Pokémon are humanized.
The story starts with Meowth being kicked out of Team Rocket for not stopping an accident that killed several people. While in the forest, he comes across several Pokémon being attacked by Team Rocket. Suddenly an unusually powerful Pikachu comes along and knocks out the attackers. This is the start of how Meowth and Pikachu met.
You can view the comic starting here
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Rocket Member provides examples of:
- Adapted Out: All the humans are absent, except for Giovanni. Most of their Pokémon are as well.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Meowth spends a lot more time brooding than he does in canon.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- Poké Balls are used in order to enslave gijinka. Only bad people like Team Rocket use them.
- Team Rocket aren't just greedy Pokémon stealers. They enslave Pokémon gijinka.
- Animesque: The comic is styled after Japanese doujinshi.
- Art Evolution: There was a shift from hand-drawn to Photoshop in volume 2 but then a shift back later. The comic gets slightly less animesque as time goes on and the art-style improves as well. There was a several month gap between pages 48 and 49, and it shows.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- Meowth breaks it to complain about how deep the hole he's in is, as he's been falling for several pages.
- Pikachu breaks to wall to lampshade how slow the comic updates are.
- Cute Little Fangs: Arbok has visible fangs to emphasis her snake qualities. It would be Fangs Are Evil if she wasn't so ineffectual and kind.
- Dead Fic: The comic took 5 years to reach 50 pages. It hasn't been updated since 2012 (and on a page lampshading the slowness of the comic, at that).
- Death of a Child: It's implied that Togepi was killed in an explosion.
- Expressive Hair: Pikachu's hair builds up static when she's angry.
- Eyes Always Shut: Wobbuffet keeps his eyes shut at all times.
- Gender Flip: Pikachu is a female in the comic. This is because the comic predates Pikachu being confirmed a male.
- Gratuitous Japanese: Mime Jr. refers to Meowth as "onii-sama", Meowth once says "itai" (instead of "ouch"), and humanized Pokémon are "gijinka".
- Interspecies Romance:
- Pikachu's mother is a Marill. Her Disappeared Dad is either a Pikachu or Raichu.
- The comic ships Meowth and Pikachu together.
- Moe Anthropomorphism: Rocket Members is a romance fan-comic starring animesque Little Bit Beastly versions of Meowth and Pikachu from the Pokemon anime. They can still use their powers as well.
- Mythology Gag: Pikachu and Meowth share an apple like in "A Scare To Remember".
- Parental Abandonment: Pikachu's father ran off after his wife's death. Her mother died fighting Team Rocket.
- Precision F-Strike: Meowth curses Persian out for rubbing in his mistake:Do me a favor! Go burn and rot in hell! Keep your damn dirty mouth closed already!
- Related in the Adaptation: The Pichu brothers are Pikachu's kid brothers.
- The Runaway: Pikachu ran away from her brothers to get stronger.
- Samus Is a Girl: Pikachu first appears wearing jeans and with her hoodie up, so people mistake her for a boy. It only becomes apparent that she's female when she charges up and her hood gets knocked off.
- Token Mini-Moe: Mime Jr. is an adorable little girl and is the youngest Team Rocket member shown. She may, or may not, have been killed in a blast along with the rest of Meowth's friends.
