Thoughts on Kaitou Ace from Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor V

I was browsing through the Sailor Moon tag on Tumblr and I just happened to come across this confession:

prettysenshiconfessions:
I thought Kaitou Ace was awful and creepy, a borderline villain. Why do so many people want him together with Minako?! [Link]

Ace Kaitou was very sinister, creepy and disturbing... and that’s what makes him interesting. Unlike the Shitennou in Sailor Moon, who had their duty and memories warped and removed, Danburite was fully aware of his actions from beginning to end and seemed to genuinely relish in having the “last laugh” over Minako, and by extension Venus. That is what makes him such an fascinating character. I agree I don’t understand people who genuinely wish he and Minako were a couple, but I can understand why the relationship is interesting because the source of Danburite’s discontent towards Minako is the bitterness he feels about his previous life, Adonis’s unrequited love for his Princess Venus and that all his life she never looked at him twice. Or even once.

On the one hand you do feel sorry for Adonis because he always admired and dreamed about being noticed by Venus but she always put her duty as a senshi first. Perhaps he could have lived with that if that meant she would not give her love to someone else. He felt sad about it, sure, but at least no one else would have her.

All he wanted to do was be as close to her as possible.

Then, while serving in Endymion’s army, just to stay close to his princess, he happened to notice a telling exchange between Venus and his Terran commanding officer. That was when he made another bitter realization.

In a weird way, I think it a cruel irony that out of all the players in this story it was the lowly foot solider who was reborn with his memories in tact. Minako, whoever Kunzite was before Beryl got to him, the other Senshi and Shitennou, even Luna doesn’t remember everything - all of them are in the dark. In this life he is the one who is one step ahead, who holds all the secrets, and yet he uses it to commit crimes and stand against Venus.

Danburite puts a lot of emphasis on paths. He sees Adonis’s path as one of endless struggle, reaching out to Venus yet never reaching her. That he chose in this life to hurt her shows an underlining bitterness that appears to have two roots: the one he blatantly stated - that her duty to Serenity made her unattainable - and then we have the one only hinted at through the panels but its inclusion at all makes it an important factor in Danburite's choice to become a villain: Venus's heart belonged to another man.

It is the latter which was, in my opinion, the straw that broke the camel’s back for Danburite. Takeuchi depicts the “other man” twice within a few panels. First, with Adonis standing directly behind him (OT: Oh hai, Jadeite!) and second, of him and Venus together. This is presumably from Adonis’s POV as they are being viewed from behind, accompanied by a sorrowful expression from Adonis at what is clearly supposed to be a tender moment between Venus and Kunzite. The inclusion of the tiny circling stars between their eye lines with Adonis's own swirling off into nothing, indicating that he is not only watching them but that while their eyes are for each other, his have no inter-locker. Adonis is alone. This moment is so clearly burned into Danburite’s mind that he has to flippantly wave it away by accusing Minako of “always falling in love back then too”, showing that the pain (or resentment) Adonis felt in that second was still vividly felt by Danburite. Had this really been another one of Minako/Venus's one-minute crushes, it would not have been included in his memory. Recalling it proves that whatever passed between Venus and Kunzite was mutual.

There is no point in sugar coating it. It is blatantly implied in this moment that one of Danburite’s key motivations for growing to spite and work against Sailor Venus was this moment. It boiled down to one key emotion:

Jealousy.

The fact that he serves the Shitennou in this life too is another cruel irony. Aside from working for the force that will “rule the world” and is working against everything Sailor Venus stood against, it goes further than that. Presumably Danburite knows how the love story between his Princess and his Commander ended - in tragedy - and being in the know while reporting to the shadow-of-his-former-self Kunzite perhaps gave him some perverse satisfaction. For one thing he had the upper-hand over the man who the “hands of fate” had favoured, the man Venus had loved. Kunzite is still his commander, yes, but Danburite is more aware of the situation than he is. The former has the power but the latter is holding all the cards.

Another thing to remember is that Danburite is also holding the cards tightly to his chest. In doing that, he is denying Kunzite his freedom and Minako the full story. Just like he never could reach Venus, Minako will never again be able to reach out to her (presumed) soul mate. Danburite dies taking the knowledge of Venus and Kunzite’s love affair with him, leaving both of them forever in the dark.

Danburite is perhaps a better villain because he is so aware. Kunzite, the other shitennou and even Beryl are ultimately pawns in someone else’s game. Upon realising the truth of who he was, Kunzite was consumed with guilt and sorrow. Ultimately, he had to have all autonomy taken from him to keep him under Beryl’s thumb. Even transformed into a crystal, he rose up and told Mamoru what he needed to do to defeat Queen Metalia. Ultimately we are shown that Kunzite is a “true knight” - always looking for the light even when surrounded in darkness. Danburite knows what he is doing from beginning to end and even with the opportunity to finally get his Venus, the darkness consumes him.

That is what makes Danburite/Ace good villain. He is complex like Kunzite but is also bad for the sake of being bad, which I admit I like. In the second life he is give the chance to finally win the love of Venus, but he opts instead to use her nativity and habit of giving love out as a weapon to hurt her. It is an act of a man who wants nothing more than revenge. Idealistic Adonis died chasing an unobtainable woman. Danburite died spiting the unobtainable woman by breaking her heart and cursing her love life.

You are left wondering at the end - was it his obsession with Venus that drove him to his nefarious deeds or deep down was he always ultimately a creepy, nasty piece of work? I know what I think - but what about you, um?

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I posted this to my Tumblr and DeviantArt pages as well.

Overthinking Meowth of Team Rocket

More specifically, the Meowth belonging to Team Rocket.

He is in actuality a wild Pokemon. There is never a situation where Jessie or James indicate that he has a Pokeball to return to, should the need arise. There is, of course, that stint in the Unova series where Meowth was travelling with Ash and his friends - actually some of the best episodes I had seen in a while and genuinely made me feel sad when it really was all just a trick, not least because Ash came to genuinely care about Meowth and see him as part of the team - where on several occasions Iris or random NICs (Non-Important Characters) tried to catch Meowth. He would always escape the Pokeball and declare that he would “never be caught!” for anything.

Meowth is actually a very important Pokemon, though. This is not just because of his ability to talk but the insight he gives into Pokemon psyche.


Meowth’s Inability to Learn Pay Day

According to Meowth, his ability to speak negates his ability to learn the signature move of his species, Pay Day. In the episode with the Meowth-worshiping islanders, he tells Jessie and James that when he should have been learning Pay Day he was teaching himself to talk. Initially, the implication of this is that Meowth can’t learn any other moves, like TMs or any of the moves he would naturally learn growing up. This would suggest a connection between a Pokemon’s ability to learn human speech and their ability to grow. If Meowth has stunted himself by learning to speak then this could also have implications for his ability to ever evolve into a Persian.

One argument against this theory is that Meowth tried to/managed to teach himself Night Slash - but refuses to use it because it is too scary. It is never made clear whether he successfully managed it but the fact that he was attempting it, and was able to do it enough to realise it is a scary move, suggests he must have had some degree of success. So, while his speech negated his ability to learn Pay Day it did not affect his ability to learn new attacks altogether.

As a result of the above, this is Meowth’s probable movelist:

- Fury Swipes (His most commonly used move)
- Bite (Which he used in the Sandshrew episode)
- Scratch (First move he ever used and he invariably uses it)
…and the third slot is taken up by his ability to talk.
*It is also possible that one of the three moves above was copied over so Meowth could learn Night Slash.

This indicates that he can learn other moves and presumably could teach himself TM moves. Meowth has a fairly interesting move-pool and, if Jessie and James wanted to have a Pokemon who could use an electric attack, they could steal a TM for Meowth and teach him Thunderbolt. The fact that it has never occurred to them to ask Meowth to learn some of the moves in his arsenal via TMs, which they could easily steal or even ask Giovanni for (If he’s happy to waste money on those robots, surely he’d be pleased at the prospect of making Meowth a useful battler), indicates that Meowth would have to learn these useful TMs as a captured, trained Pokemon - which Meowth would NEVER agree to become. As a result, his experience growth is stunted.


Meowth as an Untamed Pokemon

So, Meowth possibly shows the key differences between a wild Pokemon bonded with humans and a human trained Pokemon. While a wild Pokemon may have its “freedom” it will never be as powerful as a human trained Pokemon. This goes back to that Sparrow in Episode 1. According to the Pokedex, wild Pokemon are often jealous of human trained Pokemon - this could be because the latter is innately stronger.

But Meowth NEVER shows any indication of wanting to be stronger. His desires tend to revolve around being rich and successful, being Giovanni’s “Top Cat” again by any means possible not matter how naughty and bad. We can infer from this desire that Meowth perhaps was popular with the Rocket boss as a result of his unique speaking skills but he likely fell out of favour due to that being his only positive quality - and that he cannot learn Pay Day. In Island of the Giant Pokemon, Meowth is shocked when Koffing and Ekans tells him that Pokemon only do bad things because the humans around them are bad. Meowth exclaims, “But my Master isn’t here and I always do ad things!” - but if we were to assume that his true Master is Giovanni… well, that would probably explain by Meowth “always acts bad”. Together with the humans having most influence on him being Jessie and James, or other Rocket members, it is the only behaviour he knows. Prior to his association with Team Rocket he also worked under the influence of a Persian who ordered the little Meowth to commit petty crimes so they could survive. Then before to that, he was an abandoned baby Pokemon who was always starving and treated cruelly by humans who saw him as a pest. Ultimately, Meowth is the product of a very harsh upbringing.

Considering the level of nastiness humans and even members of his own species showed him before be met Jessie and James, it is also no surprise that he stays with them. Despite being members of the notoriously cruel and merciless Team Rocket, Jessie and James are very kind to their Pokemon. They can be harsher to Meowth but probably because they treat him like they do each other and do not consider him to be an ordinary Pokemon. They interact with him like they do each other, treat him like an equal. Given the life Meowth led for most of his babyhood it is understandable that his goals would match that of Jessie and James, and it is worth noting that none of them ever realistically selling out the others for all the glory. Meowth, in fact, is the only one who ever came close. In the Meowth worshiping cult episode, he briefly considered selling out the two Js for what he thought was a better deal. However when his team members return to help Meowth trick a stadium into thinking he can use Pay Day, he realises just how much they care about him and chase after them. A lot of the positive lessons that Meowth learns about comradery tend to come from Jessie and James. The rest come from Pikachu.


Meowth as Proof of Pokemon Sentience

“Pokemon is bad because Master is Bad,” is what Ekans told Meowth, a fact that shocked him. This lesson is likewise echoed by Ash when Gary stated that the mysterious Pokemon he battled - later revealed to be Mewtwo - was evil. These statements infer that as far as humans are concerned, Pokemon are innately good and only do bad things because the humans who train them (or they just interact with) are bad.

I already explained how I feel Meowth came to be “bad” is the result of a bad upbringing. Yet one of the big differences between him and, say, his biggest rival Giovanni’s Persian is that Persian is a trained Pokemon obeying the orders of his trainer; Meowth does bad things off his own back.

But the key thing is the difference between being bad and being evil - and Meowth has never done anything to suggest he is evil. He is a naughty, sneaky and badly behaved Pokemon, which if we are honest is not anything new to the Pokemon world nor is it a trait unique to him. After all, Ash’s own Squirtle was a gang leader who committed petty crimes for giggles before he joined the team. Hell, Scrafty are hoodlums and will do “naughty” things to survive. Meowth as a species are pretty much the Scrafty of their generation, associated with being criminal tricksters. So, if we look at our Meowth we might just be seeing a personality trait of a whole species being taken to a new level thanks to his ability to voice his intentions/feelings in a language that idiotic humans can understand.

Meowth is so good at speaking that it is easy to forget sometimes that he is a Pokemon who taught himself how to do that little trick. That he taught himself suggests that any Pokemon within reason could also teach themselves to speak, if they wanted. So why don’t they? Well, we can see from Meowth that it appears to have at least in someway hindered his development. He isn’t a strong battler and seems to find it difficult to learn new attacks. Many Pokedex entries suggest that battling is an important part of a Pokemon’s culture, not just something necessarily forced on them by humans. Perhaps most Pokemon don’t realise they could learn to talk or maybe they do know but opt not to because the chance to learn more attacks is more important to them.

Either way, that Meowth can express himself gives us such an interesting look into the way a Pokemon’s brain works. It proves that most Pokemon are almost certainly on the same level of intellect as most humans. In which case, the final question should be this - how did humans become the dominant species when Pokemon just as intelligent as a Meowth but with far superior powers can be captured and placed in a Pokeball?