[Meta thread] Lord Windos' PokeRole Adventure : Celadon City Vandels

[Dragonstrike]

If you're looking at straight battle capabilities, yes, they're not the greatest.  It's the non-battle and usually non-criminal areas J&J usually excel in (though they CAN hold their own in battle on occassion).  They're masters of disguise and acting (name 5 times in the anime that they were recognized by anyone before they took off their disguises), Jessie can hold her own in Contests, James is basically a walking pokedex, the two of them are jacks of all trades when it comes to doing many, many different kinds of jobs, so many of their wacky plans are incredibly expensive and/or complicated mechanisms that they've put together with only the barest funding, Giovanni was comfortable with entrusting his gym to them for a short time while he was away on business...oh, and they're also incredibly sturdy as well, given how much punishment they take from Ash's Pikachu on a semi-regular basis that they quickly recover from.

Best Wishes Giovanni managed to take control of all 3 Forces of Nature and almost managed to get Meloetta, too.  I'd say that he's far from incompetent based on that alone.

Honestly, while they're mostly comic relief, if you look beyond that, J&J have plenty of evidence to suggest that they're highly skilled individuals.

...just not when they're trying to beat anyone in a straight fight.  But even then, I only put so much stock in that because anime protagnists (usually) have plot armor that protects them from the villains ever having the last laugh.

So while Arial might be able to beat the two of them in a straight battle (and Reiner would probably be able to crush them with 99% certainty), J&J would probably remain higher ranked than Arial due to their other skills.




BTW, I'm trying to keep this analysis as unbiased as possible. Biased arguments are rarely ever good ones.