Jessebelle: Difference between revisions

Jessiebelle (Japanese: ルミカ Rumika) was the woman appointed to be James's fiancée by his parents in the Pokémon anime.

History

She first appeared in Holy Matrimony!, where James returned to his parents' mansion in Kanto after receiving word that they had died. However, this was just a hoax to lure him into marrying Jessiebelle; if he did marry her, he would receive his massive inheritance. However it soon became apparent that James was absolutely terrified of Jessiebelle; he explained to Jessie, Meowth, Ash and his friends how the marriage had been arranged when he and Jessiebelle were young, and she had always been bossy. She would follow him around constantly tormenting him and telling him what to do and how he should do things. She's the main reason why James ran away from home.

Since he had not seen Jessiebelle for years, James was shocked to discover that she had an almost identical appearance to Jessie. Jessiebelle expelled Jessie, Meowth, and Ash's group from the home and chased James around the mansion's basement, threatening him with her Vileplume's Stun Spore and a long whip. Eventually, Growlie broke out from its doghouse and came to rescue James from Jessiebelle. The two had a Pokémon battle, with Growlie being victorious and Jessiebelle running off the estate.

Jessiebelle is, as demonstrated by her debut appearance, extremely controlling and obsessive. She is a stuck-up, elitist woman with a dominatrix personality, and her professed affection for James may very possibly be a front just to get at his parents' money, though his parents are oblivious to the possibility as they deem her to be their idea of a "perfect daughter-in-law."

James still appears to not have changed his feelings on Jessiebelle. On arrival in Sinnoh in Two Degrees of Separation!, he was happy to visit his second summer home until he was told that Jessiebelle was on her way there, and he, along with Jessie and Meowth, promptly left the premises. She reappeared in The Treasure Is All Mine!, where she once again fiercely chased after her eternal run-away fiancé, much to his horror. In the same episode it was revealed the arrangement was actually made after James expressed interest in her while they were children. Unfortunately it wasn't until after the engagement was announced that James was exposed to her less than tolerable personality, apparently starting with her insulting his beloved pet Growlithe, Growlie.

Pokémon

Voice actors

Trivia

• Jessiebelle's English name is both a pun on Jessie's name and a near-homonym of Jezebel.
  • Also, "-belle" is a common suffix used in females' names, such as Lisabelle or Maybelle.
    • The term "belle" is also used to describe a southern young woman (southern-belle), which may relate to Jessiebelle's steel-magnolia accent.
• There were 571 episodes between Jessiebelle's first appearance and her second appearance, which to this date is the longest time between a particular human character's first and second physical appearances within the show (while she did appear in Two Degrees of Separation!, it was only in one of James's flashbacks).
• Despite her similarities to Jessie, Jessiebelle's hair color has remained red throughout the series, while Jessie's turned purple when the coloring began to be done digitally in Here's Lookin' at You, Elekid.
• Possibly because of her many similarities to Jessie, the voice actresses (in many countries) that have played Jessiebelle are played by the same voice actresses who played Jessie.
  • However, both her Japanese and first Latin American voice actresses are not the same regular actresses as Jessie's, but have played that role temporally.
• In the original series, Jessiebelle has jade-colored irises, but later on in the DP series, the eye color swapped to a more bluish tone, most likely due to the animators changing to digital coloring.

Names

This article is part of Project Anime, a Bulbapedia project that covers all aspects of the Pokémon anime.