Jessebelle: Difference between revisions

Jessebelle ルミカ Rumika
Jessebelle
Gender	Female
Eye color	Jade
Hair color	Red
Hometown	Unknown
Region	Kanto
Anime debut	Holy Matrimony!
English voice actor	Rachael Lillis (4Kids) Michele Knotz (TPCi)
Japanese voice actor	Megumi Hayashibara

Jessebelle (Japanese: ルミカ Rumika) was the woman appointed to be James's fiancée by his parents in the Pokémon anime. She also is a doppelgänger of Jessie.

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 Jessebelle; if he did marry her, he would receive his massive inheritance. However it soon became apparent that James was absolutely terrified of Jessebelle; he explained to Jessie, Meowth, Ash and his friends how the marriage had been arranged when he and Jessebelle 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 was the main reason why James ran away from home.

Jessebelle in her debut appearance in Holy Matrimony!

Since he had not seen Jessebelle for years, James was shocked to discover that she had an almost identical appearance to Jessie. Jessebelle 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 Jessebelle. The two had a Pokémon battle, with Growlie being victorious and Jessebelle running off the estate.

Jessebelle 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."

She also was seen in a flashback in The Heartbreak of Brock.

James still appears to not have changed his feelings on Jessebelle, who was seen in another flashback in Two Degrees of Separation!. He was happy to visit his second summer home until he was told that Jessebelle 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

		Oddish → Gloom → Vileplume
		Vileplume is Jessebelle's only known Pokémon. Jessebelle has had it ever since it was an Oddish, and it evolved into a Gloom and then a Vileplume sometime after James had ran away from home. Vileplume was used in Holy Matrimony! to make sure Jessebelle could slow James down and keep him from escaping, in which it not only affected James, but Ash, Misty, and Brock also. However, with the help of Growlie, James managed to escape. Vileplume later reappeared in The Treasure Is All Mine!, where Jessebelle used it to open a blocked passageway. Vileplume's known moves are Stun Spore and Solar Beam.
Debut	Holy Matrimony!
Voice actors
Japanese	Megumi Hayashibara
English	Kayzie Rogers

Voice actors

Trivia

• Jessebelle'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 Jessebelle's steel-magnolia accent.
• There were 571 episodes between Jessebelle's first and second appearance, which 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, Jessebelle'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 Jessebelle are played by the same voice actresses who played Jessie.
• In the original series, Jessebelle 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.