Disclaimer the only reason I know this rubbish is because my younger cousins were weebs and they went on to have nerdy weeb kids who spergily monologue at me about Pokemon, Turtles, Minecraft, Marvel etc.:
I always took James to be gay and attached to Jesse non-sexually, as well. It does happen between nelly men and strong bossy women. However:
In one only half-canonical epilogue arc of the Pokemon mangas in Japan, the ending sees Jesse & James retiring from Team Rocket as a romantic couple, presumably by this point in their 30s. Jessie is even depicted as pregnant with her & James' child in a final shot together--no word on the sex or name of the baby (fans dubbed it 'Jules' or 'Jewels' depending on how you transliterate it) Meowth still lives with them as their pet, oddly as all throughout the story and the anime he was adamant that he was no such thing.
The same ending also shows Jesse & James burying the hatchet with Ash & the Ketchum family in an ooc move, by kindly hand-delivering a letter from a still-globetrotting Ash to his mother (does
she even have a name? And why did she allow her preteen son to drop out and leave home?) telling her about Ash's long-awaited achievement as the winner of a Pokemon League.
The artist for this book and others in the Pokemon japanese manga also draws hentai as a side hustle, which is disturbing. It's a living and probably pays well, though, one supposes.
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