Grunt

A grunt (Japanese: したっぱ Underling) is an underling of a villainous team who wears uniforms and helps to carry out nefarious deeds. Grunts often serve under and follow the orders of Admins or other high-ranking members of the organization.

Each grunt can only be identified by the team they serve, and are not known to have names besides "Grunt" (which some Team Skull Grunts refer to directly as literally being their names), even after the introduction of names for all Trainers in Generation II, with Carmen of Team Star being the only exception.

Grunts of each villainous team include:

Team Rocket Grunts, who work for Team Rocket. They act as fodder, enforcers, soldiers, workmen, crooks, and backup for leaders in the criminal organization.
- Team Rainbow Rocket Grunts, who work for Team Rainbow Rocket. They have a Rainbow R on their uniform, and tend to attack in large numbers.
- Team GO Rocket Grunts, who work for Team GO Rocket. They invade PokéStops and use hot air balloons and Shadow Pokémon to defend their claims.
Team Magma Grunts, who work for Team Magma. They oppose Team Aqua, and will help or oppose the player depending on the game.
Team Aqua Grunts, who work for Team Aqua. They oppose Team Magma, and will help or oppose the player depending on the game.
Team Galactic Grunts, who work for Team Galactic. They act as footsoldiers and guards, and often clumsily drop keys after being defeated.
Team Plasma Grunts, who work for Team Plasma. They fight for Pokémon liberation, only using Pokémon to that end.
Team Flare Grunts, who work for Team Flare. They tend to be well-groomed and take pride in their appearance, and seek to bring beauty to the world.
Team Skull Grunts, who work for Team Skull. They are ruffians who steal Pokémon, ransack trial zones, and enjoy poisoning the lives of honest people.
Team Yell Grunts work for Team Yell. They are Gym Trainers of the Spikemuth Gym, and overzealous fans of Marnie, wanting her to become Champion of Galar.
Team Star Grunts work for Team Star. They are delinquent students of Naranja Academy^S/Uva Academy^V.

Similar examples

Some low level workers of other organizations also share similarities to grunts.

In the core series, these workers include:

Aether Foundation Employees, who are employees of the Aether Foundation and follow the Aether President's orders.
Macro Cosmos's employees, who follow the company president's orders.

In the side series, these workers include:

Team Snagem members, who use Snag Machines to steal Pokémon from Trainers.
Peons, which appear in Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness as footsoldiers of Cipher.
- Cipher Peons block important areas and drop from the ceiling to ambush intruders.
- Miror B.Peons often accompany Miror B., and later work under him as part of Team Miror.

Additionally, villainous teams in the Pokémon Ranger series each have their own grunts who work for them. These teams include:

Go-Rock Squad grunts, which are low-level grunts of the Go-Rock Squad that have been given Super Stylers to use against Pokémon Rangers.
Team Dim Sun Minions, which are low-ranking members of Team Dim Sun that use Gigaremo and Miniremo units to control Pokémon that are typically weaker than those controlled by their superiors.
The Pokémon Pinchers, whose members use Control Gauntlets to capture and control Pokémon.