Pokemon: The Japanese Sensation- why its soooo fucking evil.

Think about it as an Animal World.


The word Pokemon was born sometime back in 1996, long after the time animals were only used as slaves. Pokemon is actually a sub-abbreviation of the two words “Pocket Monsters” and in its world, hundreds of cute little creatures with the likeness of our pets live in apparent harmony. Like animals and other beasts of burden, they don’t speak English, French or Japanese, but repeat their names over and over again when they talk. Each of them represents one of the elements, with some types being more creative: Fire, Grass, Water, Lightning, Fighting and Psychic. Sounds a lot like a classification of the people you know. Because of their element types, each Pokemon has its own special abilities and attacks, none of which ever draw blood and has strengths and weaknesses against other element types. Now that’s ecology combined with a cartoon creation.


But what’s an animal kingdom without the humans? That’s where the “trainers” come in. Among the stars are Ash Ketchum, an ambitious and courageous pre-teen, (his last name came from the “catch ‘em” in the main theme sentence “Gotta catch ‘em all!”) Misty, an aggressive down-to-earth female and Brock, who is probably older than the latter two, is always in love with one girl or another. Last but not least are Team Rocket, two gangsters, one named Jesse and the other named James, and one Pokemon that can talk, Meowth. These trainers are portrayed as talented people who carry Pokeballs with them to capture Pokemon, which they in turn use to battle with other Pokemon. They each have the vision of being the world’s strongest Pokemon Trainer. Perplexed? Here is the abridged version. Quite simply, trainers use their monsters to beat up the monsters of other people to become the champion.

Anyway, four years ago, the craze was tiny, hardly comparable to the one we are in right now. Pokemon was a humble name, with little commercialisation and very few new ideas, the producers had to settle for the small royalty they made from the Pokemon Game cartridges for the Nintendo Gameboy. After a while in the limelight, the Pocket Monsters and every clue of their existence seemed to have vanished into thin air, the only trace of them was the cartoon series being screened on some television stations in the early hours on weekdays. The extra toys and figurines that remained unsold at the fast-food restaurants were tucked away into large plastic bags along with other toys that had reached the end of their promotion periods. Then, like the wakening of a dormant volcano, it kicked off in Japan all of a sudden and those Pokemon toys in the large bags were taken out, dusted and brought home by lucky collectors who made them their trophies. Today, few Pokemon products remain on the shelf long enough for the dust to settle upon them. With successful advertising and promotions, the craze has ballooned to enormous, or Godzilla-like proportions.

right there with you. and its still a craze.

i went to game stop to preorder the new guitar hero metallica game and there were about 40 people there waiting in line for the new pokemon game. there are like 2 video game stores in every town where i live. pokemon is definiately still a craze.