POKÉMON:
A QUEST FOR TRUTH
An Interdisciplinary Study To
Reveal the Effect of Pokémon on the Millennial Generation
By Brent Jones
Pokémon Master
ABSTRACT
The thesis of this paper is to prove Pokémon’s
significance through an interdisciplinary overview of available research and
studies. I enhance this project with my own experiences and commentary from
when I participated in Pokémon culture as a youth and witnessed its impact
firsthand. By examining areas of popularity, globalization, marketing, and
Pokémon’s influence on people, particularly with regards to the children of
when Pokémon peaked in its fandom (which I refer to as the “Pokémon
generation”), I strive to prove Pokémon’s true impact, provide a medium through
which to view children’s popular culture, and to inform the reader—no matter
their level of prior knowledge—more about the phenomenon of Pokémon. I seek to
address questions like: what made Pokémon an international success? Does this
research still possess value after the phenomenon’s passing? What is/are
Pokémon? Why should you, the reader, care about its effect? All this and more
will be revealed in:
INTRODUCTION
Pokémon rose to prominence at the start of a new
millennium and attracted the attention of an entire generation across the
globe. The thesis of this paper’s research is to find out how Pokémon came to
be one of the biggest icons of popular children’s culture and to analyze its
effects on the Pokémon generation. Relatively little scholarly attention has
been given to Pokémon’s expansive range of influence. Through an
interdisciplinary overview I seek to promote the academic discourse on Pokémon,
a form of media from Japan that touched the lives of millions the world over.
By interpreting available studies and research from varying perspectives, I
offer an introduction to understanding Pokémon’s popularity, its role as a
globalizing force for Japan, the marketing schema that brought the franchise to
international success, and the impact on those who participated in Pokémania,
all in the quest for a richer understanding about the effect of Pokémon.
BACKGROUND
Why
analyze Pokémon?
My
personal investment in writing a senior thesis on Pokémon originates from my
involvement with Pokémon in its heyday when I was ten and eleven-years-old and
also from my Asian Studies major at Willamette University, where an interest
particularly in Japan’s contribution to global culture in the modern era
motivated my inquiry into the available scholarship.
In an article by Mizuko Ito, “Learning From
Pokémon,” she comments that the original generation of Pokéfanatics "are
graduating from college now and are the first post-Pokémon generation"
(Ito 19). I first encountered Pokémon in the 5th grade and became
immersed in the culture—the language, the games, the cards, and most of all the
community. What I got out of my involvement in pleasure and interaction
continues to spur my interest in Pokémon, and both out of nostalgia and genuine
enjoyment, I continue to play new games as they come out and discuss the
franchise on a slightly more adult level with friends. This origin of intrigue
presents me with a unique perspective in the field of Pokémon studies, because
I once was the target of such research. Pokémon had a like-interest spanning an
entire generation—at one point in history, the main focus in popular culture of
most all children was the same, providing a sizeable body of participants to
test theories of child development, children’s consumer culture, and youth
group identity on an international scale.
Does Pokémon continue to be influential?
As the Pokémon craze comes to and end we are left with
the task of analyzing its significance and understanding of the dynamics of its
rise, and just as interesting, its fall. (Tobin 3-4)
Most
scholarship alludes to an end of the Pokémon
era, judging the main period of Pokémon’s popularity as lasting “from 1998
until almost 2000" (Allison, “Cultural Politics,” 7). There were a number
of Japanese animation otaku
in America that knew of the series and popularized it in small communities
before its mainstream triumph, as well as people who continued to have an
enthusiasm for the former fad. Even the collection of interdisciplinary essays
in Pikachu’s Global Adventure
has the subtitle of “The Rise and Fall of Pokémon,” implying an end. While it
is true that Pokémon is not the apple of every child’s eye as it once was, many
children and adults alike are still actively involved in Pokémon. A number of
those fans, however, have grown up and moved on, and kids of the next
generation, many of them little brothers and sisters of former Pokéfanatics,
are looking for their own unique niche in popular culture and have let Pokémon
pass them by, as they "wanted to 'discover' cultural practices they could
claim as their own and that will serve to distinguish them from the generations
that have preceded them." (Buckingham 18). That said, Pokémon is far from
over, "the video games still enjoy a high degree of popularity,
particularly in Japan" (Elza 65). The highly competitive nature of the
GameBoy games continues to produce impressive sales numbers both in its country
of origin and abroad, with the latest incarnation, the Generation V release of
Pokémon Black version and White version, pre-selling over 1 million units, an
all time high for handheld games. With the continued robust sales figures, it
is hard to call Pokémon “over.”
In America, for example, the card game drew more
fans than in Japan. The Pokémon League is an organization in the United States
and Japan based off of the card games that operates tournaments for players of
all ages across the country through and extensive network of game shops, hobby
stores, and other locales where a primarily volunteer force of responsible
Pokéfans gather to facilitate structured, competitive play (Pizzato 75). Highly
organized scoring systems rank
players on regular attendance and tournament results that translate into points
and represent a participant’s score and subsequent rank on both a state and
national level. The inclusiveness and active attention of entities like the
Pokémon League explains why look-a-like media that came after could not
dethrone Pokémon’s popularity amongst players. I had the privilege of attending
the Oregon State Championship hosted by the Pokémon League. In talking with a
number of leaders of the tournament’s organization, and in witnessing the sheer
number of participants, Pokémon is far from over. On the contrary, I was
informed by the event’s organizer, a Mr. Raichu, that the tournament’s numbers
had only gone up every subsequent year from the release of the Pokémon TCG
(Trading Card Game) with this year being no different, attracting over 300
entrants from across the state and abroad. Contrast that to the original number
of a few dozen competing for the championship during its first incarnation.
Perhaps the all-encompassing nature of Pokémon’s popularity has passed, but as
fair-weather fans grow up and move on, there are still some who find niche
interest and other new fans are attracted to the same elements that drove
Pokémon to its grand-scale success a decade ago, and this body of dedicated
fans continues to grow in number and increase the rate of participation.
Pokémon did not fall. At least not all the way.
The claim I make to explain its perceived loss in popularity is simply that it
moved out of the public eye once media outlets grew weary of peddling the same
four or five conflict themed articles and exasperating the grandeur of a few
incidents related to the craze to be devoured by curious parents attempting
(poorly) to unwrap the mystery of how Pokémon had managed to enthrall their
children. With the initial media storm dying down, the significance stuck even
where the attention did not, as Pokémon continues to grow and develop with no
discernible signs of slowing down. Meanwhile, Japan and Nintendo continue to
enthrall people around the world with their most valuable soft-tech culture
export.
From here, as I move into the main body of work,
I seek to prove Pokémon’s significance in how it united a generation by
focusing on areas of popularity, globalization, marketing, and the impact of
Pokémon on children.
POPULARITY
Why
was/is Pokémon popular?
Pokémon’s
popularity in the United States came as a surprise to both shores of the
Pacific, when the cute and cool monsters of the Pokémon universe became deeply
engrained in the popular media and youth consumer culture. Sales were in the
billions, saving the struggling Nintendo Corporation and its affiliate Nintendo
of America from making substantial cutbacks while the success of its main
moneymaker, the iconic Italian plumber Mario, was on the wane. At this time,
Pokémon’s biggest competitor was the Disney market monopoly, with big picture
names like Toy Story, along
with a renewed interest in sci-fi á la Star Wars: Episode 1. Finding its niche with cute and likeable
characters set in another—yet still highly relatable—world, Ash Ketchum joined
Buzz Lightyear and Darth Maul in the line of character backpacks that could be
seen in any classroom. Game cartridges for the original Blue and Red versions
of Pokémon, followed by the special Pikachu Yellow edition, were selling out in
game stores across the country. Hobby shops were all putting in requests for
Pokémon cards by the crate. When the first Pokémon movie Mewtwo Strikes Back was released in America, its first week of sales
was almost the same as Star Wars
and surpassed the box office success of The Lion King. In her essay on cuteness as Japan’s millennial
product in attempt to break into the international market of exporting cultural
capital, Japanese scholar Anne Allison notes "the fact that Pokémon is
game-based makes it more interactive than a mere cartoon or film… the latter is
the purview of Disney, whose products do not become engrained into a child's
'lifestyle' to the degree Pokémon does" (Allison, “Millennial,” 37). A key
observation is how interconnected the Pokémon franchise is; while most Disney
creations are consumed passively by children, Pokémon is a world of
customization with many possibilities for active imaginations to create their
own interpretations and share them with others. "Pokémon is the most
successful [video] game ever made, the top globally selling trading-card game
of all time, one of the most successful children's television programs ever
broadcasted, the top grossing movie ever released in Japan, and among the top
five earners in the history of films worldwide" (Tobin 3).
The idea of play, then, originates directly from
the imported game, and is extended through collecting the cards. Disney usually
produces accompanying games with their major film releases, but the plot often
parallels or extends an interpretation of the film, meaning the film is the
central object of consumption with secondary commodities of games and
merchandise. The Pokémon game stands on its own as independent from the film,
with notable differences in style. The game follows a silent main character,
the player of the game, and is mostly about raising Pokémon in order to make
them stronger statistically, making the process of playing more battle-focused,
whereas the show and movie are about witnessing Ash and his friends progressing
through the Pokémon world. The appeal to children is the level of connectivity
between the two, with neither dictating the function of the other. Somewhere
between the mathematical pursuit of raising the strongest monsters on their
GameBoys and watching a detailed endless journey of their peer character in Ash
go on a world journey, children begin to construct their own place in Pokémon,
taking favorite tactics they come up with in the game and applying them to the
structure of the Pokémon universe learned from the show. The role of the cards
is a physical tie to Pokémon, something they could have and hold, giving a
frame of reference when linking the collecting aspect with the larger
narrative. The joy reflected in the capturing Pokémon cannot be realized in the
real world, but the proxy activity of trading for rare, powerful cards come as
a direct inspiration. In explaining Pokémon’s quick rise to superfandom, for
many it was this ability to see one’s personalized Pokéworld in the context of
the large schema, creating
communities of friends with like views to share and discuss their place in a
self-constructed world.
This differs from any model attempted on this
scale up to this point in modern popular entertainment culture, where even
Disney’s dominance would be questioned. Although baffling at the time, there is
little mystery in what drove Pokémon to the top—promoting active consumption
and releasing stand-alone products all under the same Pokémon umbrella. We are beginning
to see the truth of what promoted Pokémon’s fandom.
Having
established a perspective for the appeal of Pokémon’s mass popularity with
young audiences—and some older individuals whose imaginations remained
intact—we should now look to what Pokémon is. By this I mean moving past the idea of Pokémon
as a product of popular culture and taking apart its components to better frame
reader’s understanding of what makes Pokémon so very fascinating.
What
is/are Pokémon?
The
original concept driving the creation of Pokémon culminated in the self-release
of a video game cartridge for the GameBoy by a production team called Game
Freak headed by Satoshi Tajiri. Growing up in the Machida district of Tokyo,
Tajiri was a quirky child with a keen interest in the hobby of insect
collecting, so much so that other children referred to him as “Dr. Bug.” As
advanced urbanization encroached on once rich hunting grounds, the hobby became
more difficult to pursue. After spending time studying electronics to further
an otaku-like preoccupation
with video games (Azuma 11), Tajiri came up with the idea for Pocket
Monsters, soon to be shortened
to Pokémon (ポケモン). The premise was to
extend his hobby of insect collecting to a new generation growing up in the
concrete jungle. It was from this humble dream that a multi-billion dollar
international industry would see Tajiri’s otaku-minded interest come to
fruition in children’s dreams the world over.
The
result of Tajiri’s vision was a game wherein the player early on receives the
errand of collecting all of the Pokémon
from a professor, a professional Pokémon researcher, based in the player’s
hometown. Upon receiving their first Pokémon, the player starts on a long
self-guided journey of collecting and battling, growing ever stronger by
defeating eight gyms—challenge points to test the player’s Pokémon along the
way—before competing in the nation’s premier test of training skill, beating
the Elite Four and your childhood rival in high-level Pokémon battle. Gameplay
completion can take anywhere between 20 and 100 hours pending on the aptitude
and choices the player makes. The game is free form, allowing players to roam
as they please with some linear guidance to ensure the player’s monsters grow
at a certain rate. Players are
free to catch whatever wild beasts they meet, or continue through the game
relying on only their first Pokémon received to win every match, though
collecting is encouraged as each cute or cool creature has particular strengths
and weaknesses that make creating a well-rounded team more competitive. Going
from city to city and from gym to gym, the player engages in battles with other
Pokémon trainers (Non-Player Characters, NPCs) and from the inclusive notion
that all people encountered in the Pokémon world are interested in Pokémon, a
frame of mind generates in eager kids a belief that everyone should know about
Pokémon—which in an elementary classroom to this day is still often true.
With
an understanding of the game that started the whole franchise in captivating
active imaginations the world over, a question remains: what is a Pokémon? A
creature of formidable power, Pokémon can be found in wild environments and
tall grass like animals, which most Pokémon get their inspiration from, but are
of higher mental faculty and can be caught and trained, with their abilities
and personality being augmented by the trainer responsible for its growth. Even
though some Pokémon are said to be smarter than humans, they exhibit no ability
for written or spoken language and only can say variations of their name.
Despite some Pokémon’s diminutive size, they are all capable of tremendous
power—Bulbasaur can release a flurry of razor sharp leaves, can spit fire, and
Squirtle can spray a water jet from its mouth.
After being trained and gathering experience some
Pokémon evolve, meaning they change into a more mature form with increased
power and stamina (far from what Darwin had in mind). One needs a willful
suspension of disbelief to understand how a world can function where
12-year-olds can have power over these monsters with supernatural abilities—if
a discouraged kid wanted to exact an act of aggression upon others, Pokémon
would be a horrifying utility. In the Pokémon universe this is never seen as an
option, as neither the show nor the game alludes to possibility of using
Pokémon for violence against others outside the context of exhibition-like
matches between other Pokémon. There is a trio of “bad guys” called Team
Rocket, roughly based on the Pokémon world’s equivalent of the Japanese yakuza. They appear in the show to give each episode a
sense of conflict as they try to steal Ash’s Pikachu with giant robots, though
they most always fail and provide a certain amount of comic relief, with most
of their violence also coming across as comic when they are jettisoned out of
an exploding robot over the horizon. Both children in studies I have read, as
well as those I interviewed at the Pokémon League vehemently defended Pokémon’s
commitment to friendship over violence (Li-Vollmer 187-190, Lemish 172).
Not
all Pokémon caught are necessarily destined for battle, many people in the
Pokéworld, not excluding the trainers, have relationships with Pokémon as
helpers and friends. In the Pokémon television show, Ash’s Mom shares a
mutually beneficial relationship with Ash’s Mr. Mime, a purplish-pink
clown-like Pokémon, and it serves as a maid around the house in return for attention,
kindness, and purpose. In the GameBoy game, some NPC children, too young to
travel the world as trainers (a privilege reserved for those who have reached
the wise old age of twelve) may still have Pokémon and play with them. Their
relationship is something between pet and friend. The reason training and
battling receives the main focus is due to the game-inspired challenge that the
player and Ash engage in. Because of this benevolent nature shared between
people and Pokémon, Pokéfans can imagine a similar kindred relationship with
their favorite Pokémon, propagated by collecting certain cards or catching them
in the game. Children responded in the affirmative when I asked if they wished
Pokémon was real, citing the fun and excitement of having the companionship of
their favorite monsters as the main reason.
Can
Pokémon’s success be explained?
Having
become versed in the origin of Pokémon, let’s go back to looking at why it came
to enjoy such mainstream success. In his introduction to a collected series of
essays on Pokémon published in 2004, Joseph Tobin proposes two different views
on how this Japanese cultural import came to demand the attention of an entire
generation of youth:
In the first scenario, Nintendo
is an Althusserian apparatus, sinister, powerful, and systematic in achieving
its seduction and interpellation of its child consumers, who are seen as
lacking agency and the capacity to resist commercial appeals and
industry-launched fads, In the second scenario, Nintendo's success with Pokémon
is the result less of corporate power and the orderly following of a scripted
marketing plan than of a combination of individual creativity, good fortune,
and the ability of children to locate and collaboratively construct a product
that suits them. In this second scenario it is the children who, so to speak,
hold the cards. In the first scenario, Pokémon succeeds not because it has any
inherent value as a product, but because of the marketing muscle put behind it
and the company's power to manipulate children's desires and forms of play. In
the second scenario, Pokémon could not have become successful if Nintendo were
not sensitive and responsive to children's desires and if the products they
developed lacked quality. (Tobin 8)
As
my analysis will show, the answer lies somewhere in the middle with more of a
lean towards the second scenario. Pokémon was an unexpected success when it
debuted in Japan. Actually, when Game Freak first approached Nintendo to
produce Tajiri’s brainchild, they were rebuffed and told the game was
simplistic, though at the same time too data heavy, and that children wouldn’t
be interested with the game’s slow divulgence of expansive amounts of
information—the industry at that time was making moves towards quick hit games
with fast action and more realistic graphics, and Pokémon offered neither.
However, Game Freak began marketing bootleg cartridges of their own game and
not only found an audience but a solid fanbase that was spreading the news of
Pokémon’s debut by word-of-mouth. They could barely sate the demand that was
generated after Pokémon Red and Blue versions’ initial release. Nintendo
quickly called Tajiri and Game Freak back to the negotiating table and agreed
to produce the game, with a much more lucrative contract than originally
proposed.
As
history shows, Pokémon was a surprise success in Japan, where it went on to
sell more than 3 million cartridges in its first year. NOA (Nintendo of
America) was skeptical of Pokémon’s ability to translate favorably across the
Pacific, but a robust marketing campaign and extensive work on culturally
translating Pokémon brought an equally surprising overnight sensation to the
United States similar to its original boom back in Japan. The conclusion, then,
is that the planned marketing was a reflection of unanticipated success, and
though very skilled in how it was executed, the strong response children had to
Pokémon is what generated the popularity and ensured a pop-culture craze.
What
made Pokémon stand out amidst other popular media vying for the short attention
span of children in America and the world over is the level of interaction and
participation that Pokémon offers, especially in regards to sharing one’s
experience with others. Mizuko Ito, a cultural anthropologist based out of the
University of California Humanities Research Institute, who focuses on digital
media’s effect on children, points out that "what is different about
contemporary social media such as Pokémon is that personalization and remix is
a precondition of participation. At its core, it is about engagement and
communication" (Ito 19). Active participation in the Pokémon
multi-verse—be it in cards, games, watching the show and movies, or some
combination thereof—is what drives children to learn more and share. "Pokémon
is centrally about acquiring knowledge. Like Tajiri collecting his insects, the successful Pokémon player
needs to master a detailed taxonomy of the various species and their unique
characteristics and powers" (Buckingham 21). Unlike some aspects of grade
school education, learning more about Pokémon had a direct payoff in that the
information could be disseminated to friends and classmates immediately upon
discovery, furthering the bonds and connections formed through a community
catalyst of Pokémon. Because of information-sharing relationships, Pokémania
spread like wildfire across the US and soon overseas as every kid wanted to
know about Pokémon, explaining the immediacy and depth of its ubiquitous
affluence and success. Pikachu became the Mickey Mouse of Japan, the cute
rodent mascot who wowed the world and founded an empire.
GLOBALIZATION
How
far did “Pokémonization” reach?
From
another anthro-esque termed coined by Japanese culture scholar Anne Allison,
“Pokemonization” started in Japan and made a successful leap to an accepting
audience in America. Because of the United States’ heavy investment in the
elite market of soft-tech, or cultural exports, as opposed to hard-tech, which
is composed of manufactured wares like appliances and goods, the US controls a
great deal of what is in the popular media of other countries. Between
seemingly indisputable market dominance of Disney and Hollywood and an army of
translators, most symbols of popular culture in America disseminate into other
countries, imposing the notion of cultural imperialism. The significance of
culture imperialism originates from brining a culture soft-tech icon or product
into another community and garnering favor through their production and
popularity, and that product can be a form of media inherently carrying ideas
and ideologies from their places of origin. As will be discussed, Pokémon’s
universal popularity came from its being a universal product, and the claims of
any kind of Japaneseness associated with the product are dubious. For the
purposes of cultural export, it is no large leap of logic to see why Nintendo
moved quickly into negotiating with its affiliates in the United States as the
next target audience for Pokémon, predicting that a good reception there would
circulate Pokémon to other countries as well, which proved to be true. There
was a separate effort made in bringing Pokémon to neighbors in the East,
producing, translating, and marketing a simultaneous campaign in China, Korea,
and other surrounding nations. A sample of countries where the Pokémon fad was
incited includes "Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan to Mexico, Italy,
Spain, Israel, Australia, Columbia, and Canada” (Allison, “Cultural Politics”,
3, Tobin 258).
How
did Japan’s Pokémon do that?
Pokémon wasn’t the first time a Japanese product
made a large impact in the international scene promoting Japan, "Sony is a
leading example of a Japanese company that from the outset has aspired to be a
global company. The name of the company and of its products, such as the
Walkman, are in English, 'the world language' " (Iwabuchi 67). The walkman
example along with the recognition given for the Japanese ability to produce
high quality cameras, cars, and domestic appliances is what powered Japan’s
climb to becoming an international economic superpower and made a number of
Japanese companies household names the world over. Japan garnered respect for
its technological exports, but remained befuddled on how to break into the next
level of export—that of soft-tech, the exporting of ideas and culture. There
are empirical examples of eastern culture proving to be highly influential in
the West, such as the authentic and stylized film techniques utilized by the
likes of Akira Kurosawa and Bruce Lee in producing martial arts movies. To this
day it would prove difficult to choreograph a fight scene without reflecting on
nuances Bruce Lee brought from China to the big screen in America.
More examples of what can be considered soft-tech
include celebrities, music, television/movie production methods, and food. Try
as they might, Japan has had a tough time in selling themselves at this level.
America’s globalization prowess is expansive, and in some ways it is the
imperialism of the modern day, as we no longer need to wage war to exact a kind
of domination.
Enter Pokémon. Japan’s overnight sensation would
take advantage of longstanding one-way routes of soft-tech influence set up by
the US to spread the popularity of their GameBoy system and its new hit piece
of software, Pokémon. For Japan, the big accomplishment was the ensuing
hysteria that was created around a product of their making. Possibly more so
than other countries, Japan’s nationalistic sentiments are taken as more
representative, so that if, for instance, an Olympic competitor from Japan
medals in a particular event, not only will they take great pride in that
person having come from their native land, but the popularity of the sport
medaled in notably increases, as seen when a talented fencer, Yuki Ota,
represented Japan and won a silver medal from the 2008 Summer Olympics in foil
fencing, the first time a Japanese athlete medaled in the event. A notable
increase in junior high and high school students enrolling in fencing clubs
followed. In much the same way, Japan reveled in Pokémon’s international fame,
idolizing the game even more and making believers out of skeptics due to this
break into soft-tech cultural exportation, because if America likes it, then it
must be good. A reporter for Asahi Shinbun wrote, “products are the currency which Japanese culture enters the
world” adding that it gives him tremendous pride to see American kids buying
Pikachu and Pokémon cards (Allison, “Cultural Politics,” 7).
In summary, Japan’s desire to push forward into
soft-tech cultural exports led Nintendo to invest heavily in its campaign to
bring Pokémon to the United States. A large team was organized to prep Pokémon
for its big debut, adapting it for acceptance into foreign markets.
What
about Pokémon changed in America?
As explained by Kubo Masakuzu, the producer of
the Pokémon animation show and co-auhtor of the Japanese book Pokémon
Sutorii, the market success of
Pokémon in Japan prompted the move to take the franchise global, noting
"the setting of the adventure explored by Satoshi [Ash in the English
version] and Pikachu looks mukokuseki [of non-specific nationality] and free of religion. It seemed easy
to produce international versions by erasing all of the signs in Japanese"
(Hateyama 345, my translation). Pokémon anticipated and maneuvered around
facing the challenges of nihon-jinron, or the idea that Japan is so unique due to its particular history
that only a Japanese person can appreciate components of Japanese culture—which
is why some people in Japan are still stunned when foreign visitors enjoy
eating sushi and can do so with chopsticks.
A
Japanese person, for instance, could easily recognize references to legendary
stories of Japanese mythology as represented by some of the Pokémon. An example
of one creature from Japanese folklore is, a Pokémon based off of the
mythological yōkai or
ghost-spirit, of a fox called
the kyūbi no kitsune (九尾の狐, nine-tailed fox) that is rumored to be a fox spirit with
considerable longevity. Upon maturing and growing its ninth tail its fur turns
gold and it gets the power to breathe fire and becomes omniscient. It is no
coincidence then, that the Pokémon Ninetales gains a limited ability to use
ghost-type moves upon evolving from its previous form, Vulpix, which has less
than nine tails. These creative
historical references demonstrate the profound thought put into creating
Pokémon’s complexity, as "Pokémon borrows on what has been a long
tradition in Japan of otherworldly beings—monsters, ghosts, demons, spirits.
Even in this transition into modernity, the Japanese popular imagination was
haunted by these beings" (Allison, “Cultural Politics,” 8). This
historical perspective will most likely be lost to foreign audiences who have
grown up with a different set of mythologies. So how can Pokémon be made to
better fit a non-Japanese audience?
Kubo in Pokémon Sutorii explains
at length the degree of success found in Pokemon's ability to penetrate the
international market, owing, for example, to changing the names of all Pokémon
based on the translated language—everything from English to French to Hebrew. A
number of puns and Japan-specific references can be found in the names of
Pokémon that would not make sense to kids of other countries.
For example, the Pokémon “Pidgey” is called so
because it is a common small birdlike Pokémon that is found throughout many of
the game’s regions, making it similar to a pigeon. It’s original name in
Japanese, however, is Poppo (ポッポ), which comes from the
Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound a pigeon makes. For American audiences,
Pidgey more readily denotes the association of a pigeon. Sometimes what made a Pokémon’s name interesting
in its original Japanese was that it came from an English word (Nilsen 33). For
instance, our Pidgey example from before demonstrates this as well: when Poppo
evolves, it turns into a
stronger form called Pijyon,
a katakana import of the word pigeon. Being too simple a name given its
evolutionary predecessor, the Pokémon was renamed Pidgeotto. They went through
the same steps a few years later when they prepared for a Pokémon introduction
release in France when "Nintendo, aware of the importance of naming,
translated the creatures' names into terms that artfully reflect the language
and culture of French children. This is an essential aspect of cultural and
linguistic localization that is necessary if children are to relate intimately
to a product" (Brougére 193).
There are numerous examples of this cultural
exchange on the language level, displaying Nintendo and Game Freak’s meticulous
grooming of Pokémon for an international debut, anticipating well that
"global products are consumed by locally contextualized audiences, who
create their own meanings and subsequently process them to serve their own
social and cultural needs" (Lemish 166):
NOA's intention was to market
Pokemon not as a Japanese product, but, as explained by NOA's lead man Gail
Tiden, "NOA attempted to keep American children from associating Pokemon
as a thing from Japan. This requires localization. NOA tries not to hide that
Pokemon is from Japan, instead making the image of Pokemon as a global one.
Pokemon should not be American either. Pokemon should be something children all
over the world can understand" (Iwabuchi 69, butchered to fit Pokemon
Story 421-422). NOA went as far as to petition to creators of Pokemon to make
the characters 'cooler' in accordance with a perceived difference in America's
reception of the Japanese product. (Iwabuchi 70, Pokemon Story 407-408)
After an extended period of time, culturally
imported products in new countries gradually lose their 'otherness' as a new
generation grows up with this one-time cultural symbol present in their lives
as much as those from its country of origin. For instance, "McDonald's is
now so much a part of their world that to Japanese or Taiwanese young consumers
it no longer represents an American way of life" (Iwabuchi 73). I saw
these and other like sentiments echoed in my time spent in Japan, when talking
with Japanese friends who were convinced sneakers, the word and the shoe style,
were Japanese-made products and Pizza Hut was a native Japanese chain
restaurant. The point being that after painstaking work to prepare Pokémon for
and international audience, Pokémon, the millennial cultural brainchild from
Japan, did not have a particularly Japanese “odor” to it, which lent itself to
being well received, but how much pride can the Japanese take in a Japanese
export that is not very Japanese?
How Japanese is Pokémon?
For
some, the issue of Pokémon’s Japaneseness is a moot topic, needing to only cite
the universal popularity and prodigious sales figures to point to Japan’s
global influence. I would argue, however, on the topic of globalization,
especially in regards to cultural capital, the degree of the accomplishment in
promoting a native product in an international market is judged by that
product’s reflection of its culture of origin.
Take the for instance the
Swedish company IKEA that produces and markets self-assembly furniture
internationally with outstanding success—it’s revenue is in the billions
annually and is a household name the world over. However, how much does IKEA’s
Swedish origin matter, and what does it do to promote Sweden in the
international sphere? As mentioned before, IKEA is an example of hard-tech, a
product that bears small culture relevance despite its winning sales. While
Pokémon is Japanese and represents a soft-tech item, how much weight can it
garner for Japan’s push for recognition and, in turn, globalization?
To
provide greater understanding of how Japan presents itself internationally
through its products, we need to examine the historical paradigms of its
exports. According to a model to help foster economic recovery after the
devastation following World War II, "Japan
adopted a policy in postwar times of culturally neutering the products it
exports overseas" (Allison, “Cultural Politics,” 6). This manner of
practice is what gave Japan the sense to quickly rebuild itself as an exporting
nation, with examples like Sony’s Walkman emerging directly from this tactic.
However, "The challenge facing Japan in the mid-1990s was to shift from
purchasing rights to Western cultural products to producing cultural exports of
their own" (Tobin 259). To cross-apply this example and bring it back to
our discussion of Pokémon’s Japaneseness, most kids familiar with Pokémon are
aware of its overseas origin, but how much does this affect their notions of
Japan? According to Koichi Iwabuchi, an assistant professor of media and
cultural studies at the International Christian University in Tokyo, "It
is one thing to observe that Pokémon texts are influencing children's play and
behavior in many parts of the world and that these children perceive Japan as a
cool nation because it creates cool cultural products such as Pokémon. However,
it is quite another to say that this cultural influence and the perception of
coolness is closely associated with a tangible, realistic appreciation of
Japanese lifestyles or ideas" (Iwabuchi 62). To terminalize the impact
presupposed by Iwabuchi, if the only thought children are having in regards to
Pokémon’s Japanese origin is that Japan is cool because Japan made something
cool, there is little by way of cultural globalization occurring, as the
consumer comes away with no greater understanding of what it means to be
Japanese from their interaction with the product.
Iwabuchi delivers the term mukokuseki or “culturally odorless” to describe products from
Japan that have no “cultural odor,” and as such derive little cultural capital
(Iwabuchi 54). While the financial success of Pokémon is not debatable, it may
fall short in bridging the gap of imperialistic cultural dominance demonstrated
by the many mighty symbols of the United States overseas. However, as mentioned
before, these notions of relating an American product to the United States will
fade in time, necessitating the constant push of new cultural capital and
soft-tech to continue to affirm the level of projected influence.
This mukokuseki manner in which Pokémon is described is not only
unique to Pokémon. Quite the opposite, a majority of Japanese animation and
character renderings in popular media project an image that is far more Western
in appearance, either from girls with thick blond hair and blue eyes or muscle
bound men akin to the standard western superhero. Non-Japaneseness is present
in other Japanese animation that found an audience in the US, such as Sailor
Moon and Dragon Ball Z. Iwabuchi, who authored a book on globalization and
transnationalism, commented that "even if Japanese animators do not
consciously draw mukokuseki
characters in order to appeal to international consumers, they always have the
global market in the back if not the front of their minds and they are well
aware that the non-Japaneseness of their animated characters works to their
advantage in the export market" (Iwabuchi 67).
Kids do not actively perceive Pokémon’s
protagonist Ash Ketchum as Japanese, seeing as how even his name has been
adapted to easily integrate with the concept of a ‘global’ character. With this
understanding, we can see Japanese export products have a history of
non-Japaneseness that opens up the chance for greater acceptance into foreign
markets while at the same time hedging possible cultural capital of projecting
an image of Japan. Tajiri and Kubo deny purposefully reducing the Japaneseness
of their product for export in anything other than cosmetic changes such as
removing Japanese lettering and signs from Pokémon products designed for a
foreign audience. This non-nationality is also a significant strength of the
constructed world, in that a fan coming from any background can easily picture
their own participation in the Pokémon universe, illustrating the delicate
balance of give and take necessary for exchanging artifacts of cultural
capital.
Ultimately, Pokémon may not accurately reflect
elements of the Japanese way of life—as per my experiences I doubt 12-year-olds
are given super-monsters and told to leave town—but through interacting with
the Pokémon phenomenon, young people may develop an interest in related media
from Japan. Pokémon was not Japan’s first move into American popular culture.
Cult classics like Akira and
more mainstream enterprises like Ghibli studio’s films by Hayao Miyazaki have
opened up a direct channel between the US and Japan through entertainment
media. What makes Pokémon stand out is the scale of its success and ensuing fad
phenomenon. So while the Americanized version of Pokémon might not be a direct
cultural breakthrough into the American market, it was and still is an
effective means of getting Americans from an early age to associate
entertainment with Japan and start of number of them upon the path of discovery
as a natural curiosity began to chase after Japan instead of Japan having to
chase the attention span of the American youth. Most likely true for a number
of other participants in the seminar, this process worked to get me hooked on
what Japan has to offer.
Although Pokémon might have a disputable cultural
capital, its cute capital is not open for debate. Ever since Hello Kitty and
ranging from maid motifs to custom officers wearing patches featuring a cartoon
crocodile mascot, Japan has been a mecca for all things of kawaisa, signifying a synergy of cuteness and innocence.
The word ‘monster’ seems hardly fit to apply to Pokémon’s greatest iconical
figure, Pikachu, which was chosen as Satoshi’s/Ash’s first Pokémon based solely
on its cuteness. With the cuteness of capitalism, we move into the value system
of how Pokémon came to stake its claim in the United States through precision
marketing.
MARKETING
Thanks to the wealth of Pokémon
products, children could begin their day with Kellogg's Pokémon cereal, dress
in their Pokémon T-shirt and underwear, head to school with their Pokémon
backpack carrying their Pokémon binders and pencils, ride home on their Pokémon
skateboard and grab a quick snack of General Mills' Pokémon Rolls, pop in a
Pokémon video until they were taken to Burger King for a Pokémon Kids' Meal,
play Pokémon Snap on the Nintendo 64 'special Pikachu edition' game console,
then brush their teeth with a Pokémon toothbrush, put on their Pokémon pajamas,
and climb under their Pokémon bedspread. (Li-Vollmer, 218)
What
made Pokémon sell?
In
addition to the previous discourse on the range of its wide appeal, Pokémon
took the greatest advantage of its own selling points, finding ways to
incorporate what brought them attention through a strategic and ingenious
marketing design both at the international level and through a multi-product
web of interrelated merchandising.
As
mentioned previously, Pokémon’s success was unexpected. When Nintendo came back
around to reconsider Game Freak’s monster collecting game, despite its
achievements at the homefront, "NOA [Nintendo of America] at first
believed that the Pokémon game would not be attractive to American
children" (Iwabuchi 66). Guessing wrong again, Nintendo seems to have
considerable experience in quickly making up for its mistakes. As outlined in
the sections about “Globalization” and “Popularity” above, Pokémon’s universal
appeal of a richly detailed world of excitement and adventure with an emphasis
on personal interpretation and following one’s own interest, the scale of
potential success was realized and the follow up question was asked—how can we
make the most money off of this? The answer was a multidimensional advertising
onslaught of interlinked products, "a multi-stranded empire of comic
books, the cartoon, movies, trading cards, toy figures, video games, and tie-in
merchandise" (Allison, “Cultural Politics,” 1). Nintendo would spend four
times their usual promotional budget in exporting Pokémon (Li-Vollmer 219). The
commodification of Pokémon was bafflingly fast and had children begging parents
to drain their wallets only weeks after the initial push with the release. If
you saw Pikachu on the show you wanted to play with him in the GameBoy game, if
you played the game you wanted to collect in the physical medium of the cards,
once you had the cards you wanted to get the promotional ones given out at the
movies, once you saw the movies you wanted a lunchbox with the movie poster on
it—all of this connectivity brought about at once, in a brilliantly
masterminded plan, to an audience that was consuming products them as quickly
as they could be produced.
As
posited previously, could the success of Pokémon be traced solely to a powerful
advertising technique? Joseph Tobin says that due to its strong response
starting from the consumer dictating the market, which created the increased
demand: "the greatest strength of Pokémon is that it is a
multidimensional, interrelated set of products and activities, but the
multidimensionality was emergent, rather than planned" (Tobin 10). This
means the radical fame garnered from the franchise did not emerge as the
expected result of well-timed and researched product placement, but as a
reaction to popular media that was taken to its greatest benefit financially.
What does this mean for marketing? That the strength of a product’s connection
to consumers is what matters most, and that in the case of Nintendo, they
created a strategic marketing plan to take considerable advantage of that
positive consumer response and convert it into powerful sales figures.
Pokémon’s
market prominence is “revolutionary in that the card game, the video game, and
the cartoon all contribute synergistically to the formation of the Pokémon
universe" (Brougére 204). Each arose as sovereign from the other,
complementing but not necessitating participation in each. Commodity
merchandise, like backpacks with Ash and Pikachu and Pokémon stuffed animals,
could supplement any main area of interest. In bringing together the products,
advertisements, store demos, and products, NOA’s original push was said to be
in excess of $50 million (Hateyama 77, my translation). Nintendo had experience
in this approach to commoditization, having employed the same marketing
structure when picking up on the initial craze of Pokémania, as outlined by
Iwabuchi:
Pokémon exemplifies how the supersystem works. Pokémon was
first created as a Game Boy software. It then simultaneously appeared as a
serial comic in KoroKoro, a monthly comic magazine targeted to boys, as a part of an overall
marketing strategy. The positive reception of the computer game and the comics
led to the creation of and further interlinking with trading cards, a TV
series, films, and, eventually, various merchandise featuring popular Pokémon
characters. Within this multiple product, multimedia business, Pokémon
constantly reinvented itself. (Iwabuchi 63)
Pokémon
adapted to fit its growing market and formed a soft-cultural dominion in
popular media. The revenue generated by Pokémon’s winning combination of
interest and product solidified the multidimensional approach as a modern
strategy originating in Japan and garnered the attention of other corporations.
This marketing schema would be attempted by the
entertainment companies Bandai and Shueisha in their respective releases of Digimon
and Yu-Gi-Oh! but with mixed success. Digimon picked up an audience of wavering Pokémon fans
shortly after the millennium when the craze started losing heat, but the
monsters and cards didn’t cause children to identify with the same degree of
attachment, and the success mostly became limited to syndication of the show.
Likewise, Yu-Gi-Oh! took over
a majority of the card market with an easily intelligible TCG match system
(Pokémon was often criticized for its complexity, though essentially only
simplified version of Magic: The Gathering) and by mid-2000 Yu-Gi-Oh! release sales were outpacing Pokémon as a new game, heavily inspired
by its Pokémon precursor, moved in to stake its claim. Although it grew more
popular than Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh! had
two major dissonances that would keep it from becoming the new Pokémon: its
related television show received heavy scrutiny even by young audiences for
being too loosely based on the card game, which harmed its perceived
connectivity; and there was much less appeal to girls, having exchanged a
percentage of Pokémon’s foundation in cuteness for coolness. Neither was able
to touch Pokémon’s continued hold on the video game market, with weak displays
made by third-party developers too far off base to connect well with other
facets of the franchise. More than any other aspect, Pokémon still thrives in
the video game market based on a mostly untouched formula of gameplay set down
from its inception in the mid-1990s. In the end, no large-scale attempt was
able to match Pokémon’s all inclusive, devoted fandom. I would postulate this
is because, like Disney, the newer ventures came to rely on one facet of their
market; the show for Digimon and the cards for Yu-Gi-Oh! Each had the intact trinity of game, cards, and
show; however there was one of the three products that stood out, and other
areas received criticism. The key to Pokémon’s phenomenal appeal came from the
integrity of each product being a solid stand-alone venture and forming a
robust franchise. This proves that no matter how powerful the marketing
structure to promote a product, convincing the will of the consumer and
maintaining the quality of the creation are the most imperative factors
involved in order to attain the vast scale of globalization demonstrated by
Pokémon.
Cute
or Cool?
With
the reasoning behind Pokémon marketing strategy and structure clarified, we are
left to question why it was so popular with the children who promoted it, like
a form of free advertising. A major feature cited to explain the widespread
appeal from toddlers to preteens and spanning the genders—an especially
difficult task—is the hybrid mix of cute and cool that Pokémon seamlessly
blended.
Firstly,
while they do blend well in the Pokémon medium, there is definitely a cultural
preference for cute in Japan and cool in America, as seen in what sells,
"The best selling Pokemon commodities in Japan feature 'cute' Pikachu,
while in the United States T-shirts and backpacks with a picture of 'cool' Ash
are top sellers" (Iwabuchi 72). Pokémon’s market dominance stems from
holding mass appeal for a variety of potential fans, and from the cuteness of
Pikachu to the coolness of Ash, from the fiery spirit of Misty to the goofy
antics of Team Rocket, there is something with which any viewer will be able to
identify strongly and enjoy.
One of the most difficult aspects of marketing a
product, especially for children’s popular culture, is the gender gap.
"However, many boys as well as girls appreciated the way Pokémon combined
strength and cuteness. This androgynous nature, combining masculine strength
with feminine cuteness, makes the Pokémon TV series a textual site that provides
a space for subverting stereotypical gender expectations" (Lemish 179, my emphasis). A commodity
meant to be consumed by primarily one gender is sacrificing fifty percent of
the market (Li-Vollmer 198-200).
In summary, Pokémon’s mass appeal emanates from a
multidimensional product placement into different entertainment industries,
maintaining each product’s quality and integrity, and making itself consumable
to the largest array of fans.
POKÉMON AND PEOPLE
What
is the connection children have to Pokémon?
In its original incarnation, in addition to the
superstar Pikachu, there were 149 Pokémon released to be captured in the
imaginations of children in Japan; soon to appear globally as well. Some
children took a more scientific approach to Pokémon during its fad-like popular
years, particularly older youths, who engaged Pokémon on the level of challenge
and analysis—those who took apart the mechanics of the game reducing Pokémon
characters to their statistical values for competitive purposes, or running
rackets for supply and demand profiteering in the card markets. While we would
say that these are still examples of people patronizing aspects of the
phenomenon, it is not to the full participatory level that many kids found
themselves interested in. Many fans combined these two versions of fandom,
mixing imagination with more substantial allures. The younger the fan, the more
Pokémon existed as a medium to facilitate playtime, and the older fans could
validate liking Pokémon as they grew up by extending their enthusiasm to
pastimes rooted more firmly in reality, like playing in tournaments or being budding
entrepreneurs. My involvement with Pokémon saw me somewhere in between. I knew
the cards I collected had value, but I had no interest in selling them, and I
raised the best team on the GameBoy, though my ideas of ‘best’ were often
influenced by whether I thought a particular monster was cool or not. Older
kids’ understandings of Pokémon are more simple and clean, so let us examine a
bit more of what growing up with Pokémon meant to younger children of the 21st
century.
Watching
his young son play the Pokémon video game, one professor of media studies noted
the level of interaction in this single-player experience, when the boy would
urge a Pokémon to do its best as it entered a battle or exclaim he was proud of
a Pokémon helping the team (Sefton-Green 159). This anthropomorphism of
camaraderie with the little picture and stored data in a GameBoy demonstrates a
deeper level connection between a boy and another world, and though such a
connection is not unheard of, one of Pokémon’s main goals was to facilitate
this kind of imaginary relationship in a similar way that great novels or
stunning films take us away to other places. "Like the girls in My
Neighbor Totoro, [he] liked the
idea of having a guardian monster" (West 18). Prefaced off of hit
translations of Miyazaki’s work, the companionship level that monsters serve in
this neo-modern kids culture is a strange reinterpretation of the mythological
base from which they are founded, but one that seems to ring true in Japan and
abroad.
Anne Allison makes some intriguing observations
about how kids and adults alike can relate to having an imaginary friend
"According to the magazine, Tohoku, cute characters also provide a sense of security, intimacy, or
connection for people who, in this post-industrial age, lead busy, stressful
lives often detached from the company of friends" (Allison, “Cultural
Politics,” 4). Examples of this kind if support companionship can be seen in
unlikely places, such as Doraemon, a robotic blue cat of animation fame from
Japan, who can be found in the form of charms on the cellphones of older
salarymen, keeping a nostalgic comfort in the endearing character’s continued
presence. Pokémon is an example of active engagement of imaginary companionship
that exists in various other forms. "As one grown woman told me,
surrounding herself with Hello Kittys on everything from her computer at work,
refrigerator at home and the cell phone that goes everywhere suffuses her life
with a sense of security, companionship, and fun” (Allison, “Cultural Politics,”
5). Some parents worry about their child’s over-involvement when Pokémon
merchandise turns up everywhere, with the blame falling on the kid and abusive
capitalism, but is having a notebook with your favorite Pokémon any different
than examples of the adults’ behavior given above?
In Japan, for instance, it's common for children
to spend a significant amount of time away from the family, with a combination
of school and cram studies consuming a considerable amount of their lives and
drawing them out of the house, and "for such mobile kids, companionship
comes in the form of 'shadow families': attachments made to imaginary
characters, prosthetic technologies, or virtual world" (Allison,
“Millennial,” 41). The malleability of an imagined relationship along with
unquestioned loyalty make these bonds tight, sometimes exceedingly so, because "There's
a sense that you can have the illusion of companionship without the demands of
friendship" (Turkle 20). Anne Allison elaborates on this further, saying
"This was giving youngsters what a number of child specialists called a
'space of their own,' a play environment that is imaginary but also emotionally
real, and that cushions kids from the world of school, home, and daily
pressures" (Allison, “Millennial,” 42).
As pointed out previously, children manifesting
identity and human-like importance into anthropomorphosized characters is not a
recent occurrence, "Across cultures and time, children take things from
their environment—sticks, wooden blocks, dolls—and invest them with
personalities, stories, and life. Children develop attachments to these objects
that help them navigate and survive the bumpy road of growing up"
(Allison, “Millennial,” 42). Allison speaks at length about this concept, and
stakes her claim that "this type of interactivity is what Tajiri has in
mind by building 'communication' into the game design of Pokémon. His goal was
to create imaginary life forms that children could interact with (as pals,
tools, pets, weapons) in various ways" (Allison, “Millennial,” 43). To
terminalize the importance of this implication, Pokémon is an example of
virtual companionship that is reflective of a world that grows more obsessed
with the individual. This is a world where, for many children as I will discuss
in the next sections, making connections can be difficult. Tajiri’s vision was
not only that children would identify with his virtual companions but also
that, through a common interest in Pokémon, forge a link to others in the same
community that would promote a basis for new friendships.
How do Pokéfans connect with one another?
One
of the revolutionary features of the GameBoy was the ability to share data and
play with other gamers via the Link Cable, a piece of hardware that literally
connected two-to-four GameBoys so that players could compete and trade with one
another. In his original design, Tajiri imagined using this new technological
development to unite the players in Pokémon who could actively battle and trade
with one another through the exchange of data. This narrative goal was pursued
in creating the cards as well. Most kids purchased new packs of Pokémon cards,
called booster packs, which had 11 random cards, often yielding repeats of
previously accrued monsters. This became the main fodder for a card player’s
trading stock, where multiple repeats could be traded together to get new
monsters. Although partly a capitalist gimmick to get kids to buy more and more
booster packs, it still has the positive effect of bringing collectors together
at the negotiating table, leading to a substantial amount of
interaction—sometimes too much, such as when Pokémon found its way into the
classroom (Li-Vollmer 71). In any case, new friends
could be made between any two kids with cards, and this linked many who may not
have had a reason to meet otherwise. “Children
of all ethnicities and socioeconomic class participated in the Pokémon
culture" (Li-Vollmer 67, 73-74). This a necessary step in early development where "By accepting the influence of the others,
children obtain cooperative relationships with others that in turn permit
development of independence from the family" (Elza 64). Pokémon then
becomes one of the ways children define themselves and orient their social
sphere as part of a group. As one scholar who collected field notes at Pokémon
Leagues in Washington observed, by "using Pokémon, African American
children from the inner city made friends with white children from the suburbs,
adolescents accepted preschoolers as partners in play, and autistic children
even overcame the social barriers of developmental disability"
(Li-Vollmer, 263).
A unique aspect of Pokémon that allows
participants to customize their experience is the ability to pick favorite
monsters and find out how they can come to represent something about the fan.
That Pokémon will have its own unique strengths, weaknesses, and abilities.
When discussing Pokémon, there is a significant amount of material to be
engaged that makes each monster different. In a similar scenario, girls talking
about which Disney princess they like usually start with different names and
end with an expression of similar values, being nice, confident, pretty, etc.
Pokémon harbors vast amounts of information and every kid can find a place to
be an expert; “the opportunity Pokémon provided for children to have a favorite
monster allowed them to affirm their individuality while also demonstrating
that their values conform to those of their age and gender group"
(Brougére 194) Any child could share his or her opinions and conjectures with
other likeminded connoisseurs, and this is fundamental in growing bonds between
peers at an early age, as “the sharing of common knowledge is crucial to
children's peer groups… The complexity of the Pokémon universe makes for very
rich conversations" (Brougére 193). This ongoing dialog shapes their role
in this experimental new collective, as "children are active interpreters
and are engaged in a never ending process of construction of their personal and
social identity" (Lemish 169).
Those
not versed in the multiverse of Pokémon, "were at risk of being left out
of many classroom conversations because, as one child told me, 'everybody talks
about it almost all the time' " (Willet 227). There is hope. From evidence
both academic and anecdotal I’ve always heard of an inclusive response to this
scenario as opposed to exclusive. Instead of creating a barrier between those
who know and those who don’t, the encouragement to share drives mentorship of
those not in the know, extending from enlightening younger children teaching
parents the finer points of battle tactics, because "knowledge is the most
valued social currency" (Willet 234, Elza 70). One way to profit from
investing your knowledge into others is the chance to convey a particular brand
of idea to new disciples, impressing opinions shaped during one’s experience
and influencing the path of another (Bromley 214-215). Although skeptics will
no doubt come up with negative commentary citing an over-exuberance from
children who border on obsession, for most kids with a hobby level interest "the
Pokémon culture, so easy to deride as trivial or manipulative, was in fact
providing common ground, a cultural space within which the children could work
collaboratively and define themselves as a group of peers" (Bromley 217).
Children who didn't play with one another before now had a medium through which
to interact and new social groups formed. Common hobbies such as sports and
shopping appeal to a wide variety of young people, and yet could still not
match the all-encompassing territory once covered by Pokémon for its balance of
cuteness coolness. The mix of participation and imagination on this scale
stands as a unique phenomenon yet to be reproduced "in the narratives
children developed… the exotic, magical content of Pokémon used familiar and
mundane aspects of their daily lives to create a new social space"
(Bromley 224).
What
is an example of the Pokémon community?
When collecting research
to write on the subject on Pokémon, an opportunity to perform a number of
informal field interview presented itself at the Oregon State Pokémon
Championship hosted by the Pokémon League, a tournament for the card games
hosted in Salem, Oregon for 2011. Having read extensively on the opinions of
numerous academics regarding the effects of Pokémon, I wanted to put some of
the theories and observations to the test in getting direct feedback on the
role of Pokémon and its current state after a supposed fall from popular
culture.
Upon
entering the building, a large open room stretched out the size of an empty
airplane ganger. Over one hundred tables were lined up in long rows.
Twelve-foot long banners promoting different stations and events in the indoor
plaza adorned towering walls. The room was teeming with energy. Just starting
their first round, the players were a mix of laughter, focus, tension, and
something that immediately alerted me to the certainty that they were having
fun. So this is Pokémon. I spoke to a few of the tournament directors about the
project I was undertaking, and their enthusiasm was instant. Not only did they
give me permission to go about gathering insights and understanding from those
currently immersed in Pokémon, but they also gave me recommendations on who to
speak to, pointing out lead members of the community and top ranked players
present. I was quickly coming to see the values Tajiri hoped to infuse in his
product coming out in its fans.
In
talking with an important figure in the community, a Mr. Raichu, I learned
about the Pokémon League. There was no admission fee for entering the area of
play or for competitors to participate in the tournament, and staff members
running the event were all volunteers who received no benefit from taking on
the responsibility other than their satisfaction for participating in something
they liked doing. Despite knowing a fair amount about Pokémon, it felt strange
to be present, slightly out of place, though folks I talked to seemed willing
speak about their interest in Pokémon, especially once they understood my
genuine interest in discussing the nature of Pokémon. I got to talk to both
parents and children about their reasons for becoming involved in this
activity. Parents told me how their child’s skills in math and reading improved
from challenging themselves to fully understand difficult vocabulary on some
cards and to add and subtract quickly in order to keep fast-paced turns when
playing the game. In addition to an educational benefit, parents were quick to
cite the community itself as a reason to promote involvement, giving a forum
for regular socialization, where older kids look after younger kids, and all
participants are “good kids on the straight and narrow.” When talking to kids,
if younger than teenagers with a parent present, I began developing a small
following of children who opened up and began sharing their particular views of
the Pokémon world and they were more than happy to begin teaching me how to
play the game, without my needing to ask. Upon inquiring why they played Pokémon,
fun and something to do were quickly cited as reasons, but after an extended
conversation they began to comment upon the group they were involved in,
pointing out how it was nice to have people interested in the same things as
you, especially when that interest is Pokémon. The appeal was centered on
trading and competition, but also imagination, as a number of children I asked
wished Pokémon were real.
|
|
One
of the main topics of discussion I had with parents of children interested in
Pokémon revolved around the quantifiable benefits they saw develop. Multiple
studies have linked to Pokémon as a tool to get children interested in reading
and arithmetic, as both are necessary skills to fully enjoy the game, and
parents boasted of their child’s increased proficiency in these areas (West 19,
Vasquez 123-25). Other skills include
map-based navigation, problem solving, artistic abilities, and, as one scholar
put it, "children are learning
how to learn" (Buckingham
30). It is
to my chagrin, both then and now, that more educators could not come up with
way “to connect with kids on their
own cultural level" (Elza 67). Upon coming into contact with the phenomenon, one
high school principal "videotaped a Pokémon cartoon to
show at a faculty meeting saying, 'It's such a rage right now, we need to know
the educational aspects of it' " (Nilsen 32). Incorporating an interest
in Pokémon with the standard curriculum was found successful by some creative
teachers who explored the option and later wrote about their experience with
largely positive results (e.g., Bloomfield, Bromley, Nilsen, Willet). Another
scholar who observed and wrote about his own son’s interest in Pokémon
commented:
If conservative educators realized how much the
mastery-oriented testing regime they espouse is pursued willingly by children
in this leisure time pursuit, I wonder if they would be so keen to ban Pokémon
from school… Pokémon pushes at the boundaries between play and work in ways that
many modern school systems are trying to emulate… Pokémon uses a greater
variety of pedagogic techniques than schools. (Sefton-Green 162)
What
about kids who have problems socializing?
Mr.
Raichu had a long history of involvement with running tournaments and
facilitating the Pokémon League in Oregon. In talking with him, I came across a
use for Pokémon that I had never read about before in any research, and
bringing this observation into academia stands out as the most original
contribution this thesis will make to Pokémon scholarship. Once a week at his
house, Mr. Raichu would host a support group for parents who have children with
Asperger’s syndrome and autism. From the time Pokémon became popular, Mr.
Raichu recognized its potential in helping children with mental disabilities.
While parents were upstairs discussing techniques to better orient and
socialize their children, the kids would be downstairs playing Pokémon. Being
predisposed to introversion, a desire to engage Pokémon brought out the curiosity
of these kids to interact, especially when playing the game. Having a common
social theme like Pokémon gave children a medium to interact through, with
noticeable improvements in socialization skills originating from their practice
at Mr. Raichu’s house. After talking with Mr. Raichu, I was very impressed by
the contribution Pokémon was making towards bringing together all kids, and
when I say all I mean all (Li-Vollmer 91, 131). Later my research would reveal,
as it turns out, that Pokémon’s creator Satoshi Tajiri also has a degree of
Asperger’s syndorme.
Mr.
Raichu introduced me to one of the parents from the support group he hosts who
was present at the tournament. Citing the tendency for children with these
disabilities to possess higher than average IQ and data processing faculties,
his son had started processing Pokémon around the age of nine, and from time
spent in weekly meetings at Mr. Raichu’s house and time spent competing in
local game stores, the boy had been rising in capability and in rank within the
tournaments. In a previous year he qualified for the national tournament and
placed highly within his division, playing all day in a large, noisy room
filled with people—something his father was surprised to see him handle so
well. Such behavioral developments were a direct result of time spent
socializing through Pokémon. In her dissertation on Pokémon as media, Meredith
Li-Vollmer gives an account of two autistic brothers who never spoke with one
another having their first interaction because of a mutual interest in Pokémon
(Li-Vollmer 93).
If
more work could be done on the socializing potential in popular elements of
children’s media, the contributions of games like Pokémon could be adapted to
create a relatable methodology to engage in peer relationships. The benefits
would be better socialization, increased self-esteem and confidence, as well as
the ability to truly involve everyone.
CONCLUSION
Through thorough
examination of the available scholarship on what contributed to Pokémon’s popularity,
globalization, marketing, and social effect, the reader has most certainly
become versed on how Pokémon rose to become the paragon of children’s popular
culture and what it meant for a generation enraptured by what it had to offer.
Before starting this project, I originally asked a group of my peers in a
seminar to raise their hand if in their youth they had a significant experience
with Pokémon. When every member of the class raised their hand, I knew there
must be something here worth looking into further. At the turn of the
millennium almost all children—in Japan, America, and around the world—bore
something in common. Even if they didn’t know it, they were part of a global
children’s culture that had a profound effect. From this, the millennial Pokémon
generation, we can examine some character of all involved and make a statement
about people of that age. If I were to be so bold, my final thought after this
lengthy study would be this: Pokémon is an example of people connecting, and a
sign of the international community coming together. As previously stated, kids
with Pokémon in common could speak with one another more easily. After Pokémon,
whether they come to realize it or not, the millennial generation will have
something in common with people around the world. I hope my work on Pokémon has
convinced the reader of the potential power in this effect. If the reader of
this thesis is able to have a detailed conversation explaining Pokémon’s
origin, its rise to success, and the resulting impacts, then my undertaking of
this project has had a triumphant outcome, and I have demonstrated completion
of my thesis’s goal of discovering the significance behind Pokémon. Starting
out with a boy and a bug collection and becoming a multi-billion dollar franchise
with great integrity of character for those who take the time to see its full
effects, my peers and I—and the world as a whole—witnessed the birth of
something truly spectacular with the Pokémon generation.
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