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Here you will find a record of all things fiction and the thoughts generated through clear lenses. All posts older than 12/16/2013 are works of thirst-quenching fiction you should explore freely, while everything onwards becomes what has struck the bell in my brain and turned into words. Enjoy!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

POKÉMON: A Quest For Truth (Thesis)


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.

 
    In talking with families together, I was surprised to see the involvement level of some parents. Supporting their child’s Pokémon endeavors meant spending all day at tournaments like this one, so a number of parents took up playing as well, finding the considerable amount of strategy involved kept their attention, providing a challenge just like any other game. Pokémon, however, was a game with an entire community behind it, and it gave parents a link into their child’s life, providing a constant conversation topic and bringing families together—forming what was described to me as “Pokéfamilies” of parents and kids who stayed together by playing together, something which is becoming more of a concern in modern times that the Pokémon phenomenon addresses with its dedication to communication and fun (Li-Vollmer 117).
 
            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.




 
WORKS CITED
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Azuma, Hiroki. Otaku: Japan's Database Animals. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2009.

Bromley, Helen. “Localizing Pokémon Through Narrative Play.” Pikachu's Global Adventure: the Rise and Fall of Pokémon. Durham: Duke UP, 2004. 211-225.

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Nilsen, Allen Pace and Don L. F. Nilsen. “Language Play in Y2K: Morphology Brought to You by Pokémon.” Voices from the Middle. Volume 7, Number 4, 2000. 32-37.

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Tobin, Samuel. “Masculinity, Maturity, and the End of Pokémon.” Pikachu's Global Adventure: the Rise and Fall of Pokémon. Durham: Duke UP, 2004. 241-256.

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