Week 12 - Pokemon

Pokemon has been a staple upon my life as far as I can remember. Phii did an interesting presentation on the origins and appeal to a series that remains to be Japan's most popular.

As far as appeal goes, Pokemon gets a lot of its popularity from its incredibly diverse merchandising, long running anime & manga series, and especially its main video game series. Pokemon is a completely different world that promotes friendship with cute monsters that live in the wild that people are able to develop bonds with and keep as pets.

Something I didn't get to point out in class is how the Pokemon games tend to promote a healthy environment. There are specific Pokemon that love to eat garbage, so there are parts in the games where you can talk to garbage workers that work along with these Pokemon to clean up littered areas. There are also some mini games that involve the hero rescuing ocean-dwelling Pokemon that got beached onto shore. Not to mention, a lot of the world's electric system is run off of electric-type Pokemon that use their abilities to power machinery. I have heard many people joke about characters treating Pokemon as slaves, but the series acknowledges that and characters who treat Pokemon as such are put in a more negative light. Of course, the hero comes along and teaches them a lesson, and order is restored and friendships build around Pokemon.