I won't lie, this post is in serious danger of just being a love letter to Pokemon. As I'm going to tackle that in my next series column, I'll try to keep that in check but Pokemon as a cultural event probably had as much influence on me as getting my NES when I was four, leading me to RPGs in general, anime, my first few girlfriends, and Pokemon Gold is the game I've clocked the most hours in, though League of Legends is probably fast approaching, with over 80 hours in my main save, and a second play through that was around 30, not to mention Heart Gold.
So last week I mentioned that the back of my Nintendo Power had this little fold out magazine called "Pokemon Power" with it's stupid little "Gotta Catch em All" catch phrase, that looked stupid. What changed?
In the late 90s, Nintendo Power started releasing promotional VHS tapes for video games, mostly N64 games. Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64 and Jet Force Gemini all got the treatment... which in hindsight are all Rareware games. I never got any of those, but for some reason, maybe they knew it was going to be big and distributed more of them or maybe it was just luck of the draw, but one day in 1998 this came in the mail.
It was a few days before I watched it, obviously it was related to Pokemon Power, while the images on that were a bit more simplistic, having a style that looked more like game concept art than anime, I could still recognize Pikachu, even if I didn't know its name. After a few days though, I got bored and popped it in. And oh boy.
I don't have my copy of the tape any more, and I'm sure it was just cheesy marketing, but the effect it had on me. I've scoured Youtube for a version, but unfortunately, it's been taken down by copyright infringement flags every time it's been posted. I don't know that I'd link it here, it's probably really simple generic marketing, and it affected me way too much, but I'd love to see it just to figure out how they got me. One little video, it was under 20 minutes long, and I went from a cynic who had stopped watching Power Rangers "cuz it was for babies" who felt the same about this Pokemon thing to quickly tearing out that copy of Pokemon power to scour it for any nuggets of new information.
I can't even really remember much about the tape. It was from the point of view of Ash Ketchem's aunt, a character that of course never showed up anywhere else, and it had everything. Clips from the cartoon, images of the game boy games and the explanation of different versions and trading pokemon, a huge collection of figurines that represented said Aunt's pokemon collection, a couple of trading cards... it was ready to launch this into a phenomenon. And something about it really, really spoke to me.
The week the cartoon started, we were going on vacation and I begged my parents to go a week earlier. No dice of course, and I missed the first five episodes, but I went from being barely able to get out of bed in time for school at 8:00 every day to being up promptly at 5:00 AM every day. The cartoon was on at 6:00 where I lived, and I have to be ready for school before I could watch any TV. I instantly started saving up money for a Gameboy, and convinced my brother to do the same so that we could get both the Red and Blue versions when they came out a few months later and begin trading. I hounded toy stores looking for Pokemon cards. I had had little obsessions before, but this was the first time I was really in the fandom for something.
And when Pokemon hit, it was really huge. It's tempting to just say "you remember" but kids born in the year 2000, when the Pokemon wave was starting to crest will be Freshman in high school this year, so perhaps some explanation is in order. It was easily the biggest fad in the 90s, other then perhaps Power Rangers, I was too young too really judge that one, but it was one of the first things to really get what could be done with multi-media. Star Wars had tried similar things, but never to this extent, and Pokemon had a huge advantage. The franchise had been going on for 2 years in Japan, there were 2 years of Comics, TV, Videogames, Trading Cards and Toys just needing a little localization. Imagine Justin Beiber and Twilight as they are today, only good. And literally having a little piece of everything kids liked.
And I stand by Pokemon being good. I recently watched some old episodes of Power Rangers, and they don't hold up at all, there was no effort put into the stories, the fight scenes were pretty good, but half of them were imported. Pokemon on the other hand, touches something fundamental. A few things really, one of the biggest things about it for me as a kid was a single minor line that I think was only in the anime. When kids turned 10 years old, they could obtain their Pokemon license and go on and adventure. I was 9 years old when Pokemon came out, and really a Pokemon adventure is all a kid could want. Independence, self reliance and adventure all abound, and 10 is about when kids start to tire of their parents and feel they could do better on their own. At the same time, Pokemon both represent friends, something every 10 year old wants more of, and pets, a responsibility that many kids try to prove themselves with. At the same time, the large amount appeals greatly to those of us who like to collect things, and adding fantastical elements to already existing animals and myths means pretty much everyone has a base line to compare this fantasy world to. Not to mention, while Pokemon design has faltered a bit recently, every generation has both really cool and really cute Pokemon, and Mewtwo and Charizard are just as iconic today as they always were.
So... I failed pretty hard core at not just making this post a love letter to Pokemon. Hopefully it makes a good companion piece to my next series article detailing what I love so much about the Pokemon videogames specifically. Next month, I'll try to go through my life after Pokemon, at least as far as videogames are concerned, and talk about the titles that have affected me from the post Nintendo 64 consoles. Try being the key word, this column is supposed to be about why I have connections with specific games, so something may well side track me. That said, Pokemon is still the only fantasy world that I still honestly wish was real.
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