I choose you! Pokemon turns 25
28 February, 2021
Twenty-five years just after Pokemon first started delighting children and adults alike, the phenomenon continues to be capturing hearts, with smartphone craze Pokemon Go enjoying record success on virus-hit 2020.
The augmented-reality game raked in $1 billion in only the first 10 months of this past year -- its virtually all lucrative but -- according to advertise tracker Sensor Tower, and professionals see no sign that interest is flagging as the world's highest-grossing media franchise evolves.
"The characters themselves happen to be consequently appealing, and the mechanics of you see, the video and cards are so very well executed that it possesses this very timeless quality," said Brian Ashcraft, an author who writes about Japanese pop culture.
Dan Ryan, a 29-year-old who works found in London's finance sector, has been a fan nearly his very existence and is not shy about his hobby, despite having colleagues.
"They know I disappear every Thursday to head out and play Pokemon cards, they see me can be found in with my Pikachu jacket, plus they see my Pokemon mugs," he told AFP.
He admits he spends "excess amount" on rare Pokemon cards, whose prices have boomed just as virus lockdowns push people towards indoor pursuits, with some found in mint condition choosing over $500,000 found in recent weeks.
Pokemon is inspired by the childhood tradition of collecting bugs -- popular during Japan's hot and humid summer holidays -- and part of its enduring charm is its simple goal: to catch them all.
Hundreds of round-eyed "pocket monsters" inspired by from mice to dragons can be caught and trained to full strength in battles.
The winning concept has sold countless toys, film tickets and a lot more than 30 billion Pokemon cards because the first black-and-white Game Boy titles were released in Japan in 1996.
Atsuko Nishida, who designed the electric mouse Pikachu, once said she modeled it on a good round Japanese sweet called a daifuku.
Her fellow designers, who had asked Nishida to draw a cute monster, liked the creature and urged her to create it even more adorable.
"I thought it might be nice to have it store electricity in its cheek pouches. At the time I really was into squirrels, (which) store food in their cheeks," she advised a Japanese newspaper.
The character's signature pronouncement "pika-pika" -- meaning shiny and sparkly in Japanese -- only put into the bright yellow creature's powers of attraction.
For ZoeTwoDots, a Pokemon Go vlogger and livestreamer with nearly 200,000 YouTube members, a childhood obsession is becoming her full-time job.
The 27-year-old Australian finds other fans usually supportive, "which I think is amazingly rare, specifically because gaming has that toxic stereotype".
Her favorite Pokemon? "Togepi. It's only a happy little egg. It's quite literally, nothing can bother this."
The game's nature imagery, varied characters and give attention to creating a collection are central to its success, said Jason Bainbridge, executive dean of the University of Canberra's arts and design faculty, who has written extensively about Pokemon.
But there have also been controversies on the way.
An anime episode in the 1990s caused more than a few seizures among Japanese kids -- which most deemed a case of mass hysteria.
And magician Uri Geller recently dropped a 20-year legal battle against Nintendo, which partly owns Pokemon. He had accused it of employing his likeness to produce Kadabra, a psychic Pokemon retaining a spoon.
While real-lifestyle 25th-anniversary celebrations are off the cards due to the coronavirus pandemic, a virtual concert featuring U.S. rapper Post Malone -- referred to as a lifelong Pokemon fan -- is planned.
And Bainbridge says Pokemon could possibly be around for another 25 years if it keeps adapting.
"Pokemon Go really revived the franchise, at a point when we almost all realized what Pokemon was, but all of a sudden... we all wished to repeat," he explained of the overall game released in 2016.
The overall game allows players to roam the exterior world throwing Pokeballs to capture monsters that pop-up on the phone screens.
It features caused real-existence mishaps from car crashes to clifftop falls, but it's still easy to find players in Tokyo's streets waiting for "wild" Pokemon to seem.
"It feels as though you are getting the Pokemon, for true," said Tsuyoshi Aihori, 22, who was simply on the hunt in Tokyo's Akihabara gaming district over a weekday afternoon.
He plays around five time weekly and at a recently available promotional event, "I played from dawn to dusk and caught 400 or perhaps 500 Pokemon," he told AFP. "I ran out of Pokeballs."
Source: japantoday.com
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