Pokémon

Pokémon, 20th- and 21st-century Japanese fantasy-based cartoon creatures that spawned a video- and card-game franchise.

In the Pokémon—or “Pocket Monsters”—video-game series, players were able to explore the game’s fictional world by looking for wild Pokémon creatures to capture and tame. As Pokémon trainers, they readied the small monsters to compete in battle against other trainers’ Pokémon. Although fighting was a key aspect of the game and the creatures could be injured, none ever died; when defeated, they merely fainted.

Japanese game designer Satoshi Tajiri created the first Pokémon game in 1996 for the recently introduced Nintendo Game Boy portable console. The concept arose from his childhood hobby of collecting insects, as well as his love of anime, or Japanese animation. Tajiri saw the Game Boy as an ideal platform because its communication cable enabled players to connect their consoles and play together. Also, the pocket-sized device allowed busy Japanese schoolchildren to play the game in the short breaks between their classes.

The Pokémon creatures became a sensation in Japan and around the world, inspiring a long string of video games and a similarly popular game played with collectable trading cards. These products were soon followed by a wide variety of merchandise and a long-running animated television series, both of which focused on the adventures of a human trainer named Satoshi (after the game’s creator; known as Ash in the United States) and his champion Pokémon, Pikachu. A series of lucrative feature films began in 1998.

Despite its widespread popularity and commercial success, the Pokémon product line was not without controversy. Many parents and teachers expressed dismay that the Pokémon games and television series, which were marketed to primary school children, were inherently violent. In addition, some adults protested the implicit message that it was all right for humans to capture and enslave sentient beings (the Pokémon had free will and rudimentary language), and others thought that the fantastic nature of the creatures promoted occult beliefs and practices. Adult fears and the cultlike allure of the Pokémon universe among children fostered a variety of satirical works by such arbiters of popular culture as Mad magazine and the television show South Park.