The Cultural Politics of Pokemon Capitalism :: Entertainment Games Collectors Papers

The Cultural Politics of Pokemon Capitalism It is fall 1999 and a jet from Japan has bonnie pulled up to its berth at LAX airport in Los Angeles. Immediately a crowd of kids excitedly gathers by the window to view what appears to be a huge flying Pikachu the yellowy cute, electrically charged mouse-type pocket monster of what was then the biggest kids craze of the decade, Pokemon. Even parents recognize this iconic figure, familiar as they are with the basics of the phenomenon. Starting out as a gameboy game in Japan in 1996, it grew quickly to a multi-stranded empire comic books, cartoon, movies, trade cards, toy figures, video games, tie-in merchandise. And, starting in 1997, Pokemon got exported, hitting the U.S. in August 1998. The principle of the game, duplicated in the plotline of the movies, cartoons, and comics, is to become a pokemon master by laborious to capture all 151 monsters (expanded to 251 in recent editions) inhabiting the playscapes of Poke-world. In this world, any child can become a master like Satoshi (Ash in English) who, in the bilgewater versions, is the 11 year old protagonist traveling the world with his two buddies, Misty (an 11 year old girl) and Brock (a 15 year old jejune boy). All one needs to do is keep playing maneuver ones controls to move through this game space, discovering and catching (mainly by fighting) unused monsters whom consequently become pocketed as ones own. Hence, the name pocket monster. Pocketed monsters are trained to fight new monsters therefore becoming both the strength and end of this game. The logic here is acquisition gotta catch em all is the catchword of Pokemon. But entwined into this, as Benjamin noted about commodity fetichism at the dawn of modernity, is enchantment. The monsters to be gotten are not only things, possessions, and tools but also enchanting beings akin to spirits, pets, or friends. Pikachu iconizes this weave of relationality taken, I will argue, to the epoch of mi llennial postmodernity. With its electric powers, Pikachu is a tough, therefore prized, pokemon. But, with its smallish, yellow body, Pikachu is also cuddly and cute features played up on screen where it becomes the best buddy pokemon of the hold in character, Ash. This monster is at once property and pal, capital and companion the key features in a form of intimate or cute