 Pikachu yellow =
Original text (2000) |
 Ditto pink =
Additional text (2003-08) |
 Wobuffet blue =
New segments (2004-08) |
You can't go anywhere without seeing the face of that adorable electric mouse, Pikachu, or without hearing the name "Pokémon" (or at least hearing someone mispronounce it). And unfortunately, most of the people who can't even pronounce the word don't bother learning anything else about it either...and a majority of these people are the parents and teachers of kids who love Pokémon. And will somebody please tell the morons at the Star Ledger that Pokémon is also plural - there's no such word as 'Pokemons' (and, yes, they left off the accent mark, too¹)! In a WB11 commercial for the series, one of the Pokémon trainers, Brock, said that "a grown-up who understands Pokémon is rarer than a Kabuto" (a prehistoric Pokémon), and I'm proud to say that I am one of those rare individuals.
I know this because I've been standing up for Pokémon for the past several years. It was my initial interest in the phenomenon that made me realize that I no longer (and probably never really) wanted to be a teacher. Portrayed as the enemy by the makers of cereals and fast food kids meals, teachers, more than any other adults, are quickly stereotyped as anything but role models. So, you can imagine the surprise when, while other teachers were confiscating Pokémon cards with no intention of returning them before the end of the year, I was sitting down with kids, talking with them about their newest and rarest Pokémon finds. I had to find out more about the game and the world that was so easily understood by a seven-year-old, yet left my co-workers clueless (come on, iVillage², it's getting old...and so are Pokémon fans!). It was easy to see why kids were so fascinated by the world of Pokémon, but difficult to understand why adults were not. So I began to look into it, but instead of finding a list of reasons as to what adults could possibly have against Pokémon, I found a love for these 150+ (now nearly 500 !) creatures and an entrance into their incredible new world...
¹The Star Ledger published a (bad) review of Pokémon Heroes (2003) with said errors.
²The 2006 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was featured on the iVillage website, where the description of the 10th Anniversary Pikachu & Pokéball balloons claimed that only a 9-year-old child could understand the source of Pikachu's electric attacks (and anyone older need not even try to comprehend). Incidentally, this does not keep Pikachu from consistently ranking at or near the top in viewer votes.
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