Pokémon madness

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by MICHAEL CITROME

Sidebar: The Alternative Pokédex

Dateline: Japan, 1995. Video game giant Nintendo releases a game pak for their slowly dying Game Boy platform called Pocket Monsters.

A new twist on the perennially popular RPG genre, Pocket Monsters put you in charge of a bunch of sphere-dwelling electronic creatures who fought each other and, in the process, evolve to become larger and more threatening.

Wiley as ever, Nintendo added something new to the mix. Instead of a single Pocket Monsters game cartridge, there would be two. Named for their colours, Red and Blue, each would include only a portion of all the possible monsters. In order to beat the game, players would need to link up with someone owning the complementary cartridge to their own.

It was an instant hit.

Soon, Pocket Monster anticipation was building up throughout the Japanophile underground in North America. Self-conscious hipsters and anime geeks alike began sporting Pikachu T-shirts in prescience of the merchandising Godzilla the Land of the Rising Sun would soon unleash upon an unsuspecting North American audience.

Retitled from its original name in a bit of arbitrary marketing savvy, Pocket Monsters gained the considerably more cryptic moniker Pokémon, and appeared on our shores at the same time as the Game Boy Pocket, Nintendo's last-dash attempt to keep their ancient portable viable.

Pokémon Red and Blue were a minor hit in North America, outselling all the other Game Boy releases that year, but it was only in 1998, with the American premiere of the Pokémon cartoon series, that Nintendo captured the five-to-15 set and some adult eyeballs in the process.

An anime-styled cartoon initially broadcast on the youth-heavy WB network in the U.S. and on YTV here in Canada, Pokémon became an obsession for kids desperate for a proper afternoon adventure cartoon. Despite an unfortunate seizure-causing incident in its first season in Japan, the Pokémon TV series had attracted huge popularity. Following the adventures of young Pokémon trainer Ash Ketchum and his ongoing conflict with the nefarious Team Rocket, the show is a classic 22-minute toy ad.

With an ongoing storyline and a huge rotating cast of characters, more than 151 Pokémon in all, the show became a springboard for the biggest cash cow of them all, merchandising.

The toys

Walk into Toys R Us, Wal-Mart or even your local video store and you're likely to be faced with a wall of Pokémon toys. Ranging from large, garish yellow plush Pikachu dolls to smal battle figures, there seems to be a Pokémon toy for every budget, a fact that exasperated parents are no doubt well aware of.

Some of the toys are cute, others are overtly violent. Still others are just disruptive. For maximum annoyance value, pick up a squirting Squirtle action figure, which like its television namesake will spurt a stream of water across the room or over the front seat, in order to dampen one's unsuspecting victim.

Part of the enormous success of the Pokémon franchise is the fact that it features cute cuddly animals that proceed to get big and rip each other's guts out while their pubescent human trainers cheer them on. Simply, Pokémon combines every kid's wish to have a cute kitty that can utterly annihilate their neighbour's Rottweiler. It's sort of a two-birds-with-one-stone type thing.

Hasbro's Battle Figures are some of the most popular toys in the Pokémon universe. Two-inch tall representations of Pokémon, they're one of the most popular ways to "catch 'em all". A package of Battle Figures, which includes two figures, two Battle Discs and a clear plastic Pokéball to store them in sells for about $7.

Slightly higher up the scale are the improbably named Ball Blasters. Each set includes three Battle Figures, a Ball Blaster, which resembles a Game Boy and launches a mini Pokéball at nearby objects, and three Battle Discs. The included figures are typically a Pokémon and its evolved form, so the Charmander Battle Figure comes with Charmeleon and the elusive Charizard and so on.

A Poké Ball Blaster set will set you back about $12. Don't get your hopes up to find the exact set you're looking for though. Toys R Us's online store is already sold out of every single Battle Figure and Ball Blaster set, as well as many other Poké-products. Adopting a marketing strategy similar to the disturbingly successful Beanie Babies, Hasbro has chosen to "retire" certain battle figures. Sandshrew, which looks like a gopher with aluminum siding, and Poliwag, which resembles a lobotomized penguin, right down the vacant look in its cartoon eyes, were both cut from production on October 19. Already both are trading on online auction site eBay at premium prices, just over a month after they were retired.

Hasbro has a virtual monopoly on Pokémon toys, as they are the master toy licensee in North America, although some companies, including Power Rangers creator Bandai, also manufacture and sell merchandise.

Because everything about the Pokémon toys, even the slogan, commands you to catch them all, the imperative is placed on completeness. On eBay, ever the hotbed of obsessive toy collectors, a Burger King toy featuring Mew, one of the stars of the Pokémon movie, was selling for $27 U.S. At last glance there were 41,808 Pokémon-related items up for auction.

However, if you're jonesing for a Pokémon fix and don't want to pay inflated prices, then you should head to Chinatown and have your pick of bootleg merch. Necklaces and key chains featuring Pokémon such as dopey Psyduck (who possesses a peculiarly obsessive following), furious Primape (a sort of militant cotton ball with Kung Fu skills) and the ever-present Pikachu will only set you back two or three dollars.

Amazingly accurate copies of the action figures are also available, identical right down to the packaging. Of course, they're about a third to half the price of the real Japanese product in a comic book store. As well, you can pick up bootleg Pokémon cards and stack your deck without contributing to some sarcastic comic store guy's taco habit.

The cards

The Pokémon Collectible Card Game has acquired notoriety due to the stabbings and organized rings of grade-school thievery that have come to be associated with it in recent weeks. The Pokémon cards have also attracted attention for the obscene profits they make their makers.

Toys R Us, who stock almost every Pokémon product available, had an earnings jump of 55 per cent in the third quarter of 1999. They attribute a fair portion of it to huge sales of Pokémon cards. That's a lot of screaming eight year olds demanding more packs of cards to find that oh-so-rare Wartortle.

Essentially paper and ink, and placed at the impulse buying edge of the register, these stiff little stingers represent cash money at little outlay.

The game's creators, Wizards of the Coast, are also responsible for Magic: The Gathering, the geek obsession-cum-franchise that allowed them to get big enough to buy TSR, the creators of Dungeons & Dragons. In September, Wizards of the Coast was itself acquired by toy giant Hasbro for $325 million. Not bad for a company that just makes cards.

A pack of 11 Pokémon cards sells for five dollars. In order to get the rare cards that make you a true "Pokémon master," you need to buy many, many packs. Because of this, as well as the high cost of the cards and the fact that they're directed at such a young age group, some U.S. states have taken out lawsuits against Nintendo and Wizards of the Coast, who created and market the game. Claiming they violate age restrictions on gambling, the lawsuits are simply adding fuel to the controversy fire. As well, playing Pokémon has been banned from many elementary and high school campuses.

The game itself is pretty simplistic compared to other collectible card games. Players begin by drawing seven cards from their deck, which form the starting hand. The rest of the deck goes facedown on the table. Play begins by selecting a basic Pokémon from the hand and boosting it with energy cards and "prizes" to make it more powerful. As play goes on, Pokémon are brought out and destroyed, until only one remains. That Pokémon's owner is the winner, and the loser slinks back to his corner of despair. One variation of the game calls for the winner to get some of the loser's cards, a rule that has no doubt caused a few playground brawls.

Different Pokémon depend on different types of energy, so you'll need a few in your deck. Energy cards work like mana in Magic: The Gathering, and it's possible to build powerful decks of only Fire or Fighting energy cards. As well, just like in the TV series, Pokémon cards can evolve into bigger and scarier forms.

The need for completeness really comes in here, because in order to have a fully evolved Pokémon, you need the basic card, plus the intermediate card, plus the advanced card, as well as enough energy cards to power the thing. A fully souped-up Blastoise uses up a lot of energy cards.

In other words, to have a powerful deck, you need rare cards, and those get expensive.

The complete 102 card set of the original Pokémon card series, released in January 1999 is worth upwards of $1,250 US--more than $1,750 Canadian for a set of cards that's only 11 months old.

Scarce cards in the recent Jungle and Fossil sets, which are currently available virtually everywhere, can reach over $25 each. Both sets, of 64 and 62 cards respectively, bring over $300 each, with slightly less for the more common "unlimited" edition.

Some of the rarest cards came as premiums, with a video game, or most recently, as a giveaway with a ticket to the biggest Pokémon event thus far, Pokémon the First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back. Moviegoers get one of four exclusive cards each time they see the film.

The Movie

When Pokémon the First Movie opened two weeks ago, it was number one at the box office, and took in more dollars on its opening weekend, $31 million in all, than Aladdin or The Lion King.

The plot differs slightly from the television series. Scientists create a genetically engineered Pokémon called Mewtwo, who bears a startling resemblance to Mew, a natural Pokémon with a pleasant temperament. Naturally Mewtwo is evil, and that's the film in a nutshell. There's no lengthy animated musical sequences or lush orchestration to bother you, just lots and lots of Pokémon.

Future Monsters

On the horizon for Pokémon is the planned release of a new video game, but not in time for the Christmas season. Pokémon Stadium, due for release on March 6, will be the first combat-oriented Pokémon game released for the N64. A previous game, Pokémon Snap, invited players to take photos of Pokémon in their natural habitat. It was not a success.

As well, Nintendo recently released Pokémon Yellow, a sequel of sorts to the previous two Game Boy games. The gameplay is virtually identical to Red and Blue, but the game starts out with Pikachu at the player's side, and more closely follows the plot of the TV show, with Team Rocket making a few appearances. Nintendo also took the opportunity to hawk their Game Boy Color by packaging it as a special Pikachu edition, lemon yellow with the most famous Pocket Monster emblazoned on the front, and bundled with the Pokémon Yellow cartridge. It's going to be a yellow Christmas, for sure.

As well, more episodes of the television series, more toys and more video games are planned. Via, publishers of acclaimed Manga comics including Ranma Ohm and Maison Ikkoku, are constantly releasing translations of Japanese Pokémon comics, and now you can get Pokémon sheet music. Imagine picking out the sounds of the Poké-Rap on your five string banjo or Hohner clavinet. There is also the promise of more movies, and all of the episodes of the series are available on home video and DVD.

Love it or hate it, Pokémon is destined to be around for a while, and everyone, short of living in a sphere, will have to go along with it. f

Thanks to Empire Comics, 1221 Crescent, for the Pokémon cards.

Sidebar: The Alternative Pokédex

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