The Pokemon franchise has taken over the world. It has essentially put Japan in a spot of godliness among small children of the world. Even children in third world countries know about Pokemon. According to a 2003 (the year when Ruby and Sapphire came out in the United States) study by Anne Allison, when she interviewed children from the United States she had asked them all if they knew Pokemon had come from Japan. All of the children had responded that they knew this and they developed in interest in visiting Japan and even learning Japanese. This all stemmed from their interest in the Pokemon series. To draw in people from all walks of life a mascot for Pokemon had to be chosen. Pikachu was eventually chosen because he was cute, powerful, and appealed to people of all ages.
According to Anne Allison’s article, in the United States Ash Ketchum (the human protagonist in the Pokemon anime) was made to be more of a focus than Pikachu was in Japan because they wanted kids to associate themselves with a hero who was clearly good. In the Pokemon movie “Mewtwo strikes back”, some changes were made to the United States version to make Ash be the obvious good guy and Mewtwo (the Pokemon that is fought in the movie) to be an obvious bad guy. Them morals of Mewtwo in the original Japanese version were ambiguous and it wasn’t clear if he really had bad intentions as he does in the United States Version. Anne Allison paints a picture in her article that Pokemon is a sign of changing times in the form of play. This is still true today. With each new game that is being released in the franchise more mechanics are added and expanded upon to update the ways of play associated with it. The effects of this franchise on society is great and continues to be a positive change on the way we view play.
Resources: Allison, Anne. Postcolonial Studies. Nov2003, Vol. 6 Issue 3, p381-395. 15p. , Database: Academic Search Complete
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