NintendoLand Article - Pokémon Uncovered

Pokémon Uncovered
By: ~Fryguy~

I've noticed a steady stream of articles here about the subject of Pokémon. On and off they are written by fans and haters. I myself am a fan, but I refer to myself as a realistic fan, because I've seen the darkness of fandom and have come through the other side. Here's my tale.

I started liking Pokémon when I first borrowed my sister's imported Pokémon Red. I live in the UK and the games didn't come out for near to a year later, but I played the game. Soon after, the TV show started to air here as well. The first scrapings of merchandise started to built up a couple of months before the UK release date. By this point I had imported Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow from the US and had played and completed them all. It was Pokémon that brought me to have a large Internet presence on February 2000. I visited several websites, and even came back to my old forums at NintendoLand under the new guise of Fryguy.

Of course, by this point, my collecting had started. I had the Pokémon games, but also a few cool looking figurines, a few cards (more for looks than playing), and several other things. As games came out, I got them, I got a poster, some more cards, I went to see the movies, I watched the TV show. This was fun. I might have been 17 at the time, but I was enjoying myself. I had money to spend, and things to spend it on. I had all sorts of crap.

Then came the Pokémon depression.

It was first obvious when the Orange Island league episodes were shown on UK TV (about the same time as US TV). Ratings plummeted, then there came the big gap of episodes where new ones weren't shown for about a year. Interest in the show waned, and then so did interest in the fad. Shops started to sell off their Pokémon merchandise really cheap with "Pokémon Price Crash" with entire boxes of TCG topups selling for £10 where they were once £70 odd, and toy prices hacked into thirds. Kids started shouting "Agumon" and "Tentomon" rather than "Pikachu" and "Squirtle". And frankly I have to agree with them... the Digimon anime is graphically superior, and while not exactly faithful to its Japanese roots, has a dubby script that makes me laugh every time. That, and the movie was better than all the Pokémon movies put together. Then Dragonball Z turned most of the middle and big Pokémon sites into DBZ or anime sites, which is also fine by me, as DBZ is a damn fine show. However, this seems to be showing a rapid decline in Pokémon's popularity.

As E3 showed little more than a few Smash Bros. Melee screenshots with Pikachu in, Pokémon seems to have taken a nosedive... but not a nosedive into obscurity, but a nosedive into that place where Mario and Kirby and Metroid lurk... where the fans of the games play for fun, and force the creators to be more innovative and interesting. Pokémon is now a Nintendo game, not a Pokémon fad.

And the best part is... the real fans knew it would happen all along.


	Pokémon Uncovered By: ~Fryguy~ I've noticed a steady stream of articles here about the subject of Pokémon. On and off they are written by fans and haters. I myself am a fan, but I refer to myself as a realistic fan, because I've seen the darkness of fandom and have come through the other side. Here's my tale. I started liking Pokémon when I first borrowed my sister's imported Pokémon Red. I live in the UK and the games didn't come out for near to a year later, but I played the game. Soon after, the TV show started to air here as well. The first scrapings of merchandise started to built up a couple of months before the UK release date. By this point I had imported Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow from the US and had played and completed them all. It was Pokémon that brought me to have a large Internet presence on February 2000. I visited several websites, and even came back to my old forums at NintendoLand under the new guise of Fryguy. Of course, by this point, my collecting had started. I had the Pokémon games, but also a few cool looking figurines, a few cards (more for looks than playing), and several other things. As games came out, I got them, I got a poster, some more cards, I went to see the movies, I watched the TV show. This was fun. I might have been 17 at the time, but I was enjoying myself. I had money to spend, and things to spend it on. I had all sorts of crap. Then came the Pokémon depression. It was first obvious when the Orange Island league episodes were shown on UK TV (about the same time as US TV). Ratings plummeted, then there came the big gap of episodes where new ones weren't shown for about a year. Interest in the show waned, and then so did interest in the fad. Shops started to sell off their Pokémon merchandise really cheap with "Pokémon Price Crash" with entire boxes of TCG topups selling for £10 where they were once £70 odd, and toy prices hacked into thirds. Kids started shouting "Agumon" and "Tentomon" rather than "Pikachu" and "Squirtle". And frankly I have to agree with them... the Digimon anime is graphically superior, and while not exactly faithful to its Japanese roots, has a dubby script that makes me laugh every time. That, and the movie was better than all the Pokémon movies put together. Then Dragonball Z turned most of the middle and big Pokémon sites into DBZ or anime sites, which is also fine by me, as DBZ is a damn fine show. However, this seems to be showing a rapid decline in Pokémon's popularity. As E3 showed little more than a few Smash Bros. Melee screenshots with Pikachu in, Pokémon seems to have taken a nosedive... but not a nosedive into obscurity, but a nosedive into that place where Mario and Kirby and Metroid lurk... where the fans of the games play for fun, and force the creators to be more innovative and interesting. Pokémon is now a Nintendo game, not a Pokémon fad. And the best part is... the real fans knew it would happen all along.