Pokémon

Introduction

Pokémon is one of the biggest media franchise in the world, it has a huge and a diverse fan following. Almost every child in the world knows about the chahrachters 'Ash' and his favorite Pokémon 'Pikachu'. Pokémon started out as a video game and is owned by Nintendo, it was created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Later on it converted in to a manga, anime, toys, trading cards, books and various other media franchises. It became the biggest video game turned media franchise in the world second only to Mario, which is another Nintendo series.

The meaning of Pokémon is Romanized contraction of Pocket monsters. The concept of Pokémon generates from the hobby of insect collection, in the fictional world of Pokémon, characters look for different species of Pokémon and aim to collect all the species in that fictional region. This is their first objective. Their second objective is to train these captured Pokémon's and train them to make a powerful team to take on the other trainers. This is the concept of the series.

Part 1: Critical Analysis

Pokémon's success shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, a recent example of the success of Pokémon is that it has sold 200 million copies worldwide. There is no doubt that Pokémon's target markets are the children of 8-15 years. Children all over the world owns Pokemon's franchise, from DVDs to room accessories. This not only defines the success of the series but also materialize it. The Pokémon series has a very positive impact on the culture and is well received by the critics. Pokémon has affected the culture and has made a permanent mark on it. There are various examples some of them are Pikachu's balloon on Macy's Thanksgiving Day, Pokémon's jet flying across in the sky by all Nippon airways, thousands of merchandises and a theme park in Japan. It even appeared in the cover of time magazines.

The reason for its success as described by Joseph ray Tobin is that, because of the long list of names which can be learned by children and used in among their friends. The rich story, context, environment, fictional universe, and the characters add to its success as they made an imprint on the minds of children. In all cases the names of the creatures were linked to its characteristics, which converged with the children's belief that names have symbolic power (Ramlow, pg 20). Children could pick their favorite Pokémon and affirm their individuality while at the same time affirming their conformance to the values of the group, and they could distinguish themselves from other kids by asserting what they liked and what they didn't like from every chapter. Pokémon gained popularity because it provided a sense of identity to a wide variety of children, and lost it quickly when many of those children found that the identity groups were too big and searched for identities that would distinguish them into smaller groups.

Contrary to popular belief, Pokémon has positive lessons. First, the game is social ...