pokemon research improved

To help aid me in my next assignment ‘constructing a response’ I have been researching Pokémon using Diigo pages to help track research found.

Pokémon was created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996 and was originally released as a pair of interlink able RPG games which then grew into the second most valuable game based media franchise with many bi-products branches growing off the original tree of the game such as the trading cards.

Satoshi came up with concept of Pokémon from his childhood hobby of bug catching. The franchise target is audience is children with both boys and girls being interested in Pokémon with tough scary monsters like Charizard for boy boys and cute ones like Togepi for girls. Although many fans of the series are older and the franchise is more of a phenomenon in Japan with cars, trains and planes all decorated in Pokémon.

Many believe that the hypodermic needle theory affects children most when it comes to games like Pokémon, claiming that Pokémon has caused children to become obsessive with the franchise always collecting, buying, swapping and playing the video games although some reject this theory saying that the media cannot influence anyone so directly and that kids are just being kids and interested in the game possibly due to peer pressure with all their friends playing Pokémon and not wanting to feel left out.

The reception theory has probably been the reason that Pokémon is subjected to so much criticism in the western world which sees things differently to an Asian community because they have been brought up in a different culture for example Jynx was seen as racist figure outside Japan whereas inside Japan it is thought to be based on an ancient women’s dress codes. 

The cultivation theory is that although the media cant directly influence us it does affect the way we see things for example due to famous companies being around for so long (e.g. Coca Cola) which has been around since pre-WW2 when neurologist showed test subjects images of certain brand logos the part of the brain we used to recognize family and friends was active showing that brands like these are sublimely trusted by us and we feel that it’s going to taste better than for example a non-branded product. In Pokémon the theory comes in from the fact that because Pokémon can be quite a violent world especially in some of the movies, the children won’t become violent but they may perceive the world as a more violent place.

There are three main responses to media products being the dominant, negotiated and oppositional response.

A dominant response is totally accepting the message. There are many Pokémon fans who have this response, buying all Pokémon products and even special cars shaped like Pokémon.

This response is normally associated with the hypodermic theory, it was also criticized by Southpark when they did a parody of Pokémon where all the children became obsessed and pressured their parents into buying the toys for them.

The next response a negotiated response fans with accept some messages and make up their own opinions of others and possibly rejecting some other messages, so for example some fans will agree with caring and looking after animals (Pokémon) but reject the idea of ownership over an animal.

The last response the oppositional response means you totally reject the idea completely so for Pokémon it would be some totally against all aspects of Pokémon, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRriJSTifDM&feature=related the person in this video clearly has an oppositional view to Pokémon.

Pokémon has also been very successful financially according to http://www.vooks.net/story-18529-Pokemon-franchise-statistics-released-theyve-sold-a-lot.html a post dated at Oct 13, 2009 21:46 claims that the RPG games from the original Japanese only ‘Pokémon blue’ game for the game boy all the way to the latest versions of fire red and leaf green for the Nintendo DS that a 130 million copies have been sold overall.

The site also claims that over 14 billion of the Pokémon trade card games have been sold as well as stating that the 12 Pokémon movies making over $680 million Australian dollars net profit in just Japan. The article also tells us that the company has roughly 3,500 other Pokémon products ranging from Pokémon dolls to Pokémon shirts and lunchboxes.

The company has amassed $24 billion Australian dollars (£15.6 billion) worth of sales worldwide and £7.8 billion is from Japan alone.

The Pokémon franchise is owned by the Japanese gaming company Nintendo which had a net income of $2,523,070,032 (USD) for 2010.

However like all companies it has faced obstacles on its path such as the anime series episode ‘Denno Senshi Porygon’ which was removed from the series due to a scene which hospitalized 650 children with seizures a company apology statement was made and the episode was edited to remove the scene however many countries in the western world refused to air the new episode.

In the U.S three episodes where banned for a period of time after the 9/11 attacks, 2 because of their name and 1 because it contained the destruction of a city.

Other controversy claims that Pokémon is anti-Semitic with one episode showing Jessie James, Meowth and a load of team rocket grunts performing a ‘Hitler salute’ one Pokémon was also depicted with a backwards swastika but Nintendo said this wasn’t to cause offense as pre-ww2 a backwards swastika was a symbol of peace in Japan.

Fundamentalist Christians have also claimed that Pokémon supports Satanism and promotes evolution to children as the Pokémon evolve and can be controlled by ‘magical talismans’ (most likely the gym badges in the game) as well as using demon stones (probably the fire stone and the others which allow Pokémon to evolve) their main complaint came in with the fact that there were physic Pokémon as the bible states that physic powers are given to those by the devil.

A parent’s committee tried to sue because they claimed it encouraged children to gamble due to this Nintendo removed the game corner on later versions of the video game but this was heavily criticised by fans claiming that the games corner was one of their favourite parts.

Other controversy came in with the lack of ethnic minorities in the show with Brock being the only one in the first series especially due to Jynx who most believed to be depicting a racist image of a black woman with fat red lips and bleach blonde hair although Pokémon fans stood up for Pokémon claiming Jynx was most likely based on an ancient Japanese tradition where women tanned heavily and dyed their hair blonde.