Hello Shiquers and welcome back to Nerdy Shique Universe! We all know the catch phrase “Gotta Catch Em All!” and of course the original theme song to the biggest anime and video game series and that is Pokemon! This series has been one of the most popular and has still grown since and had many media versions of itself, which includes video games, card games, toys, manga, and so on! As a way to celebrate AFO getting two of the original cast members, we will be looking at this series when it comes to the major media areas!
Basic Idea: Since Pokemon has been around since the 90’s and has been ever growing, the basic premise is that it started in 1995 and created by Satoshi Tajiri and the Pokemon Company. The franchise started as a two video game pair for the Game Boy that was developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo. This series centers around how people catch creatures known as Pocket Monsters or Pokemon for short in balls called the Pokeball and fight other people and train them for sport.
Video Games: Before looking at the anime, we got to look at the place where it started it all and that is the video games! Each game is pretty much a strategy RPG with battles and going to different towns in many regions. There have been six generations thus far and the first one started with Red and Blue on the original Game Boy that started off in the Kanto region and of course the original 151 known as First Generation. At first it was Red and Green Versions in Japan and then released the Blue Version over there as an expansion but only Red and Blue had their release here in the US in September of 1998. There was of course Yellow, which was the Special Pikachu Edition, which was based on the popular anime synopsis and did have the same idea of Pokedex stuff like in the Blue and Red versions here, what was great is that you got to go up against Jessie and James like in the anime.
Second Gen brought us Gold, Silver, and Crystal, which later turned into Heart Gold and Soul Silver for the DS, featured the Johto region and a hundred more Pokemon that went from Chikorita to Celebi. This does get based on the Kansai region of Japan like how Kanto did in Red, Blue, and Yellow.
Third Gen kind of got weird and this time it expanded the Game Boy into its advanced state through the Game Boy Advanced with Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, which we have Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire for the 3DS today. This even brought remakes of Red and Blue through Leaf Green and Fire Red to the Advanced as well and these games all introduced 135 new species starting with Treeko and all the way through Deoxys. Reason being with the Pokemon being a little strange, this is where some of them took on inanimate objects, well the Regis for the most part that kind of looked like speakers eventhough Exploud and Explodster already covered that. This brought the entire total to 386 to catch in these games except they got some criticisms due to some things that were left out including the day and night switch which started in Gold and Silver. Man, that would be hard for turning Evee in either a Umbreon or Espeon. It also introduced catching certain Pokemon in some areas which brought a problem of only catching 202 out of the 386 in Hoen, which was based on the Kyushu region of Japan. A little fact, I did play Sapphire but the copy I had kept deleting my games, I am guessing that some copies had a glitch and glad I got Alpha Sapphire in the end so I can play the third region.
Fourth Generation, which was introduced in 2006 brought us Diamond and Pearl and then Platinum later on for the DS. The Sinnoh Region brought us new 107 speies of Pokemon which were from Turtwig to Arsius. Great thing about these games and the DS at the time, it featured using the touch screen features to make Poffins with the stykus, entering the Pokemon contest, and of course battling, which is still implemented on the 3DS and 3DS XL and even the now New 3DS today! It also brought new features like WiFi battles which made it easier than the old cable connections we all remembered from Game Boy. It did bring the day and night features from second gen and did expand the Pokemon Contests from third gen. This region was based on the Hokaido region and Sattelin in Russia since of course Route 116 that leads you to Snowpointe City to take on Candace. It also features underground battles and digging for things such as evolution stones and heart scales. Fourth Gen did also have a few spin off games which included a follow up to Pokemon Stadium with Pokemon Battle Revolution for the Wii.
Fifth Gen, which is where it gets weirder, takes place in the Unova Region in Black and White and both Black and White 2 which is based on New York City in the US. This generation introduced new 156 to the roster which started with Victini and ended with Genesect. If you read my review on Black 1, you know these new Pokemon were weird and started being based on inanimate objects and food. Yeah, they were really running out of ideas! Not only the weird Pokemon and new region, these games used the 3D rendering on the 3DS with Castelia City, which was hard to navigate for me. I will be playing White 2 since that and Black 2 kind of do a different direction of the region.
Now onto Sixth Gen, which is the games of X and Y! These games take place in the Kalos Region which is based on France and some areas of Europe, which we do run into Stone Henge on one of the routes. I wonder if that will happen again in the next game to introduce more to this region. This region also brought some more new Pokemon and even a new type, Fairy Type, and one of them happened to be the newest Evee, Silveon. This game brought on more of the 3D by rendering it in 3D along with the battles which take us back to Pokemon Stadium and of course we get Lumios City bringing more of that mechanic. Will the next one to complete this region’s trilogy do the same? Unless there will be an X2 and Y2? Let’s see what happens!
Anime: Now onto the anime! Both the anime and movies were based loosely on the games, well besides Yellow, follow the adventures of Ash, aka Satoshi in Japan, in becoming the next Pokemon Master. He travels with Brock, gym leader of Pewter City, and Misty, one of many sisters from the Cerulean Gym, to make him become the best Pokemon Master. He meets a lot of people on his quest and battle to get badges and get to meet new Pokemon with his signature first, Pikachu, and catch many others.
The group does change by the Third Generation when he meets May, daughter of Norman of the Peddleburg Gym, and her brother Max and get reunited with Brock with the new adventures in Hoen. Brock and Ash become a teacher to the both of them since Max wants to be a Pokemon Trainer while May becomes a Pokemon Coordinator to compete in contests.
Both Brock and Ash move onto Sinnoh where they meet an aspiring coordinator named Dawn and go through the region to not only get badges but Ash becomes a contest competitor himself. The series does end with both Brock and Ash going back to Kanto where Brock goes off to become a Pokemon Doctor for real. With Best Wishes, which is based on Black and White, is where it gets weird and didn’t like the series much. Ash meets two new friends, Cylan and Iris. I kind of noticed how with this one, Ash went type-weakness stupid, as in he kept on choosing the wrong Pokemon to fight against what they are weak against to. Good example is the episode against his newest rival and uses his Ashawat against their Sirvine when according to the type logic water’s weak grass Pokemon. No wonder my Tolterra was great in the Pastoria Gym! Iris even yells at him for it. Hell, even using Pikachu in the last gym, Roxy’s gym, did poison him. Kind of shows how he can be weak after being so overpowered in every season. Still, don’t know what happened with the writing but Ash should be able to know better especially with all his losses in the past region leagues. I know I am kind of bashing but when watching this season on the Pokemon TV app when it was on my phone, made me sad with how the character of Ash kind of went downhill. This season should’ve been written a bit more. And the casting for Iris for me…she did kind of sounded bored! Which reminds me!
Did You Know?4Kids was the original dubbing studio for Pokemon. By 2006, they handed all licensing to Pokemon USA which is now the Pokemon Company. I miss the old casting, which had Veronica Taylor as Ash and did an awesome job as May in the third generation anime. And of course, Eric stuart as Brock and Rachel Lillis as Misty.
Pokemon XY is the current series where Ash travels with childhood friend, Serena, and brother and sister duo, Clement and Bonnie. I did like the premiere episode or episodes where Ash meets his first Pokemon in this region, Froaky! And then it does show a little bit of mega evolution with Blazeken.
There have been seventeen films for this anime along with it! And the recent has been Diansy and the Cocoon of of Destruction. I can see why Diansy was a special Pokemon for the games. If you want a full list, I would say go to Wikipedia because we all know that each region came with 2 to 3 movies each, especially with the Unova region which looked like it had four because it dealt with Victini, Reshiram, Kyuram, the three or shall I say Four Musketeer Pokemon since you meet the Fourth one in Black and White 2, and of course, Keldio. And oh yes, Genesect, which that movie…introduced Mega Evolved Mewtwo Y which led into X and Y.
Card Game: The TCG for Pokemon pretty much is like the video games except you collect cards in the real world of the many Pokemon, Trainers, and Energy cards, which are used to power up for attacks. I have collected the cards myself and have grown with them and man it has evolved in the rules and the cards! I can’t collect anymore due to being blind even though I do have decks with braille labels. I just play the video games! You can find the XY packs and tins, not sure if they have some for Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire since they made cards for Heart Gold and Soul Silver!
Manga: Pokemon had various manga, especially published for North America. The first was The Electric Tale of Pikachu which was split into four titles, which the first one was Electric Tale, then Pikachu Shocks Back, Pikachu Boogaloo, and Sufs Up Pikachu! These manga were based loosely on the anime While Pokemon Adventure was mostly based on the video games and does go by the player characters you play as in each region. Ther are many others that were released by Viz and not by Viz but another company here in the US. There are too many to mention but those are the main two since I remembered reading Electric Tale when it was published here back in the 90s.
So, that is it for this TransMedia Tretrospective! Pokemon has been a major part of our lives and it is still is to this day! With new games, merch, and of course more anime, this has been an evergrowing series and will keep growing! No matter how it will keep going, we will Gotta Catch Em All!
What is next for Nerdy Shique Universe? With mentioning Pokemon, I will do a cosplay post on it since I am working on my latest Pokemon cosplay! And also now waiting on my Ipsy and BoxyCharm shipping e-mails! And well….decided next post I need to talk about something serious that has taken place in the Beauty World! Stay tuned for that!
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