| Pokemon is a
video game franchise, created by Satoshi Tajiri
and published by Nintendo for several of their
systems, most importantly the Game Boy. It has
been merchandised into anime, manga, trading cards,
toys, and much more. The name Pokémon is
a portmanteau of the words Pocket Monsters , which
is its Japanese name.
Pokémon is also the collective name for the creatures
within the Pokémon games. The franchise
has 386 unique monsters that lie at the heart
of the Pokémon series (391 including currently
known Pokémon from future games).
The logo with the "Gotta catch 'em all" slogan.The
Pokémon games are strategy games with a
small RPG element which allow players to catch,
collect, and train pets with various abilities,
and battle them against each other to build their
strength and evolve them into more powerful Pokémon.
Pokémon battles are based on the non-lethal
Eastern sport of fighting insects, but the Pokémon
never bleed or die, only faint. The game's catchphrase
used to be "Gotta catch 'em all!", although
now it is no longer officially used. (In an "in-joke"
used in the English version of the Pokemon anime
movie "Destiny Deoxys," Brock says this
as he catches hot dogs from a machine in mid-air.)
Pikachu, numbered 25 in the national Pokédex, is probably
one of the most well-known Pokémon.The
Pokémon characters have become pop-culture
icons, with a Pikachu balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving
Day Parade, thousands of merchandise items, and
in 2005, a theme park in Nagoya, Japan. The satirical
cartoon South Park spoofed Pokémon in Episode
312, entitled "Chinpokomon", in which
the bosses behind the creation of the toys were
revealed to be Japanese ultranationalists bent
on avenging Japan's defeat in World War II. Shows
such as the Simpsons have made mild references
to Pokemon and other anime in their cartoons.
Because of the unprecedented popularity of the franchise, Nintendo formed a subsidary company called The Pokémon Company to handle the franchise. The subsidary handles everything from publishing the games in Japan to running the official merchandise stores, the Pokémon Centers. The Pokémon Company in turn has a U.S. based subsidary called Pokémon USA, which a minority owner is 4Kids Entertainment, the international distributors outside Japan of the popular Pokemon anime series.
|
