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What's Pokemon?

Dr. Joy answering some panicked callsA lot of people have written to me and asked me, "Okay, this is a nice page, but what is Pokemon?" Here's a moderately short description for those of you who want to know what the craze is about.

"Pokemon", or "Pocket Monsters", is actually a RPG/simulation Game Boy game released in 1995 by Nintendo of Japan, Gamefreak and Creatures. Pokemon are actually monsters who live in the wild, and who can be trained to defend people or just to be pets. You play a ten-year old boy whose goal is to become the greatest Pokemon trainer in the world. To do that, you must encounter and fight all 150 Pokemon to fill up your "Pokemon Encyclopedia", the only way to do that being to capture some monsters of your very own, train them, and get them to fight against other monsters, and you must fight the eight Pokemon Training Hall leaders in order to get their badges, which proves your strength and ability to train the monsters you capture.

The Game Boy game spawned an animated series of the same name in Japan, which became an instant hit with people of all ages. It's also that infamous series that caused the seizures incident on December 16th, 1997 where 700 children were hospitalized due to a flashing effect in one of the episodes. That incident's nearly forgotten now as the series continued to air in April 1998, the dual-episode movie, "Pikachu's Summer Vacation" and "Mewtwo Strikes Back!" was released on July 18th, and the second series of the animated show is already on the drawing boards.

"Pokemon" will be making its debut in North America on September 7th when the translated version of the anime will be released in 86% of the United States, following the adventures of Ash Ketchum and his sometimes un-cooperative Pokemon, Pikachu, as he strives to become the world's greatest Pokemon trainer. The Game Boy game, both red and blue versions, will be coming out on September 28th, where you'll be able to link with a friend to fight against each other or trade monsters. A Tamagotchi-like unit, the Pocket Pikachu, will be released on November 2nd in North America.

If you have any questions about the series or the games, please don't hesitate to e-mail me at cod@compusmart.ab.ca

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