Pokemon Graduates to the Big Screen

Fred Pattern, the author of this Animation Magazine article, considers himself to be an inyternational authority on anime in general. (Incidently, the company I work for --and the project I'm working on -- graced the cover of this magazine the same year this article was published...small world.)

   Pokémon, the phenomenal TV cartoon success, is making its transition to motion picture theaters. On Nov. 12, Warner Bros. will release Pokémon: The First Movie, featuring 10-year-old Ash Ketchum, the master Pokémon trainer, and Pikachu, his Pokémon companion, in their longest and most dramatic adventure yet.

   As many already realize, Pokémon is much more than a TV cartoon program. It originated in Japan in 1996 as Pocket Monsters, a Nintendo hand-held video game by designer Satoshi Tjiri for the 7- to 14-year-old set. There are 150 pocket-sized forest fantasy animals, birds and fish, and the players ("trainers") who capture and domesticate the largest number win. Japanese juvenile slang condensed Pocket Monsters to Pokémon, which became the accepted popular name and later the official American name of the game.

   What distinguished Pokémon from other video games was that Nintendo created an imaginative storyline to go with it. This storyline focused on a few key characters with likeable, believable personalities. These became the keystones of Pokémon comic books and a weekly TV cartoon series.

   Children's attentions were initially caught by the variety of the 150 fantasy animals, but they became devoted enthusiasts because of the adventures of the boy Ash Ketchum (Satoshi, in Japan) and his Pokémon friend-pet, Pikachu. Ash sets out to become a Pokémon Master by catching one each of all 150 critters before the other children of his age-group can. Gradually, he develops a special friendship with Pikachu, the chubby yellow "electric mouse" who can shock like an electric eel. (The name of each Pokémon character is also the name of its particular species.) Ash comes to realize that each Pokémon is a unique live animal that must be cared for, and that they are more important in themselves than as mere possessions.

   The encounters of Ash and Pikachu with rival juvenile Pokémon hunters teach Ash the difference between honorable competition and dirty cheating. They also build up a core supporting cast of trustworthy friends -- the girl Misty (Kasumi) and the boy Brock (Takeshi) -- and selfish comic-relief villains, the Team Rocket gang, who constantly try to steal Ash's Pikachu rather than catching a wild one of their own. This creates an evolving human-interest serial with some well-personalized characters, rather than the bland and often nameless casts of most video game scenarios.

   The stories cleverly illustrate certain life lessons, such as caring for pets and wildlife, and learning to play fairly rather than winning at all costs. This surprisingly pro-social attitude for a video game scenario scored points with parents, making way for the proliferation of Pokémon video games, trading card games, comics, figurines and other spinoffs such as the fold-your-own-Pikachu origami kits.

   The animated Pokémon started as a weekly primetime TV series on April 1, 1997 on the TV Tokyo channel, animated by Shogakukan Production Co., Ltd. (which also publishes the Pokémon comic books and distributes the home video releases). By November of that year, it was the third-highest rated TV cartoon series in Japan. It was knocked off the air for several months in late 1997/early 1998 after the notorious "hospitalization" incident (see below), but quickly resumed its popularity and is still going strong today, 115 episodes and counting.

   Most Americans first heard of Pokémon in December 1997, in news reports of the bizarre hospitalization incident. One of the TV episodes (#38) contained a scene of less than a minute with strobing lights that was accidentally of a visual frequency to cause viewers nausea, motion sickness and mild seizures. About 700 children, most of whom had been watching so close to the TV that the screen completely filled their vision, were briefly hospitalized. It is ironic that many of the news reports included assurances from American entertainment spokesmen that dangerous Japanese animation like Pokémon would never be shown on American TV!

   In America, Pokémon was launched in September 1998 with both Nintendo's first Pokémon Game Boy video game and the TV cartoons. The TV series began weekday syndicated broadcasting on Sept. 8. By the end of the year, TV Guide was describing Pokémon as "the season's most popular new syndicated cartoon." It expanded to Saturday morning network broadcasting on Kids' WB! on Feb. 13, immediately setting new rating records. Pokémon left syndicated broadcasting at the end of August of that year, moving exclusively to Kids' WB!, where it currently appears Mondays through Saturdays.

   As of September 1999, on Pokémon's first anniversary in the U.S. the TV cartoons regularly top all competition in their time slots, earning a No. 1 rating for both network and syndication broadcasts. The initial Pokémon Game Boy video games have sold more than 4.2 million units. They have been followed up by Pokémon Pinball and the Pokémon Snap game for the newer Nintendo 64 playstation. A 19-city Nintendo Pokémon "training tour" launched at Minneapolis' Mall of America in July drew a crowd of more than 44,000 people. More video games will follow before the end of this year.

   Wizards of the Coast, creator of the innovative Magic: The Gathering trading card game, licensed the right to design a similar Pokémon trading card game, which to date has sold more than 2 million copies since its January debut. A book, The Official Pokémon Handbook, and a CD of the original American music from the TV cartoons, PoKéMoN - 2.B.A. MASTER, have both made the top 10 sales charts in their media. The Japanese comic-book series, featuring new stories (not repeats of the TV adventures) written and drawn by Toshihiro Ono, has been translated and published in the U.S. monthly since November 1998 by Viz Comics, the U.S. subsidiary of Shogakukan, which launched the American home video release on the same date.

   More than 100 U.S. licensees, notably Hasbro, produce Pokémon products, from action figures to plush. Nintendo's anniversary publicity cites the Pokémon franchise as "a $5 billion industry worldwide." And, joining the ranks of such favorites as Star Wars, Teletubbies and various Disney movies, Pokémon was recently denounced as a menace to America's morality by a pastor in Colorado; it seems some of the Pokémons have horns, just like the Devil.

   The first theatrical feature, Pocket Monsters the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back (introducing a new, villainous Pokémon), appeared in July 1998. It became Japan's fourth-highest grossing film of 1998. Two more features, The Mysterious Pokémon X and Revelation Lugia, have appeared so far.

   Now Pokémon is moving into American movie theaters with Pokémon: The First Movie. The Summer 1998 Japanese movie is divided into two separate stories: Pikachu's Vacation, a gentle 22-minute featurette showing the playground escapades of Pikachu and about a dozen other Pokémon children at summer camp; and the dramatic 70-minute feature, Mewtwo Strikes Back!

   The Japanese movie, directed by Kunihiko Yuyama and written by Takeshi Shudo, has been adapted by 4Kids Entertainment, producers of the American Pokémon TV cartoons. The 4Kids creative team includes Alfred R. Kahn, executive producer, Michael Haigney, director, and writers Norman J. Grossfeld (also 4Kids president), Michael Haigney and John Touhey. Grossfeld is so sure that Pokémon: The First Movie will be a hit that he is already preparing for production of the second Pokémon movie starting early next year.

   The adaptation for American audiences was relatively simple. Any background signs or other text that show Japanese writing were replaced with English words. The movie was completely rescored with new music that is more in tune with what is hot with American kids, performed by some of the most popular young recording artists of the moment. The basic story needed almost no changes for young Americans, because it is not ethnically Japanese. "Pokémon is not culture-specific," Grossfeld says, "it's kid-specific. Its very strong story, its likeable kid characters and its cute animals appeal to kids everywhere."

   Asked if he believes that Pokémon's success is likely to increase the popularity of other anime in the U.S., Grossfeld replies, "I don't like to think in terms of labels. Pokémon is good animation. It will open the door to more good animation of a similar nature, whether it is from Japan or other countries. Right now its success has many companies running to Japan to look for more programs that are like Pokémon, but not for anime in general."

   Grossfeld believes that it will be harder to duplicate Pokémon's quality than many people realize. "Always when something is successful, there are attempts to imitate it," he says. "I think that imitators will find that virtually impossible to do with Pokémon. Its most obvious aspect is that it has lots of cute, fantastic animals. So imitators are looking for programs that similarly have lots of cute animals. If Pokémon has 150 animals, they want a program with as many or more.

   "But what sets Pokémon apart," Grossfeld adds, "is really its very strong story, incorporating positive values without getting overly moralistic, and its individualized personalities, concentrating on a few main characters whom the kids can get to know and like."

   Did the 1997 hospitalization incident in Japan create any public resistance to the syndicated marketing of the TV cartoons here? "It definitely had a seriously negative effect," Grossfeld confirms, "but not from the public as much as from the TV programmers. They were naturally reluctant to take a chance on any program that might be perceived as dangerous to children.

   "Our solution," he says, "was to screen and review every episode so we could personally attest to the harmlessness of each one, and to promise that we would never show the episode that caused the hospitalizations at all, rather than trying to fix it. The incident actually had a positive effect in that it publicized the incredible popularity of Pokémon. The news [reported] that so many children had been affected because around 50% of all children in Japan were watching that program. TV programmers certainly want a program with that much popularity, once it is guaranteed to be safe."

   Regarding further Pokémon projects, Grossfeld reports, "We already have out one successful record of the TV music, and a release of the Pokémon movie music is scheduled from Atlantic Records. We are planning further record releases from the TV soundtrack next year. Don't be surprised if there is also a Pokémon stage production; we are looking into it."

Webmistress' note: There actually was a stage production, and,.as it did, technically, feature Mewtwo, I should probably have some material on it here. Only I try to avoid things that will burn my eyes from my head.