Consumer Society around Pokémon Products: essay 2 - Reconfigured
From Mod Mania
Try to remember the times around begging of the past decade and the most popular childhood phenomenon at those times. Most probably you will get a mental image of a Pokémon. Starting as a GameBoy game in a single market (Japan in 1996), it expanded into a media-mix, global operation outstanding for both the longevity and expanse of its popularity[1]. Inevitably, it created a great consumer society mostly consists of children aged 4-14. It was such a huge community that it could be hard and might be wrong to try to identify on a broad sense and over its media-mix( not over just one product of this media-mix). However, it shows similar characteristics and structure in the way it effects and create its consumer society in almost every product line belonging that craze. Pokemon made by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996 is a media franchise own by the biggest Japanese video game industries called Nintendo. Pokemon become the second most successful and producing a great deal of profit video game based media franchise in the world. Since that Pokemon have been merchandise into anime, manga, trading cards, toys, books and other media. The name of Pokemon it has been simplify from the original name which is pocket monsters, in Japanese (ポケットモンスター Poketto Monsutā). Concept of Pokémon There are 17 types of pokemon: Normal, Fire, Water, Electric, Grass, Ice, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Flying, Psychic, Bug, Rock, Ghost, Dragon, Dark, Steel. A single pokemon have up to 2 types of elements, each type has several strengths and weaknesses in both attack and defense. In battle, you should use pokemon and moves that have a type advantage over your opponent by doing so will cause much more damage than normal. A single-type advantage for example a Water attack against a Ground-type pokemon will give you double normal damage. The advantages also add up so a double-type advantage for example a Water attack against a Ground/Rock-type pokemon will give you quadruple damage. In both these cases you will see the message It's super effective in-game after the attack. Conversely, a single- and double-type disadvantage will afflict half and a quarter normal damage respectively. Here you will see the message It's not very effective in-game. Each Pokemon also have 6 status statistics: HP (health points), this is simply how much health a Pokemon has. Atk (Attack): used to measure the physical strength of a Pokémon. Sp.Atk (Special Attack): used to measure the intelligence of a Pokemon. Def (Defence): used to measure the physical defence of a Pokémon. Sp.Def (Special Defence): used to measure the special defence of a Pokémon. Spd (Speed): Unit used to measure how fast a Pokemon is. Players of the games are designated as Pokémon Trainers, and the two general goals (in most Pokémon games) for such Trainers are: to complete the Pokédex by collecting all of the available Pokémon species found in the fictional region where that game takes place; and to train a team of powerful Pokémon from those they have caught to compete against teams owned by other Trainers, and eventually become the strongest Trainer, the Pokémon Master. These themes of collecting, training, and battling are present in almost every version of the Pokémon franchise, including the video games, the anime and manga series, and the Pokémon Trading Card Game[2]. The name of Pokedex came from by combining Pokemon and Index. Pokedex is an electronic device designed to catalog and provide information regarding the various species of Pokémon in alphabetical order. Consumer society and reoccurring themes with in this group Aforementioned before, consumer society of Pokémon products are, as being direct or in direct buyers, children. In my opinion, although a very consciously consuming act cannot be seen any field of consumption, for children marketplace, it is a lot more unconscious, more instinct. In addition, since there is a vast amount of products interrelated to each other to consume within the media-mix of Pokémon, this consumer society is very obsessive. They are willing to get involve every act related to Pokémon to create a coherence understanding or possessiveness. The reason why Pokemon video game is addictive it is because Pokemon actually not just a game that people just can simply play and finished the game by beating all the Pokemon masters and simply become the strongest player. After we beat the strongest pokemon master there will be credit that shows the game has finish however after the credits end you will be send back to your first house where you first started the game and there where the actual Game begin. There will be secrets reveal and you will discovers some island that consist of legendary Pokemon that you able or may not be able to catch because in order to get to their place we need a special tricks of guide through. Most of the Pokemon communities wanted to get all the legendary Pokemon and completing their Pokedex. So the community members start sharing and helping each others how to reveal the secret and the tricks. However some of the legendary Pokemon is hard to catch because everytime go meet them they flee or there will be a puzzle in order to get to their place and some of them you wont be able to find because you need to buy special code or you need to attend an exhibition and in that exhibition they will give you the code and tell you how to catch it. Moreover, they not only discuss about the pokemon, they also discus about the tricks of how to train and building their pokemon status to get full point. There are tricks to train your pokemon however it will be hard work by hunting the same type of pokemon that mostly have lower level and consuming a vitamin because its not about to get your pokemon level up faster but its about getting a full status point and shaping your pokemon to become stronger. By knowing this tricks and rules you will have different status with the same pokemon at the same level because both pokemon have different routine of training. The reason behind this could be the reoccurring theme of collecting, which is the main concept of Pokémon itself. If you are playing with poke cards, you have to collect; if you are playing video games; you have to wait, play long time, and get new products with which you can catch new and rare Pokémon...So, in the consumer society of Pokémon products, you have to be collective. To illustrate, if you a member of poke cards consuming society, you would be getting to the top in hierarchy as long as you collect more cards, hold rare cards. It must be also important to having a good sense of playing with these cards, but without having the qualified cards, someone cannot play with them. That is way consumer could be willing to give a lot much money to have a card which he or she does not have. As another example of a specific consumer society, which I used to be a participant of it, is that a local one Turkey. In Turkey, at those time when Pokémon was very popular, a community is created around Pokémon ‘’taso’’s( which is a round plastic has pokemon images on it) which you can reach them buying chips. Since other Pokémon products were relatively expensive for Turkey’s market, it was a more convenient way to reach Pokémon lovers and profit from their love. Someone could play with these tasos with another one, and gain or lose his or her tasos. In the structure of this society, as usual, having more and rare cards can carry you to the top of hierarchy. Also, a common narrative was popular among the consumer society about who has beaten whom; who has got the rarest taso. Even they were some urban legends that if you buy a specific kind of chips, you are likely to get the specific Pokémon tasos. It was that much a dramatic habit for some children that I saw many of them crying and fighting for the tasos that they have lost. As for the last observe among this society, if you are a new comer to society, you would be seen as a prey since it would be easier to beat you. Another specialty of consumer society of Pokémon, in general, something related to Japanese team based culture instead of Western’s individual based culture. Pokémon reinforces in its players this "sense of belonging", of being part of a tribe, which calls itself "pokemaniacs" and fights together to reach certain goals. All the rules of game, all the stories of characters, all the relationship chains established by the pokemon universe reinforce the trait of a family grouping, emphasizing harmony, co-operation, conformity, putting pressure putting pressure on the individual so they do not miss the boat and become an outsider. Consumer society around Pokémon has that property to be in a team, to have some small groups in this society within in a vogue hierarchical system to complete a sense of belonging and behave accordingly. This could be seen even today with some forums in Internet and some online game actions related to Pokémon culture. There used to be great consumer community around the pokemon produts and still one can easily find examples from this community mostly in Internet. The way they get involve with Pokémon culture slightly different than past but it is still alive in formats such as create your own Pokémon on some websites.
References:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokémon
- http://animefan25.tripod.com/pkmnhistor.htm
- http://www.serebii.net/crystal/types.shtml
- http://web.mit.edu/condry/Public/cooljapan/Feb23-2006/Allison-03-Postcol-Portble.pdf
