This review hits on something I think is important when talking about
the cultural impact of Pokémon. Ebert compared it to My
Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service, two noted works of the great
anime director Hayao Miyazaki. Although at the time Ebert
dismissed it as just part of a big marketing pitch (as, I imagine, many adults
also did at the time), what adults failed to notice at the time is the seeds
of curiosity the TV show and movies planted in their kids minds.
The Pokémon series can be credited to
introducing anime to a whole generation. When the kids who watched the show
learn of the show's Japanese origins, they instantly learn that animation isn't
a Walt Disney monopoly. In fact, just the
show's aesthetics alone show this show is from another world (let alone the plot).
Compared to most cartoons made in the US (like the works of Hanna-Barbera) the appearance of the human
characters look more comparative realistic. To me at the time that was incredible. It was like when Bob Dylan was converted from
gas to electric (I
know that sounds like an over-exaggeration, but that's
how revolutionary it was to the 11-year-old me, who was fed regularly
on Dick Dastardly and Muttley ...
and practised drawing them). The show had an exotic factor to it. Although other
shows that were made in Japan had been on US TV before Pokémon (Astro Boy, Gigantor, Battle of the Planets and Sailor Moon, to name a few), a number of them were highly
altered before it hit the airwaves (this was particularly true for Battle of the Planets, which began life on
its home turf as Gatchaman). Even though the Pokémon TV series was altered during
the English translation, the alterations were generally done well enough
to match the actions on screen with little need of scene removal, becoming a
bit of an exception when it came to 4Kids Entertainment's reputation (but it hasn't stopped fans from
complaining!). Despite the alterations there was enough on screen for kids to
see that this show was not an American product, such as the presence of rice
balls (or "doughnuts" they were called in one early
dubbed episode), occasional signs of Japanese script, traditional clothes and architecture. This was from a different world. A
cartoon parallel universe, you could say. But the creators of the series (in
the beginning) didn't see it like that, so what happened next must have been a
surprise for them...
"Things like Japanese writing
appearing in the background on signboards or uniquely Japanese family settings
are a distraction for American kids, preventing them from really becoming
absorbed in the fictional world of the series." - Kubo
Masakazu, executive producer of the Pokémon TV series (quoted from
p85 of Pikachu's Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokémon (2004))
It was such an action-packed
visual delight that kids didn't want to miss an episode. So much so in fact
that many kids from this generation (including me) learnt how to program a VCR (These were the days before TiVo,
remember. and schedulers placed episodes (and other animes) in weird times,
like very early in the morning.).
But what happened next caused a
thunder shock attack throughout the whole anime industry. Those fans found out
that they were "lost episodes" (episodes 4Kids didn't bother to
translate because they thought it would be "too Japanese" for
American audiences, such as the "Beauty
and the Beach" episode). And when they did they began to demand
4Kids to air those episodes! And they did (eventually). this
had never happened before, a distributor receiving demands to air episodes they
initially thought would confuse audiences .... and giving in to those demands.
This never happened when Sailor Moon first aired on US TV half a
decade earlier (an endeavour well noted for its high level of censorship, which
led to whole episodes (and a whole season) been removed). So what changed?
Simple - the internet. Many kids were accessing the internet for the first time
in the late-1990s and one of the first things those kids tried to look up
was Pokémon. And in doing so found web pages
listing the episodes of the series and discovered the inconsistencies between
the list of episodes aired in Japan and whose aired in the US.... and felt
cheated. They wanted to see the whole story and felt that, by holding back
whole episodes, they were going to miss something important... or incredible.
So they took their anger online and started "The Lost Episodes Campaign,"
leading to 4Kids and Kids WB been bombarded with e-mails, letters, phone calls
and faxes demanding the airing of those "lost episodes."Another fan
campaign I can think of that was that successful (or even more so) was what
happened when NBC tried to cancel Star Trek.
Since then translators have made
less effort playing down the show's Japanese origins, as pretty much everyone
knows that fact now and attempts to do so look pathetic to viewers. Its like
the 2012 remake of Red Dawn. (Originally
the story involved the US been invaded by the Chinese, but worries that the
film won't sale in China (duh!) forced the producers (after filming everything)
to change every reference to China's army to change the invading force to North
Korea in the hopes not to offend Chinese cinema-goers. The film was panned by
critics (surprise, surprise).)
After enjoying the multiple sights
of Team Rocket been blasted off again, a number of these kids (including me)
began to wonder... What other cartoons like this exist? By then, Pokémon was getting competition, with the likes of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Digimon, and (later) Beyblade, so kids were confronted with a lot of evidence that Japan produced a
lot of cartoons.
As those kids got older and went
to high school they meet up, discuss the show with an air of nostalgia and
then... one of them discovers something one day that'll blow their minds. How
they uncover this truth is non-important. But what is, is its impact on
those kids. Those kids discover that Japan has a massive animation industry,
which crank out a lot of toons. But not only that, a great number of them (not all of them, as some people who have only seen the Hammer horror equivalents like to exaggerate) contain things that'll
make parents and teachers scream with horror - ninjas, Tarantino-style violence (including lots of
blood), character designs that arose the viewer and (for the pubescent young males (admit it)) glimpses of
girls underwear! To those kids, whose idea of a cartoon was,
basically, a risk-free sitcom with added slap-stick, this was a revelation.
There were cartoons out there that'll make South
Park look like the Teletubbies.
What I just said there is an exaggeration - based
on an actual truth. The kids who got interested in the Pokémon anime (and others at the
time) as a kid later found out (as they got older) the existence of more mature animes and (if it
was possible) watched them, becoming true anime fans. But this not only
happened to kids... it happened to grown-ups too, who watched the series with
their kids. The curiosity about anime generated in kids (and adults) by Pokémon can be observed by the
sky-rocketing attendances in anime conventions in the early-2000s.
The first Anime
Expo in Los Angeles in 1992 had only 1,750 attendances. By
1996 (the year the first Pokémon games were released in Japan)
attendances barely reached 3,000. In 1998 (when Pokémon was
introduced to the US) attendances nearly reached 5,000. In 1999, 6,400. In
2000, 9,700. In 2001... 13,000! In 2003, 17,000! In 2005, 33,000! That an
over-two-third increase in five years!
The Pokémon anime (and the games,
trading cards and other stuff) entered the Western world at a
decisive moment in cultural history - the founding years of the internet known
as the "dot-com bubble." As people began to log on
for the first time in their millions (while a high number of
tech-savvy entrepreneurs tried to work out how to make money off
them), many aspects of "nerd culture" were
gaining mass-popularity in the late-1990s - some of which was fuelled by
the internet itself, thanks to early-adopting "nerds" who
populated the forums before the coming of the great
unwashed. This was the time when the first truly commercially-successful MMORPGs appeared (such as Nexus and Ultima Online). Fantasy
fiction received a boost in popularity when the first Harry Potter and Game of Thrones books were published (and would later get a bigger
boost when the former and Lord of the Rings were adapted to film
in epic fashion, pushing CGi to its limits). And it was a
defining/disastrous time to be a Star Wars fan too, for reasons I don't need to say.
“The changes that Pikachu wrought are only the
beginning of fascinating new trends in role-playing games, video games,
cartoons, and toys and the accelerated spread of such fads via the internet.” –
Ellen Seiter, author of Sold Separately; Children and Parents in Consumer Culture (from
the back cover of Pikachu’s Wild Adventure: The Rise and Fall of
Pokémon (2004))
18 years after Pokémon left its home shores to
conquer the world, Japanese cultural exports and memes are everywhere in the West
(and not just online on 4chan).
Manga (translated and natively made) can be bought in any high-street book store. Aesthetic
traits from anime and manga can be found in a lot of Western visual media since
1998, from The Matrix and Avatar: The Last Airbender to the
video for 'Breaking the Habit' and Big Hero 6. In the 2010s a stand-alone anime
convention (and not a generalised comic con) could be found been held at least
once a year in any major city in the UK (Glasgow held one in March, which I attended). It
is impossible to ignore anime today. Although Akira is
widely credited for introducing anime to the West (despite the efforts of Astro Boy and Speed Racer), the Pokémon anime (the kid-friendly show
that was targeted at the pre-teen demographic) was the real bringer of change
to the world of animation. Many will say that computer-generated graphics was
the biggest thing to happen to the animation industry in the 2000s. But I think
the increasing awareness of anime was really the biggest thing to happen to
animation. It destroyed the American monopoly on the say what animation is and
what can be done in the medium, seriously challenging the once-wide-held relief
that animation is "just for kids" and its all slapstick comedy.
Although many creators had challenged this before (Ralph
Bakshi (for example) made the first X-rated animated film back in 1972) it
wasn't until the increasing interest in anime bought on by Pokémon (which sometimes did push
some barriers in the early episodes) that more people were exposed to the
counter-arguments. And with the help of DVDs (featuring the ability to switch
audio tracks to English dub) those people curious enough can buy/rent the works
of Miyazaki (and
others) and watch them in their own accord without any hindrance. And to me it
was a good thing. As people in the animation industry in the 2000s thought that
3D all the way was the future the latter half of the decade was plagued with a
lot of crap CGi films. If it wasn't for Pokémon koisking the West's interest
in anime, showing millions of people that 2D animation is awesomely expressive
(and proving that a good story can sell regardless of what tools were used to
animate it), we will have still been plagued by bad CG films... and 2D
animation will have been forced into the fringes.
Although Pokémon saved animation from the
"hi-tech is best" trap it also partly caused some of 2D animation's
downfall ... on TV.
In April 2016, Tom
Ruegger, the creator of 90s childhood animation staples Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs,
revealed (in a Reddit AMA) that the Pokémon TV series was responsible
for the decline of Warner Brothers cartoons (the makers
of Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs). So what
did Pikachu do to the Warner Brothers...
and the Warner Sister? Well, 4Kids made a deal with The WB network,
which aired the Kids' WB programming block, which was where
the output of Warner Brothers animation was aired. The deal meant that the WB
bought the Pokémon TV series at a very cheap
price (compared to their in-house creations). You have to remember is that when
this deal was made (sometime before September 1998) no one in the US really
knew how popular this show was going to be. So when WB saw the show's massive
ratings it made the bosses of the WB to think "we can save a lot of money
by just airing these cartoons instead of making our own." This idea gained
more water as the 2000s continued .... and legislation was introduced to
restrict what can be advertised during kids programming. (It is this
legislation that is the main cause of the disappearance of cartoons from TV in
Saturday mornings. In trying to combat childhood obesity (the main reason for
the legislation) the do-gooders unintentionally destroyed a cherished
institution. I know that some of you will shout out "they got dedicated TV
channels now," but its not the same. The idea that grown-up TV decided to
dedicate a few hours of airtime a week to provide entertainment for kids at the
start of their weekend off school says to kids "I know been a kid is
tough, so here's some well-deserved effortless fun time." Its even more
powerful when that kid has no access to cable or satellite TV or a games
console (or was not interested in games at all... like I was). You can really
tell that I really miss the Saturday morning cartoon slot.) With legislation
eating away their advertising revenue the WB made the tragic decision to stop
making shows themselves. The last show Ruegger worked on for the WB was the
"highly educational" comedy that was Histeria! It
was a highly-ambitious production, which went way over-budget, leading to a
reduction of planned episodes and the use of recycled segments. The show first
aired on 14th September 1998 (one week after Pokémon's début). With these facts we can
easily say that the problems involving Histeria! were fresh in
the minds of the executives when they made that deal with 4Kids.
This deal may not be unique. From
2000 to 2010 anyone watching a kid's cartoon slot/channel on TV will have
noticed an increase in imported shows from Japan and an decrease in
natively-made shows. It's not cheap making an animated TV show, requiring
thousands of man-hours to create the "illusion of life." As advertising revenue
falls as the number of channels available increases (reducing the number of
eyes looking at that commercial) TV stations were increasingly tempted by the
"cheap" imports. And the fact many kids wanted to watch them made the
decision easier. Until the technology became so cheap one can start an
animation company in their bedroom (saving a lot of money for commissioning TV
companies), the local cartoon industry (outside America) experienced a sort of
decline in the 2000s, evident with the ending of a number of animation
divisions in the decade, which include Warner Bros. and (in my native UK) Cosgrove Hall Films (the makers of Danger Mouse). Although I may be wrong about
what I have just said in this paragraph the fact remains that during the 2000s
stuff created in Japan were becoming a staple in kids lives, from Yu-Gi-Oh! cards to Beyblades.
Many have said that Pokémon was the stimulus that made
Westerners (and their children) curious about (and want) Japanese cultural
stuff, such as fashions, product designs and... cartoons. But I disagree.
Thinking that Pokémon alone started all this
ignores the fact that long before the 1990s Westerners had been exposed to
and consumed some bits of Japanese culture since the Meiji period. Japanese woodblock prints and
traditional fashion and crafts picked up a lot of interest in many European artists in late-19th century. Monet alone had a collection of prints, and had a Japanese-inspired wooden bridge in his garden that he painted (on canvas) in his later life. He even
painted a portrait of his wife dressed in a kimono. But this craze kind of ended
with World War I and only truly picked up again in the 1950s, when Japan began
to export cars, motorbikes, toys and electronic devices. The country's "economic miracle" after World War II
sky-rocketed Japanese culture (classic and modern) in the late-20th century. By
the 1980s the average yuppie could
be seen reading business books about the Japanese style of management, eating
sushi and murdering classic tunes with a karaoke machine. At the same time,
kids were playing Pac-Man and (after the crash) games on the NES. The works of fashion designers
like Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo were populating the
catwalks. And in Hollywood films George Lucas took inspiration from the
works of Akira Kurosawa in making Star Wars,
while Ridley Scott took modern Tokyo as inspiration
for his dystopian future Los Angeles in Blade
Runner.
If you want one artefact from this time that definitely proves this infusion of Japanese memes in the
West you can find no better example than the promo for the 1981 remix of
the Philip Lynott's single "Yellow Pearl" (British readers will know
this remix better as the theme tune to Top
of the Pops in the early-1980s). How more 1980s can you
get? And the song is about Japan's invasion of the West through their
technology. What a better fit can you find when talking about the importing of
Japanese stuff in the 1980s. Way better than "Turning
Japanese" by The
Vapors.
Phil Lynott "Yellow Pearl"
(1981 remix)
Let, most Westerners at the time
barely noticed this infiltration of Japanese culture. They will have noticed the increasing presence of
Sony Hi-Fis and Toyota cars and been worried by Japanese businesses taking away
local jobs (or giving them in local factories built to avoid
import tariffs), but almost all
their culture was local (with some servings of Americana). The main worry for
cultural commentators at the time was the invasion of American culture through
their TV screens, in the form of Dallas and Cheers.
Almost none of them noticed the imports of (then untranslated) manga volumes
and anime videos that were beginning to to be shipped in to specialist
boutiques in major cities. Japanese culture to most Westerners then was like
many still see their tea ceremonies - mostly high-brow stuff that
you had to acquire to appreciate, in the same way as opera and wine. The
closest thing the average Joe got to embracing Japanese culture then without
intimidation was rescuing Princess Peach.
But this changed in the 1990s. As
said earlier the success of Power Rangers proved that Western kids
will buy Japanese kids stuff in the same way they can buy into He-Man and Care
Bears. It can be argued that Power Rangers was the
real Malcolm Gladwell tipping point for the mass
consumption of Japanese cultural stuff by the West...
.... and Pokémon was the
heavy-weight Snorlax that sky-rocketed everything else
off into the stratosphere.
Sorry, we got a bit off topic
here. Back to the first movie. Despite what the critics said (who mostly didn't get
it), Pokémon the First Movie was a
huge success in the US, making over $10million on its first
day alone. It briefly held the record for the highest-grossing opening
weekend for a animated movie (which was quickly taken by Toy
Story 2 two weeks later). It was also (by default) the
highest-grossing anime film in the US at the time and the highest-grossing film
based on a video game in history (until Angelina
Jolie stole it off them when she played Lara
Croft in that Tomb Raider movie).
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