Sneak Preview - The Pokémon 20th anniversary special BIG act of Cultural Vandalism

Last night I heard of interesting news. Nintendo is releasing Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow in the 3DS Virtual Console on the franchise's 20th anniversary. On hearing this news I thought this is a good time to finally do this - to give you readers a sneak preview of a project I have been doing since February - My 20th anniversary BIG act of Cultural Vandalism on the subject of.... Pokémon.

Currently it is in a state of near completion, but their is still stuff left to do on it. So until then here's an extract I have just completed.

Is the Pokémon World Our World?

So that's the Pokémon themselves explained and out the way, but what about the non-Pokémon stuff in the Pokémon World. In fact, what about the Pokémon World in general? How could I describe it to someone who hasn't see it before? Well, judging by the anime, the Pokémon World is kind of like the world as seen in the British TV comedy series The Goodies. Its generally nice, friendly, full of crazy stuff (such as pokeballs, potions and various forms of crazy eyewear) and situations that can result in an half-hour episode in a family-friendly sitcom. In fact, you could do a direct comparison by watching side-by-side the Pokémon episode "Caterpie's Big Dilemma" and The Goodies episode "Kitten Kong." 

(You can do this legally. The Pokémon episode can be downloaded from iTunes, while The Goodies episode is on DVD.)

But if you take time to listen and observe, you'll find a lot of things in this world that references our world, from place names to historical figures. Bulbapedia has a page listing these references, but of all of them, my personal favourite is this...

Parody to the MGM logo from episode "An Epic Defense Force!" (2012)

featuring a Zorua as Leo the Lion

Admit it - its awesome, isn't it.

But with so many references to our world, a question occurs...
Is the Pokémon world actually our world? 

Junichi Masuda, co-founder of Game Freak (the creators of Pokémon) and big creative contributor to the games and anime (with his biggest contribution been the Hoenn region), has this to say about this question.

"We actually don't think of the world of Pokémon as Earth. If we were to do that, we would kind of be limited by what we could do. By thinking about how physical objects work on Earth and how various elements work on Earth, we would kind of be limited to that if we thought of it as Earth. We think of it as a place that is really similar to Earth, but is a different planet of its own with people in it who may be similar to people on Earth, but they have different values so they care about different things. It's the type of place, the Pokémon world, where problems we face on Earth just wouldn't happen. There wouldn't be global warming, water shortages, or anything like that. It's a world where the people in it really want to work together with each other. Their value system is such where they would prefer to work together and eliminate these problems rather than feud." - Junichi Masuda

Short official answer, no.

But don't despair, because I have a thought...

By thinking about what Masuda has said and looking at how Pokémon came to be (which I'll explain in detail in the next part), I have concluded that, on the subject of the Pokémon world's similarities with our own, that the world that we see depicted in the franchise that is Pokémon is not our present world.... 

It is our (possible) future......

A future where the relationship between humans and nature is much better. A future were we have finally got rid of the ridiculous notion that we humans are "separate from nature." The idea that is the heart of the notion that we humans are "superior" over the rest of nature, leading to a lot of arrogance against nature. The idea (I think) that has truly done more damage to Earth than any other manmade invention.
A world where we are much more careful about the environment and the organisms that call it home due to more awareness of their interconnectedness to it (an their dependence of it for life and substance).In such a world it is possible that (eventually) wild animals will no longer fear humans (like Pokémon do in their world, which ties in with my "semi-domestication" theory).

Unlike many futures depicted in kids media, this is a future that can be achieved without the need of the development of fancy technology. You don't need to develop hoverboards or quantum squeezing technology to make the Pokémon World a reality. The heart of it is a way of thinking... and some genetic tweaking (if you really want your own Pikachu). Its a way of thinking that can be traced back to the 19th century England when the industrial revolution was in the mist of transforming the country (not always for the better). It came in the form of Romanticism and (later) took form as the Arts and Crafts movement. But it didn't find its modern voice until the 1960s with the creation of the environmental movement... and when astronaut William Anders took this photo from Apollo 8....

Earthrise (1968)

You may have seen this image many times before, so it is very easy to forget the massive cultural impact the first photograph of Earth from the viewpoint of another celestial body (in this case the Moon) had on the world. For the first time humanity truly saw their true place in the universe - a species living on a small rock in a massive universe. Any major conflict on its surface for land, resources and influence becomes insignificant and irrelevant from this viewpoint.The only thing you could make out on the surface is that it is full of water and a lot of the land is covered with patches of green (the only indicator of the existence of life). With life (as far as we know) only existing on this rock, humankind really began to realise that they couldn't afford to destroy nature for the sake of material gain (and because they can, because their top of the food chain). Like on a spacecraft with limited resources, Earth has limits and (until humans begin to develop pan-planetary travel that'll allow them to spread on and exploit other planets) humankind has to be careful with its resources if we are to survive.

Its worth referencing Earthrise at the end of this introduction to Pokémon, because most of you may not have realized that Pokémon is a product of the environmental movement. In fact Pokémon references Earthrise in the end of the movie Pokémon Heroes: Latios & Latias.

For those who haven't seen this film, this is a SPOILER ALERT! In one of the most tearful moments in the anime's history, Latios sacrifices himself to save Alto Mare form disaster and becomes the Soul Dew (watch the film. I'm not going to tell you everything.). But just before that happened he shares what he sees with his sibling Latias, who then shares it with Ash and friends. What they see is the "Earth" slowly zooming out until fading into black.

"The Earth is so pretty. So blue." - Misty (from the English dub of the scene)

 "Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! There's the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty." - William Anders at the moment he took Earthrise

Although officially the Pokémon world isn't our world, at the end of the day the parallels are hard to ignore. The planet Ash and Pikachu inhabit is blue, full of water, and exists in the "goldilocks zone" of the sun it orbits. It is Earth. An ideal world created to show what can be achieved if we really learned to recognise how finite our planet is.