My stepson just threw away his collection of those stupid Pokemon cards-according to him, nobody trades them or plays with them anymore. I am quite relieved, knowing that at least one small contribution (to the trade deficit with japan) is gone. But I wax philosophical-what does this idiotic fad tell us about ourselves-millions of parents were willing to part with our hard-earned money, to satisfy demand for an absurd product!
Moreover, the whole thing came from a country which is quite alien to us-how did the fad catch on in the first place?
Anybody want to buy some (slightly used) Pokemon cards?
Your son has given up on Pokemon?
I envy you.
If the Pokemon craze is over, how much longer until their adult equivalent, dot com stocks, follow?
From what I have been able to gather via the net, at first Warner Brothers was really skeptical of showing the program to American audiences - they were quite worried it would seem too foreign, or wouldn’t catch on. But they gambled and the enormous audiences proved they won.
But an excellent job has been done of redubbing the dialogue and changing the signs from Japanese into English - so much so that it is sometimes difficult to tell it’s not an American cartoon, unless you know what an anime is, which I suspect many kids don’t. I suspect - just a WAG - that it was probably quite cheap to Americanize a Japanese series rather that create a whole new series, and since it was already wildly popular in Japan, with appropriate Americanization, why not? After all, Japanese kids and American kids aren’t fundamentally very different. Several cartoons have come to the U.S. this way, including Voltron, Transformers, and a couple of others I can’t think of right now.
As a side note, if you didn’t know, the animation style (particulary the characters’ hairstyles, eyes, and facial expressions) of Pokemon, though the show is heavily Americanized, is an example of the Japanese animation style known as anime. Though Pokemon is for kids, in Japan, the anime genre encompasses almost any subject material in American TV or movies - kids’ cartoons, sitcoms, dramas, and even pornography. Anime may look foreign to us, but it’s interesting to note that the Japanese learned the drawing style by copying (and later stylizing) early Disney cartoons. You can read more about anime at http://www.mediajunkies.com/movies/anime/understand_anime_basics030300.shtml.
This may go a ways towards explaining the American appeal of Pokemon - it isn’t really that foreign after all. And as we learned with Japanese cars, if the merchandise is equivalent (or better) and the price is equivalent (or lower), it will have a place in the American market. But don’t worry too much about the trade deficit - though it is a problem, just think of the revenue your local, American-owned Pokemon merchandise retailer generates (with, most likely, a 30-40% markup from the real price).
Are people still collecting beanie babies? I’ve envisioned Antique Roadshow in the year 2100 telling some poor old woman how completely worthless they are.
*jmullaney: are people still collecting beanie babies? I’ve envisioned Antique Roadshow in the year 2100 telling some poor old woman how completely worthless they are. *
I think so.
I remember one of my co-workers telling me how much his (yes, a man) various Beanies are worth, about his battles at toy stores when new ones came out, etc. I don’t work with him anymore, so I don’t know if he’s still got the fever.
However, there are two little curio shops in the underground mall I walk through to get to work. They have hundreds of Beanie Babies for sale at their collector prices. I have yet to see anyone buy one.
Pokemon, Beanie Babies, Tickle-me Elmo, Cabbage Patch kids, pet rocks. They all came and went so fast…
If all this Pokemon ephemera is about to end, is going to collapse like a pack of cards?
So anyways back to the actual question! 
Pokemon caught on here for several reasons:
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The games are actually quite fun, even for adults. You did realize there were games, right?
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There hasn’t been any real collectable toys in America for quite awhile. Now we have 150 (alright, 153 total in America right now) related characters for toys and stuff that are all unique looking and were given unique personalities because of the show.
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The show: there’s nothing like it in America today (ugh, okay so there’s Monster Tancher…). As ramorris explained, the anime style is not seen in America much. The only people aware of it are generally teens and up who are attracted to the lush storylines and beautiful drawings. To younger kids though, the show looks unlike anything else (wait, I forgot- Speed Racer too, but they’ve never seen that). The show is actually not too bad on the whole, and since it alludes to characters in the games as well, there’s a tie-in that both ends feed on.
Just because the gawdawful trading card game is over at your son’s school, do not assume Pokemania is over. The bread and butter of the Pokemon franchise (the Game Boy games) will have two new additions/editions soon: Pokemon Gold and Pokemon Silver. Why would this be important? Well, there are 100 additional Pokemon in these games. (Read: 100 new ways to re-market all the merchandise, plus new episodes of the show!)
I was just reading over at http://www.pokemasters.com…apparently Nintendo of Japan has announced that there will be a 4th movie which will appear in Japan in 2002 and in the U.S. in 2003. Looks like it’s going to be around for a while yet…