Entry 5

Yo!

Sorry I'm a little late this week. I almost forgot my own deadline. Anyway, now that I've gotten the hang of regular Blogging, it's time to for me to take off the proverbial kid gloves and go into a rant on something that's really ticking me off lately: The Pokemon craze. For those of you that don't know what Pokemon is, I'd probably better get you gradually up-to-date on a few things while I'm at it. (*gets a book out from a nearby bookcase) Ahem... Verse One: "At the first, God made the heaven and the earth." Verse Two: "And the earth was waste and without form; and it was dark on the face of the deep---" Um, you know what? I'd probably better skip a couple millennia here. Pokemon is the story of a (apparently, perpetually) ten year old boy named Ash Ketchum, who, on his tenth birthday, decides to leave home and go on a grand exodus to find a way to become the world's foremost leading Pokemon (an animal species with literally hundreds of variants, abilities and ways to use only repitition of their own names as speaking a language) trainer, a classification better known as a "Pokemon Master." This program premiered in syndication on U.S. airwaves in the Fall of 1998, and gained national fame after it joined the WB network's flagship Saturday-morning cartoon franchise, "Kids' WB" in the Spring of 1999, where it has stayed, cranking out new episodes nearly every week ever since. There is a seemingly limitless array of merchandise tie-ins to the show, including plush toys, trading cards, electronics (Ash's "Pokedex" Pokemon information database from the show was made into 3 different versions of real-life facsimiles) and, of course, video games.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "But Donn, if this show is so popular and enduring, what's wrong with it? Apparently, this cartoon has a very loyal fanbase to be on television as long as it has." What's wrong? Where do you want me to begin? There's too darn many characters now to keep track of (over 350 Pokemon creatures at last count with more rumored to be on the way), the writers have been recycling the same darn storylines time and again since 2000, they keep cranking out feature films, one per season (seriously. Movies 1-5 were theatrical, all since have been direct-to-DVD. I guess their regular moviegoing audience finally came to their senses), there's more video games alone out now than people who actually liked Kanye West's "Mission: Impossible 3" theme, which premiered today on Yahoo! Launchcast Radio (If you want to be bothered listening to the song that has no-- I repeat, NO business being a Mission Impossible theme, click HERE to go to Launchcast's radio channel selection page. They're putting the song in heavy rotation on the Today's Biggest Hits, Hip-Hop, R&B, New Releases, Adult Alternative, Quiet Storm, Spring Break, and The Big Jams stations). Not that I'm trying to bash Mr. West or anything, I'm just longing for the days when a "Mission" had a kick-@$$ soundtrack, and Metallica's theme ruled the charts. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Anyway, on top of all this, Ash's quest is driven by the collection of special badges, obtained by defeating special Pokemon trainers, "Gym Leaders", in competitions called "Gym Battles" so he can participate in special tournaments to rise up the ranks and become the Pokemon Master. To date, there have only been 4 of these championships that Ash has competed in (the Indigo League in 1999 [from the original Red, Blue and Yellow Nintendo Game Boy games], the Orange League in 2000 [the only league without a game set], the Johto League in 2003 [from Gold, Silver and Crystal], and, more recently, the Hoenn League [from Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald] from 2 weeks ago.), and of those championships, Ash has only won ONE: The Orange Championships in early September, 2000. Every other one has been a really close failure, not even cracking the top 3. It's as if the writers are just ramming into their young, impressionable fans, "Even if you fail miserably right when you most need a victory, there'll always be more opportunities to, well, fail miserably again." It's like watching a donkey pull one of those big farmland things that lossens up the grounds, I forget what it's called, and the only thing motivating it to pull the load is a carefully rigged carrot on a fishing pole, luring the donkey to keep walking, expecting to someday get that darn carrot if it keeps walking.

Furthermore, later this month, Ash will begin his 5th championship attempt in the "Battle Frontier" from the FireRed and LeafGreen Game Boy Advance games released, I believe, in 2004. Here's a prediction: after another 3-year run in this League, he'll fail yet again and 2 episodes later hear about another new League from a video game that is in desperate need of loser Trainers. To this day, I don't know why I bother watching anymore. I stopped playing the video games in 2002, but for some reason, I keep getting glued to the animated version, expecting a different outcome. It's like watching the final minutes of an episode of "24" that you just read an online spoiler on, but because the ending is so out of left-field, you tune in anyway, hoping the online report is wrong. Sorry about all this long speech this week, people. I'm just really peeved about the Hoenn failure earlier this month. check out this season's episode listings on TV.com by clicking HERE for an overview if you missed it, and chances are, you did.

One more thing I have to mention: in a couple of weeks, the production company doing the English dub of the episodes will pilot a new version of the show with new voice actors playing all the lead characters. Well, it's about time. 8 years and Ash is just NOW hitting puberty?! Took The Pokemon Company long enough. I don't know about you out there in cyberspace, but if you ask me, it's getting to the point where I'm starting to despise all things Pokemon!!!! ...But that's just me. More new rants next week, same time, same place.

-D.