With the new Nintendo 3Ds Pokemon games X & Y coming out so soon, I wanted to write a post that was about Pokemon! Unfortunately this post is mainly about a disgusting parody game created by PETA and all the reasons that it is the complete opposite of how Pokemon really is.
The Pokemon franchise has videogames, manga, and anime, so I figured that it would be good to talk about in this blog. I thought about it all week, trying to pick a topic within the franchise. I considered writing about the increased graphics quality I expected to see in X & Y versions based on the previews, about the new Pokemon that have been released so far, or maybe even about how awesome the preview for the new anime season looks.
But no, I did not pick any of those topics. A few weeks ago, I was watching Nuzlocke Challenge play-though videos on Youtube and clicked on a related video which contained a review of a parody game based on Pokemon created by PETA. I’m warning you now, I was frankly disgusted by how violent it seemed and how it had totally twisted the message of Pokemon.
Opening screen of PETA’s Parody
Before I even get to the parody game made by PETA, I want to establish firmly that a strong message in Pokemon has always been that the Pokemon are not tools of the humans who use them but they are the partners. Pokemon do not fight to the death in their battles, its so rare that there is only one Pokemon cemetery in the entire 5 known regions, and there is sufficient technology to easily heal them including free medical care in every town called a Pokemon Center. The entire guiding principle behind the original villains in generation 1, Team Rocket, was that they were evil because stole trainer’s beloved Pokemon and sold them for profit. It is your quest, as the player character, to stop Team Rocket and to be come the best Pokemon trainer. In generation 5, the same theme holds true, that Team Plasma wants to separate humans and Pokemon but that only the Pokemon trainer who loves their Pokemon and treats them as friends can save the day (again, this is your player character). In Black2 and White2 the text when defeating Team Plasma’s leader leader Ghentsis, is very telling, especially when his son, N, explains how Pokemon and their Trainers share a special bond.
In Pokemon: Mewtwo Strikes Back, the very first Pokemon movie, made in 1998, Mewtwo spends most of the movie trying to remove Pokemon from their human partners, which it feels has made them slaves. Mewtwo makes the Pokemon of the Trainers fight his own cloned Pokemon, but the hero, Ash Ketchum, throws himself into the middle of the fray in order to stop it. He gets turned to stone but after a few tense moments his Pikachu’s tears of love manage to revive him.
And then Mewtwo gives this statement, which is still thought of as one of the most profound quotes in the entire franchise: “The human sacrificed himself, to save the Pokemon. I pitted them against each other. But not until they set aside their differences did I see the true power they all share deep inside. I see now that the circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.”
So, all of that being said, I’m going to show you guys the video I came across. I completely agree with the commentary given by the game reviewer, GCPM11of Youtube who will introduce to you PETA’s Parody, “Pokemon Black and Blue Gotta Free Em All”. I totally agree with him that the images are totally disturbing especially compared to the “E- for Everyone” nature of the actual real Pokemon games.
GCPM11 said that he was highly disturbed while playing the original parody game which isn’t child-friendly the same way that the real game is, and I totally think he’s right from watching the gameplay in the parody. He also points out logical flaws with the game’s text that completely contradict the actual events of the game, and the show. The parody Ash says that he put his Pikachu in a Pokeball, when one of the points of that particular friendship is that Ash’s Pikachu doesn’t want to go in the Pokeball, so he decides NOT to force it inside (he also respects it enough not to make it evolve into a Raichu when it doesn’t want to). Also most Pokemon don’t mind being in their trainer’s Pokeballs anyway so I fail to see how that would be cruel.
I bookmarked GCPM11’s video and wasn’t going to make a blog post about, I just thought I would wind up sending it to another Pokemon fan if it came up in conversation. But, I was on Facebook, and I saw a post in an anime fan group I follow, which linked me to an ANN (Anime News Network) post about a new parody from PETA about Pokemon. You can read ANN’s post though please don’t play the game. I recently added a playthrough right below this.
As an update, The Sanctus Nex, True Melon Aficionado a Youtube reviewer/humorist saw this post and it interested him. He happens to swear a lot but is HILARIOUS- anyway, Sanctus Nex said that he would do a playthrough of the new “Pokemon Red White & Blue” parody.
Noting ANN’s warning that “the game contains cartoon violence and links to real videos of animals being slaughtered” and Sanctus Nex’s confirmation that there were links to it, I would say that PETA’s new parody is completely NOT child-friendly the same way the real games are. ANN said that the first parody was released right before Black and White 2 came out, and that this new parody was clearly intended to be released right before X & Y.
I stand by the Pokemon franchise and fandom despite PETA’s disrespect. I am super excited for X & Y, which I will be starting with my Pokemon partner Fennekin.
So, in no particular order, here are 10 random awesome GIFs of food from anime. Shows that I personally recommend will have a star like this ☆ next to them.
1) Omurice (omelette+rice dish) from The Garden of Words (a movie that I found out about that looks great)
When asking a friend or convention acquaintance about an anime show I haven’t seen yet, I sometimes hear a sad or dismissive answer that “it’s not as good as the manga” that its based on. It is the same issue other creators face in converting a book to a movie, though the transition between anime and manga is a bit easier, considering the continuation of the art style set in the manga.
For some anime I’ve inquired about I have received the reply that I shouldn’t even bother watching it and should just read the manga instead. When I was in my younger High School years I to roll my eyes at this notion, but then I realized that there have been many times I have hated a movie version of a book I like. Many of my friends prefer to read the manga before they watch the anime. I, myself, am too lazy to do that, though there have also been several examples of the anime-manga transition that have compelled me to consider reading the original version rather than watching the less-than-perfect animated translation.
I throughly enjoyed watching Death Note and it is one of the series that I have watched multiple times through, though I have yet to go back and read the manga. Let’s take a moment to consider the art using promotional covers.
Here we can see the difference in art style between the of Death Note in the manga (above) and anime (below). In this case, the popularity of the manga resulted in the creation of the anime.
Death Note became so wildly popular that it the franchise also got two Live-Action movies, which I thought were decent but way too condensed for the complicated plot they were trying to portray which was only loosely based on the anime plot. Had I read the manga, which was probably even more complex than the anime, I might not have enjoyed these movies as much as I did.
Many of the wildly popular and long-running anime shows like Bleach and Naruto are based off of their just as popular and extensive manga counter part. A noticeable hiccup in that process is filler. When a show is based off of a manga, it depends on the manga artist to produce new content to air in the show, however, the artist cannot produce as fast as the show can translate, resulting in the need for extra not-main-plot episodes which are aptly called filler. Another problem with the generally successful process is a sudden and/or bad ending to the anime that doesn’t match the manga, which might even be on going despite the end of the show. When that situation crops up, this is the general reaction by the fan community. Notable popular examples of this include Ouran High School Host Club and Soul Eater.
While talking about some of the failings of the manga-to-anime process, one of main examples that comes to mine is my personal experience with the seriesDNAngel. I heard of it from several people, saw the art, and decided to check it out by watching the anime. It has been several years since I watched it, but I still remember thinking that it felt really off for some reason and that the plot was similarly awkward. Later a friend told me that in her personal opinion, the anime didn’t live up to the standard set by the popular manga. I still have yet to read the manga, as I still have yet to read most manga even of series I really like.
A similar thing happened to me with Fruits Basket. I heard that it was good so I watched the first two episodes of the anime and then I did not watch any more. My friends told me to read the manga, that it was better, and I have yet to. I do intend to come back around and eventually read the manga for many anime shows that I like. I do like manga, I have a small collection from certain series, but to be honest it is just my personal preference to watch the shows.
Despite all the pit falls of the transition process, I know for sure that it is possible to adequately pull off the transition from anime to manga, just as it is possible to pull of a decent book-to-movie transition. Over all, it is up to the individual to decide if manga, anime, or both are right for them, and at times even on a case-by-case basis.
Gore and Cuteness have always been at odds in the Anime Community at large. Recently there have been examples of a trend of splitting off gore and cute into separate shows, such as Attack on Titian and Free! Iwatobi Swim Club. Shows like Death Note (2006-2007) showed a trend away from a balance of cute and gory, replacing cuteness a mystery aspect. But, Death Note still had the cute female character Misa Amane, as well as maintaining humor with creepy-cute male character L that kept the show from getting way too depressing. Follow in the footsteps of Death Note, came shows like Code Geass, Future Diary, Guilty Crown (to a lesser extent for gore than the others though still violent) and more recently Btooom! and Dangan Ronpa (which uses pink for blood, earning mixed reactions among fans).
All those shows had increasing strategic/psychological aspect, increasing levels of violence and less arbitrarily cute things surrounding the characters, though the female characters remained adorable as ever. This all brings me to Attack on Titian, where nothing is cute. I mean it. Nothing is cute at all in this show. I’ve tired really hard to look for anything cute. Settings? NOPE. Animal sidekick? NOPE. Pretty, well-drawn foods like cakes? NOPE. Cute outfits for the girls? A billion times NOPE. It sticks with realistic hair colors (contrary to the trends set in Code Geass, Future Diary, Guilty Crown and Dangan Ronpa) going back to the standards set in Death Note for a more realistic feel (which Btooom! also did). And in Attack on Titian, since all the characters are in the military they wear the same uniform with the same uniform coat, and PANTS (unlike in Code Geass which also has military aspects but the girls all have skimpier outfits, even outside of the school uniform).
But I’m getting ahead of myself. What IS this show, Attack on Titian? Well, Attack on Titian is set in a post-apocalyptic world where all of humanity is confined within the layered walls of a huge settlement, cowering in fear of the huge humanoid monsters (called Titians) that wish to violently devour humans. Gore is an everyday reality for the forces of the Survey Corps, a branch of the military meant to gather intelligence reports on the Titans. Honestly, I didn’t watch it the first few times I heard about it. The Titians just looked so darn UGLY, and the characters all looked like plain regular human beings (by anime standards), so I couldn’t find anything cute to draw my initial attention. I now understand from watching Attack on Titian that things don’t have to be cute, or even beautiful, to be aesthetically pleasing, something that I had apparently forgotten upon joining the fandom of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, which is populated mostly by colorful ponies. Regardless, the art of Attack on Titian is tight while still feeling very raw. I have come to appreciate from it that not all things need cuteness, which might very well have been by design of the artists.
What about that other show, Free! Iwatobi Swim Club, that was mentioned earlier? Ah yes, that. It is commonly referred to as Free. It revolves around a group of male friends who are in a High School Swim Club, mostly focusing on their friendships, social issues, and swimming races. The stories hinge on social drama or swim races, which is just fine since the guys take off their shirts to swim quite often. Finally, an entirely cute-but-not-pink-and-tageted-for-children anime to fill the void left by a market overly saturated with bloodshed! The typical accent-color-to-personality stereotypes persist in a standard anime fashion, Rin (red) being the fiery passionateone, Haru (blue) being the cool collected one, Makoto (green) as ‘that third main-main character’, then the more easily molded ones- yellow and purple, Nagisa (yellow) as the naive one and Rei (purple) as the wise or glasses character. The animation style is beautiful and the abundant amount of water in the show is all animated wonderfully. But, mainly, when watched along side violent shows (mainly Attack on Titian since they share a hugely overlapping fanbase) it provides a great break from gore and violence.
Generally, there is a swing towards a gore/violence/suspense/mystery genre, but Free proves that other anime genres are still alive and kicking… lol.
animeotakuculture 
