I wrote this blog post halfway through my research paper draft, I think it’s really coming along with the idea of immersion. I wanted to share my introduction and what it is planned to lead to. Here is an excerpt:

“It was almost twenty five years ago that Pocket Monsters: Red and Green hit the shelves of video game stores in Japan. February 27th, 1996 marked the day in which the Pokémon series began with this historic release. Originally the game promised a role-playing experience, developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo, with plenty of adventures to be had alongside monster-like creatures that you, the player befriend. It was not until 1998 and 1999 that we saw Pokémon Red and Blue Versions release in North America as the franchise continued to grow in popularity. Today the Pokémon franchise has grown to become the highest grossing media franchise of all time with a record $90 billion in total revenue, while also being the second-best-selling video game franchise to date, only being topped by Nintendo’s own Mario franchise (Burwick, 2018). Despite these achievements the franchise has always struggled with its interpretation and portrayal of gender. Options have been limited, and changes have been few and far in between.” 

This introduction I plan to lead into an in-depth analysis not of Pokemon Black as a game but of the entire Pokemon core game series. I want to focus primarily on the player character, (though there is plenty to mention in how the players mother is always painted as nurturing until recently, and how we never seem to have a father figure, and the moment we do in the Hoenn games he’s a freaking gym leader, but I digress),  specifically Kris, Leaf, May, and Dawn. Weirdly, I will actually likely look least at Pokemon Black despite it being my chosen game to play, as its issues mostly mirror those of the generations before it, and it is directly after Pokemon Black that we see our first customization system, in Pokemon X & Y. I also want to note when I mention the customization system how it not only allows for greater immersion, and to some extent offers an escape from the stereotypical “feminine” and “masculine” styles of characters, but it also adds in the first option in the games to be a different race other than white. As someone who is white, I didn’t notice this as a kid, nor did I mention it before writing and doing further research on this topic. It took the franchise seventeen years to add an option to be a different race, over eleven games. As I’m writing this I notice how the sheer amount of topics could blossom out of an in depth look at the series as a whole. From the issues with player characters, to customization, to female characters in stereotyped roles to the first black character resembling a stereotyped “mammy” figure. Though I love the Pokemon games, and they’ve come a long way, they still have a long way in progressing their stories and their games to be more inclusive, and I sincerly hope one day we might see a non-binary option or an option to customize pronouns within the games, as we have already begun to see shared styles of customization in Pokemon Sword and Shield. 

 

Works Cited:

Burwick, Kevin. “Pokemon Rules Them All as Highest-Grossing Franchise Ever”. MovieWeb. Archived from the original on June 24, 2018.