Death... the final frontier, lol.
jynx said:
ya...they shouldn't put too many deaths in children's cartoons
Actually, you raised an interesting point, and it's one that shows a very big difference between America and Japan. In America, we tend to shield our children from themes such as violence and sexuality, and we very carefully censor their exposure to death. In Japan, however, anything that happens commonly in life is shown to children at a much earlier age -including death, sexuality, and violence. As a result, America ends up having to censor Japanese animation that is to be targeted for American children. Without the censorship, American parents wouldn't go for it. Just look at Dragonball/Dragonball Z. They're prime examples for all three. In Dragonball, there are a ton of sexual themes and potty humor that American children never get to see. But in Japan, the show was targeted for children in the 6 - 11 age bracket. Whereas Dragonball Z has the other side of the equation -violence and death. Although the age group is the same, there are some very horrific acts of violence and murder on that show. Of course, here in the states, we don't always see it. Censorship takes care of that.
There are even some examples of censorship in Pokemon. For example, there was an episode where Musashi and Kojirou (Jesse and James) have a hare-brained scheme that involved dressing Kojirou up in a bikini swimsuit. He actually appeared to have cleavage too! So, American censors eventually decided that the whole episode wasn't worth the sexual innuendo, and they cut the whole thing.
I'm not saying censorship is wrong or right. I'm also not saying that Japanese limits on childrens' programs are appropriate or not. The truth is that they were created in a wholly separate culture, and as such, they are out of the context of our own system of morals and values. We can't judge them by the same principles by which we judge ourselves. Not unless we want to make everyone in the world believe the same way. And I've never been for that.
Anyway, as far as death is concerned for pokemon in battle, I believe it is always a distinct possibility. If you've ever read the manga, you might remember that when Satoshi (Ash) makes it to the Pokemon league, he makes a stupid decision to have his untrained Charizard fight another Charizard. Satoshi's Charizard goes berserk, and begins slashing and tearing at the other Charizard's neck and face. It becomes immediately apparent that this is no ordinary pokemon battle, and that the opponent's Charizard will be killed if neither he nor Satoshi call back their Pokemon. Satoshi calls his back, and thus forfeits the match. He learns a hard lesson about life and Pokemon, but that in and of itself justifies the violence in the author's eyes. And that also tells a bit about the Japanese culture. Life is something to teach you. And it teaches you all the time. Even death, which is a part of life, can serve to teach us a lesson. So there you go. Pokemon has many facets of life involved in it. And I think that, although it's not addressed very often, even death has a role to play in this lighthearted series.
