Ways that Pokemon isn’t solely for children

[Ace Trainer 188]

With a similar thread being (thankfully) closed, I'm just gonna make another thread to end this overused discussion once and for all. I did make another thread like this a while back, though.

- Pokemon Adventures. I'd be here for a very long time if I were to list all the scenes that were actually messed up. And in fact, I'd say it was tamer in the earlier generations and it gets much, much edgier later on, I'm afraid.

- A lot of the Pokemon comics are also full of things that could be inappropriate to kids. I remember there being some parts with on screen maiming or weirdly sexual scenes, but you probably didn't know this because a lot of them were forgotten.

- A random person might not know stuff like IVs, EVs, what attacks are physical or special, etc.

- Dark undertones in some plots of the games.

- Some mature elements in some parts of the game, I think there was a sidequest where you give a low levelled mon to someone who eventually dies in the postgame and I wish it wasn't not subtle.

The franchise is targeted towards kids but that does not mean only kids play it. Anyone can. And honestly if Pokemon tried to cater too much towards adults then it might be hard to take seriously.

 

[Venia Silente]

I mean, when you get down to it, the premise of the setting is quite something that can flare up discussions from adults.

This is a franchise where people literally live in a world that appears to be a communist or socialist utopia. At age 10, children are sent out to a semi-controlled wilderness, to befriend elemental-spitting critters and level them up into town-razing level monsters. Which is done for the purpose of, somehow, adding to the scientific knowledge in the world and to build up trust and confidence with communities of other races/species. Not only are the children given pretty free range for this, they are also assisted by a social security system that includes housing, near-free healthcare and community openness to let people just children up and barge into private property without risk of being shot at.

Even discussing the mechanics for any of this in an "Earth-like" world requires getting into the basics of anthropology, economics, urbanism, social planning and darwinian evolution. Point any of the bolded parts to a Republican and they'll explode spectacularly, for example (lol).

There's also the obvious that Pokémon reproduce which means they presumably have snu snu, at least the organic ones, and apparently adults fake to children about having NO IDEA how that happens... or perhaps Pokémon reproduction truly is a in-universe mystery.

Or we could get into the world of the Evil Team of the Week. Those things deal with noticeably non-child stuff, even if they do it in a childish way, so far we have: the Yakuza (ironic, since it's a game by Nintendon't), eco-terrorism, omnicidal reifical ideation nihilism, PETA but cosplaying as neo-Conservatism / Templar nutjobs, Neo-Nazis with lots of Louis Vutton giftcards, a child abuser with interspecies hybridation ideations, Capitalism, and uuuuh no idea what does G9 even bring to the table. And that's just the mainline games!


Pokémon is for children. Yeah totally.