I may not be that big into Pokémon but I do know the world is much weirder than the running gag about how they’re animals fighting to the death. (Actually, they battle for fun, like roughhousing MMA fighter that spit lightning.) I mean, it gets pretty dark, with cute critters who eat dreams. And haven’t you wondered what they sell in seafood restaurants when there doesn’t seem to be normal animals in the Pokémon World? Enjoy your filet of Magikarp before it becomes a sea monster and has filet of you.
However, as lore evolves certain items in the first generation (a good enough term in this case) changes or…no pun intended…evolves. This makes early official books whose lore wasn’t stated in the proper source material kind of quaint in comparison. In Japan a book was created called simply Pokédex, the same name as the Pocket Monster data collecting device you use in the game. This book contained further information of Poké-lore, setting the series in something closer to our world and somehow making evolution even more confusing than it already was. It also comes with it’s own form of dark backstory.
The staff at Did You Know Gaming? managed to track down a copy of this lost book and get it translated by one of the original localizers of Pokémon Red/Blue. In a three-part video they highlight some of the interesting facts of this world, not all of which really survives currently while others appeared not in the game but the show. With my schedule this week being up in the air and each video being around a half-hour long I’ll present these videos over the next three days. Hey, it’s more fun that last week’s theme.
So they pumped a Primeape full of drugs and he was able to fit into an eyeglass case. The creators of Mewtwo seem a lot less abnormal, though no less evil, when you realize they were abusing these poor guys for years. See what I mean about how dark this cute kids game turns out to be? I mean, wearing your mom’s skull? That’s macabre for a human, but still weird for a Pokémon–and that one even I know they kept! Pokémon adapting to their environment does make sense when you see the radical changes in the not-Hawaii games (which I haven’t played but I hear the Aloha region has a number of differently formed versions of classic favorites). Yet, they have France.
The writer also seems fascinated with Pokémon being more powerful than a Shinkansen bullet train, since that description comes up quite a bit when describing speed or hit force. It’s also interesting that not only is the order different from the traditional numbering but some evolutions aren’t sitting next to their previous form. Meanwhile you have regular animals existing alongside Pokémon and yet people nearly ate so many Farfetch’d that they nearly followed the buffalo and they eat Chansey eggs. So in a world with regular animals they still eat Pokémon.
While the host says there’s more in part two, there are three videos on the channel. I wonder what required them to do a third video? Join us tomorrow and see what made it into the second video.
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