Pokemon — the small, adorable creatures with special fighting abilities — have been around for more than two decades, and they are as popular as ever, mainly due to families sharing the legacy.
More than 7,500 people from 49 nations are expected to attend the annual Pokemon World Championships in Washington this weekend.
On Friday, as the event started, most of the attendees appeared to be in their 20s or older.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“I’m 24, but I know I look young,” joked Amanda Gunkle, who was decked head-to-toe in the gear of Pikachu, the iconic yellow Pokemon.
She came in from Pittsburg with her twin brother to watch the tournament.
“I’ve been a fan [of Pokemon] since my early childhood,” she said.
It is clear why Pokemon appeal to younger children.
However, for many of the older fans, Pokemon simultaneously represent nostalgia and novelty.
The Pokemon franchise launched in Japan in 1996, but did not take off in the US until the early 2000s.
The brand, which is estimated to be the highest-grossing media franchise ever, produces video games released in pairs every one to two years, alongside a new batch of Pokemon species.
It also makes trading cards that players use to battle each other, an animated television series and several movies.
“We’re definitely seeing some intergenerational fans,” said Elvin Gee, a spokesman for the Pokemon Co, who was a big fan of Pokemon himself growing up.
“It’s amazing to see parents pass on their cards or pass on their video games to their children,” he said.
The franchise’s popularity is also due to the success of smartphone app Pokemon Go, a game that lets players walking the real world hunt virtual Pokemon, as well as the film Detective Pikachu, which opened in May and has made more than US$430 million worldwide.
“There’s something for everyone,” Gee said.
New Jersey native John Kim drove down with his family so his two older sons, ages 11 and eight, could compete in the tournament.
“I really like it for [my sons], because ... they have to learn to lose gracefully, to win gracefully. They learn rules, they learn to accept outcomes,” the 40-year-old said.
For the Kim family, Pokemon’s legacy moved in the opposite direction: John became interested when his sons started playing.
Now, the whole family plays together, even the youngest boy, who at four years old plays alongside his brothers — albeit with a simpler deck.
“They have to sit with an opponent” and engage with others, Kim said.
That engagement is a staple of the Pokemon community, with many players developing close friendships, despite only seeing each other at the world championships once a year.
The championships prize money — which runs up to US$25,000 for the card game tournament — is mainly offered in the form of scholarships or travel certificates, particularly for players under 18.
The goal is to encourage education and strong principles among the participants, many of whom are minors, the organizers said.
“It’s about sportsmanship, it’s about great characters, it’s about a great game,” Gee said.
Like the Kims, Yannick Daunais’ interest in Pokemon was sparked when his daughters started playing. The 38-year-old from Joliette, Quebec drove to Washington so that his 11-year-old son could compete in the championships.
“We’re like a huge family,” said his daughter Mya, 14.
She and her sister Lidya, 12, were dressed as Pikachu and Eevee, another Pokemon.
“Exactly,” her father agreed. “We’re part of a huge Pokemon family.”
AWAITING EXTRADITION: Daniel Duggan has been classified as ‘extreme high risk,’ has not been allowed to use stationery and has been denied treatment, his lawyer said The lawyer for a former US military pilot arrested in Australia and facing possible extradition to the US said that his client was wrongly classified as an “extreme high-risk” prisoner, and he had asked the attorney-general to release him. Former US Marines pilot Daniel Edmund Duggan was arrested in New South Wales in October at the request of the US government, the same week the UK announced a crackdown on its former military pilots working to train Chinese military fliers. The US must lodge an extradition request for Duggan by Dec. 20 under a bilateral treaty, a Sydney court was told yesterday.
WARTIME DIPLOMACY: Zelenskiy met EU leaders and hosted the International Summit on Food Security, which included discussions on agricultural exports from Ukraine Fleeing shelling, civilians on Saturday streamed out of the southern Ukrainian city whose recapture they had celebrated just weeks earlier. The exodus from Kherson came as Ukraine solemnly remembered a Stalin-era famine and sought to ensure that Russia’s war in Ukraine does not deprive others worldwide of its vital food exports. A line of trucks, vans and cars, some towing trailers or ferrying out pets and other belongings, stretched 1km or more on the outskirts of the city of Kherson. Days of intensive shelling by Russian forces prompted a bittersweet exodus: Many civilians were happy that their city had been won back, but
Polish women have not been this angry for this long, and they are taking on the ruling conservatives. Incensed by remarks from the country’s most powerful politician, former Polish prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who accused them of drinking excessively and keeping the birthrate low, many took the streets of Warsaw on Monday. It is a repeat of scenes from two years ago when hundreds of thousands of women marched against a near-total ban on legal abortions, in Poland’s largest public protests in decades. What is different this time is that the ruling party is facing the biggest challenge to its two-term rule before
LEADERSHIP PROBLEM: Hideji Suzuki said that as China becomes more affluent, its leadership is afraid that people will start seeking more freedom and might crack down The former head of a Japan-China friendship group who recently returned to Japan from six years in a Beijing prison for what he said were false spying charges said he still hopes to see China become a global leader, but with better treatment of human rights. Hideji Suzuki, former president of the Japan-China Youth Exchange Association, told a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday that he devoted himself to promoting friendship between the two countries and visited China more than 200 times since the 1980s. He said he was seized at an airport in Beijing as he was leaving the country in
RSS