Is Pokemon Capitalist Propaganda?

IS POKEMON CAPITALIST PROPAGANDA?

In short, no. But don’t stop reading now, because that has more to do with the underlying motivations of propaganda and less to do with the conspicuous metaphors, analogies and subsequent conclusions that can be extrapolated from this hit franchise. So join me, and lets meticulously ingest this game series bit by bit.

*Haha, bit… because… it’s a game

...And...

Bits.

First the premise of the game. With the recent outbreak of the new installation Pokemon GO on the public stage and versely, the rapid rise in Nintendo’s stocks, the concept of carrying various themes of diverse, powerful monsters in pocket sized spheres and utilizing them to combat, trade and adore has become quite ubiquitous. But Pokemon GO only scratches the surface that dedicated fans-

*Cough Cough Me Cough

-have been exploring for years. By only analyzing the more commonly accepted spin of the game, one misses out on the overly dramatized plots, trademark locations in each region, and memorable NPCs. All of these things are necessary pieces in a puzzle that can loosely assemble a system of government known as capitalism, or at least hint at its ideology.

*If you have yet to play Pokemon, then this will be a lackluster experience for you. But hopefully it motivates you to crack open the nut of Pokemon GO and obtain a greater treasure in the 6 generations, soon 7, of games that detail a beautiful world full of dreams, opportunity and animal abuse.

THE POKEMON CENTER

Let’s start with the Pokemon Center! This location is likened unto a home, refuge and safe spot for players that provides a flooding warm sensation after your creatures have taken a beating to protect you in a cave or on a bridge swarming with incessant trainers. The reason is of course, free healthcare. At face value, that seems very anti-capitalist. A free program that benefits all regardless of their work effort? Digging a little deeper though, we can see what effect the designers might have proposed this has. Pro-capitalists will argue that with the existence of the government programs, people become reliant on the system, mindlessly abused. They’ll give their political influence up, and even self autonomy to be taken care of. Now look again at your options for healthcare:

You can heal your friends here for free, or buy a super high tech potion for…

300 Poke.

*Poke is the currency in all applicable Pokemon games. Pronounced: Poke-ee

Now obviously the value of Poke could be quite low, but comparing it to the pokeball, a device which literally converts physical atomic creatures of all shapes power and sizes to data and confines them in a miniature area until you recall them from a cloud to battle, unharmed, realize that this simple medical device,

healing only 20 hit points,

Costs 100 more poke than the former.

This pattern holds true. As the ball in question becomes more advanced, the potion to correlate stays ahead in price by just 100 poke- and this is just for hit points. Other items for various ailments will stack up the bill sky high- revives, antidotes, awakenings, etc.

If this doesn’t arouse any suspicion, conspiracy theories aren’t for you. What this tells us is that some force wants to manipulate you subtly. If you’ve ever played a pokemon game, you understand the reliance you can build on the healing provided at this wondrous construct in each city, especially at young ages, where the game is targeted, your decisions skew against spending your hard earned money on anything but cool items for your secret base or special TMs. Only really at the elite four do most consider really stocking up on these items, as there are no other methods of healing in between battles.

*TMs are technical machines. These are ways of forcing a new move electronically on pokemon. More on these later. Secret Bases were introduced in gen 3 as special hideouts and personal homebase’s for the players. The elite four is essentially the “boss” of each game. 4 powerful trainers and a champion must be triumphed over in battle as a rite of passage to become

The very best.

The pokemon center clearly has the upper hand here. But the player is often oblivious to this skullduggery, as it is never abused. We however, as analysts, must enlighten ourselves and recognize the power that is provided to the PC or the force in charge of it as a subliminal warning of the dangers of free healthcare. Luckily we can trust the pokemon center lady…

...Right?

Alas, this isn’t where the Pokemon center’s numerous links end. Two final things stand out. The first is the Pokemon Center Box (PCB), and the second is the people working there.

The PCB functions throughout the game as a bank for your pokemon. When you exceed the practical (in some cases, legal) limit of carriable pocket monsters, they are transported to the PCB, stored there until the owner decides to manipulate them in some way. To conclude the nitpick of this no longer hospitable environment, observe the stations of work and the inhabitants. First, realize that they have NO conceivable life outside of serving the corporation, and second, that each worker is uniform not just in dress, but in every physical appearance available that might’ve differentiated them. As these people give their lives to furthering the dream of the hive, they become homogenized. The have no personal goals or life, only to further the happiness and gain of their superiors. They slowly mold under one dominating aspect of life, sacrificing everything else, most importantly their identity. This may seem like it’s a negative critique of capitalism, but remember what propaganda is. It’s the government sugarcoating reality to propose system as beneficial and cheerful. At first glance, rather than noticing the lack of cultural diversity in, not just the workers, but in every NPC in the game save the ones important to the player’s advancement, players remark at the jubilance of each character. They laugh at the mountaineers devotion to rock climbing, the naive but hopeful ninja boys, and appreciate the loving care of the PC’s nurses. It’s a distraction, but it certainly can’t hide the truth when it’s combed for; such truth inclining us to believe that people are best sorted, and rejected when they deviate from the norm. The most appreciated NPC’s are the ones that give things away, and what NPC provides the most necessary, desired and relied on service in the game? The Pokemon Center Lady. So the shallowest character in the game is loved based not on her winning personality but her utility to the player, and how willingly it’s given. It deceives the player into missing the true relationship, in all of it’s despicable glory by cocooning it in a mere display of ersatz mutual reliance and care.

POKEMON

Now, dive into the focus and selling point of the game. The world revolves around these, but they aren’t money- they’re labor. The abundance of connections is about as diverse as the amount of Pokemon in the game, so stay tuned, get a bagel and read on.

Pokemon compete- that’s the goal of the game. Whether it be through strategic duels, contests and pageants or mini games with friends, they’re constantly being selected for. Do pokemon, like would generally be offered in a humane society, get to choose where they wish to go, what they wish to do and where they wish to do it? Nope, but capitalism isn’t exactly a humane society, now is it? If you thought it was bad that you otherized NPCs in your galavant through your quest to be the best, take a deep breath and prepare to be shattered for your agonizing crimes against humanity. In each harbor of talent and ability for these creatures, we find that there are 3 main components that constitute their value. Moves, Effort Values(EVs), and IVs. Moves and EVs are learned. But rather than allowing the pokemon to focus down on the moves it would like to know, and developing the intrinsic talents it desires through these various ports, it is forced by the trainer to fulfill the niche it captured or bred it for- otherwise it is fed to the PCB, never to be seen again. Likewise, in a corrupt capitalist society, the free market leads people to fill others wants and needs or face being a starving artist, hated for having no actual value and not conforming to the system. It gets worse in pokemon contests, the equivalent of pageants, a major facet of capitalism to design the norm, perpetuate inequality and ingrain dehumanization via perpetuating stereotypes. The pokemon are literally judged by the majority to their success and value, inaugurating propped up elites. To reach this success, it is cast in the programming of the game that a pokemon must assimilate itself to the society to be accepted and gain the rewards of competence. In the same way women are led to believe they need businesses products to be successful, pokemon are taught to eat more pokepuffs, train harder and conform to what the crowd desires to win.

Essentially, pokemon are slaves the same way people can become slaves to the free market, popular demand and cultural dogmatism.

Once again however, this is put in a positive light. The idea is cast out and propagated that the relationship between pokemon and their trainers is a healthy relationship, and that the trainer, or the free market/corporations, knows what’s best for the pokemon, and the pokemon fulfills the niche the way a trainer can’t. But this is utter garbage, borderline a colonialist metaphor implying that whites new what was best for the blacks and that they’re skin mutation made them inferior because they were different.

POKEMON TRAINING

 We’ve just examined the individual unit of a corporation and how it interacts with the top. Now, performing a top down analysis, it hopefully becomes clear that all the above is true in reverse. The trainer desires two main things: Money, and fame.

However untalented they are, all they need is a knack for control to gain wins in battle and cash. They can maximize their odds for success by standing on the backs of pokemon, whose utility is in contributing to the trainers success. Each trainer is like a business owner with workers underneath who battle to see who gains the public appreciation by possessing desirable trade skills and traits. The PCB is basically unemployment under this framework.

As always, the picture is painted by the games as the trainer being a friendly arbiter between the skills of the pokemon and their accomplishments.

TEAM PLASMA

 Finally, the cherry on top. Team plasma- in fact the very inspiration for this article. In a playthrough of my old copy, I found myself agreeing with the team and having a hard time stopping them. They, it occurred to me, must be the workers party, attempting to fight for the rights of the people to the elites and to find equality in leveling the playing field. But the one time somebody has the right idea, two evil twists are applied that seal the bow on the proposed critique.

One will notice that gym leaders throughout pressure the idea timidly upon this terrorist group that their system is perfect, applying the same sugarcoating arguments highlighted in the above paragraphs to defaming the intentions of Team Plasma and further supporting the system. These people are thought of as inferior, and generally once again convince the player that they are inferior, corrupt or despicable. But assuming the producer wished to utilize the game to advocate for such a society, there would be something literally implemented in the game to cast a detrimental shadow on these people, and it is quite conspicuous.

As the game progresses, Team Plasma is revealed not to be the gentle civil rights activists they were thought out to be, but corrupt manipulators unsupportive of their original principles. The message here is ostensive: Groups supporting alternative systems are selfish and wish only for their personal gain, not your benefit.

THE FINAL NOTE

I answer the question at the beginning with no- because realistically, despite these sporadic bits and pieces of evidence, I severely doubt the idea that these people meticulously designed these ideals in between the lines of their game. There are more practical explanations for all these, from sprite efficiency for the NPC homogeneity to a simple home base for the PC. However, an important message can be taken from the rant. An underlying theme of pokemon is friendship. The characters vary in their relationship to pokemon. Some really do use them for sport and personal gain abusively. The Player’s character, however, is always seen as a champion for healthy and humane treatment. So which is it? The true obtainable message here is it is not an intrinsic system of government or economics that corrupts people, but themselves instead. In each of these blurbs, the end finds a lighter attitude. It is up to you, the player, to decide how you treat your pokemon, and versely, how you decide to act in any political format you exist in. After all, economics is a psychology designed to create the best environment for the natural human and his tendencies, but you can certainly make things easier by being the best, least manipulative person you can be in every climate.

  *This is just a quick filler article. A random rant to keep me going. I've got a whale of an article coming up soon, and an update on the music-personality article in the works still. Stay tuned!