PokeApartheid

Wednesday and today's Penny Arcade reminded me of something from high school. Read those two comics first then come back. Don't worry, I'll wait.

Finished? Great.

I think it's hilarious that Penny Arcade takes weird angles like this on something as innocuous as Pokemon. Apparently it took the release of Black and White for people to actually think about what capturing Pokemon "means," and Penny Arcade is taking advantage of those bizarre conversations the public is having to make a funny comic. Still, it makes me wonder what sort of person is so eager to find racism in Pokemon in the first place that this topic would even come to the attention of the Penny Arcade guys.

But then again, I don't have to think too hard about what that person is like. When I was a freshman, I still watched the Pokemon cartoon and played the game on GameBoy. Yeah, that's right. I'm not ashamed to admit it. My best friend at the time watched it too.

One day, when her mom picked us up from school, we were talking about Pokemon for some reason or another. Out of nowhere, her mom starts lecturing us on how awful Pokemon is. Let me preface the following by mentioning that my friend's mother was a horrible, impatient, mean person. She once beat one of her other children right in front of me, a guest, while my friend and I were watching TV. This woman was an awful human being from everything I could tell about her. Here is what I recall from our conversation, dramatized and paraphrased:

Her mom: So you hunt these Pokemon down?
Us: Yeah, you search for all the Pokemon, catch them, train them, and then fight other people's Pokemon with yours.
Her mom: Isn't that just slavery?
Us: Uh....it's just a game.
Her mom: Well, have you ever thought about how those Pokemon feel?
Us: No, and once again, it's just a game.
Her mom: It sounds like slavery to me.

That's the gist of it, though I know there was more that I don't remember. It was the most frustrating conversation I had ever had with a virtual stranger to that point, and it solidified my opinion of her mother. Putting aside the fact that she was refusing to bring a little perspective to a discussion about a video game in favor of arguing with a couple of fourteen-year-old girls, what kind of crazy person takes a child's video game and TV cartoon so seriously?

Before you say, "Maybe she wasn't being serious?" let me point you back to the above description of my former-friend's mother. She did not have a sense of humor. She ruled her three daughters with an iron fist, and she made me feel incredibly uncomfortable and unwelcome all the time. Additionally, just do a Google search for "Pokemon racism" and you'll find other people grasping at straws to prove that Pokemon is racist. Well, you know what? Maybe it is. The Japanese as a culture are pretty racist, but it's so institutionalized in many ways that I imagine the majority of Japanese don't really understand the concept of racism at all. But that's a completely different discussion that would take too long to get into here.

This became a little more depressing than I intended; I actually just thought those two comics were really funny, and this memory popped up out of nowhere. Strange how the human brain works; you set out to tell a funny story about Pokemon, but then just end up remembering how awful your best friend's mom was. You know, like you do.


To bring us back to a happy place, here are a few more Penny Arcade comics, seven in total, that I think are hilarious. There are way more about Pokemon in the archives, but those are my favorites. Enjoy your break from Monday.

Pokemon!