Politics in Pokémon
Politics in Pokémon
I love Pokémon, it's my special interest, I've been playing since Gen 1 and have pretty extensive knowledge about the Pokémon world.
However since becoming a communist I've realized that a lot of things are missing from the world, including basic functions on how everything works. Just the presence of police implies there are laws that have to be enforced, which in turn implies people write those laws, etc. We know that there was an industrial revolution, which led to capitalism, being the economic system in all Pokémon regions, meaning all of the contradictions that come with it. There was a war that took place, as alluded to by Lt. Surge, who might actually be from Unova.
In the manga there's the Pokémon Association (PA), a legislative body that determines the laws involving Pokémon, similar to Congress here in the U.S., with each region apparently having its own PA.
In the anime they have the Pokémon Inspection Agency (PIA) that inspects Gyms to see if they're up to par.
They don't explicitly talk about politics and political views (obviously because the series is marketed to kids) but I think exploring these mechanisms could be really interesting, if not for the fact that Pokémon adds another layer to politics because they're creatures with a material effect on the world.
Some people might be more left leaning when it comes to economics and social issues, but might be more right leaning when it comes to trainer regulations.
I'm curious to know what other people think, I'm actually writing a story that explores some of these themes so I'd love to get some ideas!
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Setting aside the political system in the fictional setting of Pokemon, its theme did have universal government regulations of Pokemon battles, animal violence, reduction of Indigenous groups into restrictive stereotypes, commodification of nature in the form of pokemons, and monopoly of the Pokemon battle system. The idea that a society can transform nature and Indigenous people into systematic tools of violent entertainment without opposition is highly immoral and disrespectful in reality. That is why I like to watch parody of Pokemon that expose the irrationality and cruelty of the Pokemon setting.
Except it's known in the Pokémon world that they aren't just "animals fighting"; they aren't even animals, considering there are actual animals like rodents, birds and fish in the Pokémon world. They do have intelligence since they can understand humans, and will actually not listen to you if you mistreat them, or if they don't respect you they won't even be caught.
The idea that a society can transform nature and Indigenous people into systematic tools of violent entertainment without opposition is highly immoral and disrespectful in reality.
What are you even talking about?
"indigenous people" ???
Yeah really, make this make sense.
I'm guessing they're basing it off of pokemon Sun and Moon, which is based on Hawaii, and in turn was apparently colonised by people from Johto in the pokemon universe.
The games show this as an unequivocal "good" and simplify local indigenous culture into a few basic rituals, local food and a slightly different pokemon league system, with no actual analysis of mistreatment or colonialism. It very heavily whitewashes it, as all children's media does in the west. I don't know why this is a shock to people. It isn't good, but it is expected.
Basically, the devs of the game based their region off of a fun holiday they had to Hawaii once, instead of the game focusing on the very real problems native Hawaiians face. Considering they are made by a bunch of aging Japanese guys who have never expressed strong politics in their games before, it's hardly surprising that their view of a Hawaiian inspired region is so "touristy" (In fact, that's one of the reasons I would argue that the newer regions feel much flatter and emptier, they aren't based on regions these people have lived in, like the ones based on Japan, but are just based on a tourist's interpretation of a country.)
Honestly this is the first I'm hearing about this whole thing with the devs. I was more expecting a conversation about the inner workings of the world and how it would work.
I never heard about Alola being colonized by Johto, where did you read that?
One of the cities in Alola (I forget which one) was directly built to be like the ones in Johto and an NPC somewhere there mentions how they settled the region or something.
There isn't much to really go on with the worldbuilding, because pokemon has almost none. There's no attempt at cohesion or messaging, it's just kind of empty. That isn't bad or anything, just that I don't think the devs ever really thought deeply about the ramifications of the pokemon world and just kind of made it up as they went along. A lot of creators work like that.
The closest thing I could find to anything resembling that is Malie City which is said to be inspired by Johto, and Heahea City being founded by Trainers from Kanto and Johto. Is this what you mean?
Maybe it did happen, idk. It could be an interesting theme to explore since my protagonist is actually from Alola.
I don't agree that Pokémon has no worldbuilding, there's plenty to see if you pay attention and look at the subtext and implications. Just because something isn't explicitly stated doesn't mean there's nothing, if anything that means there's a lot there that hasn't been thought of yet.
Yeah, those are the ones I'm talking about. It's something some random NPC mentions that probably wouldn't get noticed by most people, I just remember it because it really stuck out to me for some reason.
Hm well I don't quite know if it counts as colonization in the same sense that Europeans colonized the world, aside from those two places I don't see a heavy Kanto/Johto presence and everywhere else in Alola sticks to traditions, hence why they don't have Gyms or a Pokémon League yet. Some of the places aren't even developed at all. I do like Alola because of how rich it is, but the physical limitations of the 3DS are what hold it back. But I digress, lol.
Either way it's all speculation because we aren't given a lot of information explicitly since they're not gonna include topics of colonization in a kid's game....but I guess climate change and mass genocide (XY) is fine, lol?
Oh, like I said, it's a liberal, whitewashed version of colonisation. Pokemon games don't ever really get into actual issues and problems (one of the reasons why so many of the "I'm going to end the world because I hate people" villains in the series fall completely flat.)
Even with genocide and climate change, both are treated as effectively non-issues, XY is just a vague "bad guy doing a bad guy thing because he's bad." and Sword and Shield having some kind of vague "energy crisis" that will cause problems centuries down the line isn't really a good depiction of these things. It's the exact same thing with colonisation, all the actual issues of it are ignored to the point it is easy to miss the analogy. The devs don't really try to flesh these things out though, and they were very lacklustre as a result. I think the best pokemon stories are the ones that are much more personal rather than some kind of vague "end of the world" thing.
Yeah, it's why the later games and stories are even worse, I probably will never get over how awful SwSh was...I mean we're talking an energy crisis that won't happen for a thousand years and this dude wants to solve it this weekend? Can't even wait till Monday after the Gym Circuit finals lol?
At least the manga offers more insight, for example, apparently Misty and Erika are filthy rich, both of them have mansions and servants. Something definitely not explored in the games nor anime.