Of Pikachus and Men

Just as a pre-emptive warning, if this post seems very incoherent and disjointed, then I'm sorry. I ended up starting this one last week and writing it over four non-consecutive days...don't expect it to make full sense, or have good structure.

IMPORTANT: IF YOU SUFFER BRAIN SHUTDOWN/MALFUNCTION/IMPLOSION WHILST IN THE ACT OF READING/DECIPHERING/SCREAMING AT THIS POST, THE AUTHOR TAKES ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSIBILITY. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Originally I was going to ramble on a bit in this post (the topic is irrelevant) before talking about what appears to be hotly awaited (and possibly controversial, although I doubt that...) topics. But, my sloth has gotten the better of me and I thought I'd just get to the damn point.

I remember in grade 7, when there was a Pokémon craze that spread through the school. Well, not all of it obviously. Perhaps just those of us who were impressionable and taken to the idea of keeping large, vicious animals in tiny balls for our own sadistic pleasures. Yes, what could've been more fun than pitting your monster, who is a 3 metre giant kept in a small hollow sphere with a radius pushing one centimetre, against an equally maltreated monster of some random stranger (or friend, in some cases) in a bloody battle in which the loser merely faints despite being shocked by 10,000 volts of electricity, singed by intense flames (which incidentally are often said to be able to melt solid rock, meaning the minimum temperature would have to be around 600ºC) and then slammed into the ground by 200kg worth of flabby physique? Those must be some tough critters...

Well anyway, underneath this blatant disregard for reality is an ever so subtle brainwashing attempt. I was discussing this with a friend (Jon) the other day, and we came up with some interesting points in regards to this very fact.

As many of you might remember, there was a controversy a while back about all the flashing lights causing seizures in the susceptible. Well, if this isn't an attempt to hypnotising vulnerable children then I don't know what is. Obviously the producers/animators thought they could go under the radar by emitting wavelengths of light to first hypnotise children (into continuing to watch their show, which has the same basic storyline repeated over and over and over and over and over and the same basic storyline repeated over and over and over and the same basic storyline repeated over and over and over and wavelengths of light and over and over and over and over), and also other wavelengths to induce seizures. This would, naturally, draw parents' attentions away from their attempted brainwash to the more visible effect of a spastically convulsing child frothing at the mouth. Clever, but you'll have to do a lot better than that to fool me, Mr Tajiri.

Well, let's have a look at just what this travesty of a show (which I'm ashamed to admit that I once was quite obsessed with, a testament to how young and foolish I was, and also to the pure malevolence of this cartoon) is telling our kids. For one, there is the aforementioned unreality of being able to do things to your foes, which would normally kill hundreds of people, and still have them escape unscathed. Here I will draw on the example of "Team Rocket". They have been charred, electrocuted, blasted with extremely high water pressure, hacked at, pecked, pounded, hounded, squashed, battered and a myriad of other abusive words. "Yes!" says Pokémon, "Defeat your foes in a gory and totally sadistic manner! I command you!"

Well, the gore is not depicted in the show, as it is a children's one after all, but definitely implied...I feel an overwhelming, but (luckily for you, the unsuspecting reader [mmm...brains....]), suppressed, urge to 'flip out' and go on a murderous rampage whenever I watch the show. It must be the writers and their subliminal messages (perhaps there are some superliminal messages to, but I can't think of any as I haven't seen enough of the show to say).

The concluding message? That neither violent movies, other television shows nor video games are to blame for the tendency for a lot of today's youth to become very aggressive and be a general nuisance (especially for their total disregard of their elders...respect me dammit!...). So whose fault is it? Yep, you guessed it, it's Pokémon.


[Still to come...
Reality shows revealed
PLUS! EXCLUSIVE TO WGW: The new looks of Winter (it might not be Winter by the time I post it...meh)
Don't go away!
Yes, stay RIGHT in front of your computer screen until my next post! Which may or may not be in the near future...Don't eat, don't even sleep because you might miss an all important post, which may or may not only stay online for a few hours due to legal reasons (whether they exist or not). If you die during this time, it's your own fault (read my Disclaimer, on the side-bar)]