Pokemon Adventures Never Truly End

When I was six years old, I fell into a fantasy world of flower-bush hedgehogs, floating venus flytraps, and electric mice. My primary school friend had just opened his Nintendo DS, and I was shocked to discover that through video games, I could be an adventurer instead of simply living vicariously through my favourite book characters. I begged my mother to purchase a copy of Pokemon Diamond (2006) to accompany my game collection of Nintendogs (2005) and Brain Training (2006), which she did six months later as a birthday-cum-Christmas present.

At the time, my interest in these elemental creatures was seen as an amusing curiosity. The franchise is most often associated with boys despite the significant number of female and non-binary individuals who make up the fanbase. Prepubescent Charlotte, however, cared little for the feminist implications of her leisure time. Instead, I travelled through the Sinnoh region, the mountainous snow-covered island upon which the game Pokemon Diamond is set, from the comfort of my bedroom. It is a land filled with gentle music, mythology, and a deep sense of history beneath its rocks and stones.

Pokemon is a franchise centred on exploration and freedom. The original games were created to emulate the joy that Satoshi Tajiri, Pokemon’s creator, felt when collecting bugs in his home of Kanto. I felt a similar sense of wonder as I discovered new creatures in every patch of wild grass, snowy peak, and dark cavern. This feeling was in no way unique to me, as I grew and realised those around me had a connection to this franchise too even in young adulthood. One particular memory I have is of when a university friend and I travelled from Cambridge to London in 2019 to visit the Pokemon pop-up store. We ended up queuing for five hours, drinking 9am bubble tea and writing our university essays to pass the time. I remember the atmosphere being similar to that of sports fans queuing to see their favourite team. There are eighteen ‘types’ of Pokemon and every Poke-fan you talk to will have a favourite one, plus a favourite creature to anchor their loyalty to. It is perhaps unsurprising given my love of gardening and the natural world that I feel particularly drawn to grass types — I still own a few grass-type plushies even to this day (big-up Turtwig and his happy little bum-wiggles!)

Though my enthusiasm for the mainline games has somewhat waned over the past few years, my love for the franchise remains strong in the rose-tinted clouds of nostalgia.  I currently reside in Japan as an English teacher and earlier this year, I took a trip up to the island of Hokkaido, the real-world inspiration for Sinnoh. As I walked through the snowy streets which inspired the infamous Jubilife city, listening to Pokemon Diamond’s soundtrack, I was overwhelmed with emotion as I realised how my adventures never truly ended when I grew into adulthood.