Ask John: Why Doesn’t the Pokemon Anime Get as Much Respect as its Games?

Question:
Why is the Pocket Monsters anime so reviled here in the west compared to their game counterpart considering that both are marketed towards children and both feature redundant themes?

Answer:
Ironically, despite video games and anime being so closely interconnected in the commercial development world, they have an appreciable distance in the consumer spectrum. While many anime fans also appreciate and play video games, there are probably far more Americans who play video games but have no interest in anime. Although the target demographic and the narrative style of the Pokemon video games and anime are similar, the reception the two media have among consumers is tremendously different because of the ingrained American perception of the mediums, not because of the particular franchise. Video games were invented in America, and particularly since the 1995 introduction of the Playstation in America, domestic consumers have been indoctrinated by corporate enterprise and popular media to consider video games a respectable and praiseworthy entertainment medium suitable for consumers of all ages. In effect, for the past 18 years Americans have been encouraged to not think of video games as “just for kids.” On the other hand, 2D animation since the 1940s has been associated with children’s entertainment in America. Furthermore, since the early 1980s, animated series based on toy franchises have been widely perceived as strictly crass marketing devices lacking any independent artistic credibility. So, in effect, American consumers have been unconsciously trained to perceive a video game as a legitimate form of entertainment but perceive an animated version of that same franchise as thinly disguised commercial advertising targeted at impressionable children. The same principal applies to all similar franchises. The G.I. Joe and Transformers cartoons are perceived as kitschy, disposable children’s entertainment while video game and movie adaptations of these same franchises are considered viable as adult entertainment. The narrative construction of the Pokemon franchise may be practically identical between its anime & video game incarnations, but American consumers treat the two adaptations differently just because of their format; animation targeted at children is automatically considered children’s media, but video games are considered a mainstream media suitable for adults.