Pikachu's Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokemon

By David Buckingham

Book Overview

Initially developed in Japan by Nintendo as a computer game, Pok mon swept the globe in the late 1990s. Based on a narrative in which a group of children capture, train, and do battle with over a hundred imaginary creatures, Pok mon quickly diversified into an array of popular products including comic books, a TV show, movies, trading cards, stickers, toys, and clothing. Pok mon eventually became the top grossing children's product of all time. Yet the phenomenon fizzled as quickly as it had ignited. By 2002, the Pok mon craze was mostly over. Pikachu's Global Adventure describes the spectacular, complex, and unpredictable rise and fall of Pok mon in countries around the world.

In analyzing the popularity of Pok mon, this innovative volume addresses core debates about the globalization of popular culture and about children's consumption of mass-produced culture. Topics explored include the origins of Pok mon in Japan's valorization of cuteness and traditions of insect collecting and anime; the efforts of Japanese producers and American marketers to localize it for foreign markets by muting its sex, violence, moral ambiguity, and general feeling of Japaneseness; debates about children's vulnerability versus agency as consumers; and the contentious question of Pok mon's educational value and place in school. The contributors include teachers as well as scholars from the fields of anthropology, media studies, sociology, and education. Tracking the reception of Pok mon in Japan, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Israel, they emphasize its significance as the first Japanese cultural product to enjoy substantial worldwide success and challenge western dominance in the global production and circulation of cultural goods.

Contributors. Anne Allison, Linda-Ren e Bloch, Helen Bromley, Gilles Brougere, David Buckingham, Koichi Iwabuchi, Hirofumi Katsuno, Dafna Lemish, Jeffrey Maret, Julian Sefton-Green, Joseph Tobin, Samuel Tobin, Rebekah Willet, Christine Yano

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822332876
• ISBN13: 9780822332879
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Length: 299 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.6" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Excellent comprehensive look into Japanese influence on consumer culture

Each chapter is written by a different expert in various fields (business, anthropology,etc) and offers a very deep view of the Japanese and global consumer market using pokemon as a basis for discussion. It is a very interesting read even if it is not being used as a text book. Great for business majors and anyone interested in consumer or Japanese culture and pokemon!

Pikachu's Global Adventure to My Heart =)

I loved this prodict! It was a little beat up but that was what I was expecting. I couldn't put that book down <3 Came in the mail quickly and with no problems.

Great book

The previous reviewer must have been brain dead herself when she read the book. There is no other way she could have so completely misread this text. The authors are not opponents of Pokemon -- as if that was even the point. In excerpting the statements from Tobin about the "evil" empire of Pokemon, she completely misquotes him. He CLEARLY argues in his introduction that this represents one of the perspectives on Pokemon and then goes on to lay out other perspectives. In the chapter about anti-Pokemon websites, the author is describing the discourse of these websites, not advocating for them. In fact, the author describes these as "moral panics". A moral panic is a misplaced fear that sweeps a society. If this reviewer knew anything at all about the scholarship of the people represented in this book or about the language of cultural studies, she would realize that her reading of them as children's pop culture haters is absurd. I DO use chapters from this book in my children's media studies class exactly because it represents thoughtful and sophisticated scholarship. To look at the complicated ways the Pokemon as one representative of children's popular culture circulates both as part of the global economy and as part of the childhood identity economy, I recommend this book.