Pikachu’s Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokémon

Additional Pikachu’s Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokémon Information

In analyzing the popularity of Pokémon, 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 Pokémon 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 Pokémon’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 Pokémon 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-Renée 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

What Customers Say About Pikachu’s Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokémon:

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.

I loved this prodict. It was a little beat up but that was what I was expecting. I couldn't put that book down

This book is terrible. You shouldn't waste your money on this, as any useful information is obscured by the horrible style in which it's written and the numerous misspellings of Pokemon species' names. It talks about Pokemon like they're just Nintendo's source of customers. I absolutely hated it. Spend your money on something official and Pokemon-friendly, like Pokemon Battle Revolution, Pokémon Platinum, or if you're book shopping, Ultimate National Pokedex (Pokemon Diamond Version & Pearl Version). Together, all of us can stop abusive talk and treatment of Pokemon.

The previous reviewer must have been brain dead herself when she read the book. I DO use chapters from this book in my children's media studies class exactly because it represents thoughtful and sophisticated scholarship. In the chapter about anti-Pokemon websites, the author is describing the discourse of these websites, not advocating for them.

The authors are not opponents of Pokemon -- as if that was even the point. A moral panic is a misplaced fear that sweeps a society. There is no other way she could have so completely misread this text.

In fact, the author describes these as "moral panics". 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.

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. 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.