The Mike Toole Show
Poke-Matic
by Michael Toole,
It happened on Tuesday morning. On the way into work, I got a DM from a colleague, hinting at some bad news-- quite probably the ing of a mutual acquaintace-- and that the details were on Noboru Ishiguro had died.
You know what? I don't have the energy to do a column-length obituary for Mr Ishiguro. My friend JVC had released in 2000 sold unexpectedly well, making the idea of a continuation feasible, and mused on ideas for continuing the story. During these remarks, Mr Ishiguro lamented the double-edged nature of digital animation-- its speed and accuracy should, he thought, have led to much better quality anime, but instead, he found that it was leading to a greater number of anime of mediocre quality. It's a bit galling to see, a decade later, just how right he was. After he finished speaking, the AXNY handler needled me to keep my questions briefer, but I didn't mind - it's neat when you ask someone a question they've been waiting to answer, and learn so much in the process.
Mr Ishiguro was always generous with that kind of time and information. I would see him regularly for the next decade; he kept fairly busy even into his seventies, but he plainly and obviously loved hanging out with his western fans, and rarely went more than a year or two without an appearance. I saw him at Osamu Tezuka's weirdly compelling movie version of Tezuka's Phoenix myth, for which Mr Ishiguro had served as animation director. When I presented him with it, I couldn't help myself - I asked what it was like to work so closely with Dr Tezuka. He considered this, the barest hint of a smirk on his face, before settling on: "Difficult." Clearly, it was a question he'd been waiting to answer. He really was one of the nicest guys in anime; may he rest in peace.
Now that I've got that bit of remembrance out of the way, let me regale you with a story of tiny cartoon monsters, their alarmingly generic masters, and the teeming millions of children and adults who've been fascinated with them for over a decade. Here's the thing: back in December, I got the idea that I'd go to the movies to see the latest Amazon and prepared to purchase the first one. It was out of print. So was the second one. This didn't surprise me, because the second Pokémon movie had recently been at the center of some hilarious political theatre, courtesy of a businessman and presidential candidate named Herman Cain. The original movie poster for that second movie, before the title was changed to Pokémon 2000, remains one of the most hilariously confusing titles I've ever seen.
Ultimately, I settled for a 4-pack of Pokémon movies including the exciting hits Warner Bros., as the earlier films were. See, the first three Pokémon movies grossed a combined $145 million at the box office, so when the next batch of movies went on the block, the Weinstein Bros probably saw easy money, and snapped them up. They were wrong; Pokémon 4Ever made less money than Pluto Nash, and Pokémon Heroes made even less than that. After that, there were no more theatrical runs for Pokémon, until the Black and White movie I mentioned above. I watched all of these films, and a few weeks later, I'm thunderstruck at how little I about them.
Actually, I the plot of each film pretty well, but they're kind of staggeringly formulaic, to the point that it's difficult to recall specifics for each movie. All films involve short Pikachu-themed flicks that are invariably more interesting than the longer features; the movies proper each start with Ash and his adorable little toy animal cockfighting pals having some sort of adventure, before introducing the movie's special new Pokémon and movie-only characters, not necessarily in that order. The related movie-only villain comes in, and invariably steals or enslaves the new Pokémon, using its fantastic powers for some nefarious purpose, and forcing our heroes to act. (I think the Deoxys movie involved the fancy Pokémon itself being the antagonist, but don't quote me on that.) At some point in the conflict, Ash, Pikachu, or one of the other good guys will be badly hurt or made to suffer, and this is the calculated moment where the pre-adolescent target audience is meant to get emotionally invested in the film. It seems to work remarkably well; when I quizzed a friend about his experience seing the first Pokémon movie at the theater, he described an entire theatre full of children weeping openly at the prospect of Ash being turned to stone. The Pokémon movies aren't movie theatre regulars here-- I am sure they do well on home video-- but the still make tens of millions of dollars in Japan, so somebody's watching!
After looking at these movies and enjoying the competent but rarely spectacular animation of dub Digimon, the pair knew they had something special, and worked hard to avoid chopping it up too much - it retains a hell of a lot of its Japanese settings and names in spite of being retooled for American kids.
But the movie? Oh man, that's kind of a fiasco. The main reason I bought it is because I'd been told, over and over, that it was directed by the great Smash Mouth's odious "Rock Star" at the end. This shambling homunculus of a film still managed to bank almost ten million dollars, though. Hooray!
Digimon was definitely positioned to capitalize on Pokémon and its establishment of kids and their monsters who love to fight, but I'm not sure you could call it a ripoff - as a property, it was developed by the same big brains at Bandai who came up with the Tamagotchi electronic toy, and the series launched with a variety of action figures and electronic doo-dads before competing directly with Pokémon via video games and card games. And just like Pokémon, they're still making Digimon media today. The thing is, though, that Pokémon spawned several imitators, or at the very least, spurred some of them on to position existing media as competitors for TBS to create three seasons of animated Monster Rancher action and spinning off toys and card games. The series looks awfully familiar, with its basball cap-wearing hero and weird rabbit/rodent sidekick, but the signature character is actually Suezo, a wisecracking floating eyeball. We got all of these goodies during the Pokémon craze; about two years ago, I visited local salvage chain Building 19, and was awed at the sight of hundreds and hundreds of sealed Monster Rancher VHS tapes: one dollar each. Wish I'd taken a picture. Tecmo still makes Monster Rancher games, of course.
Once Jetix. After that it slipped into the void; a lot of fans I've talked to don't really it. If you're the only one who watched a series, did it really happen? The 5,000-word Wikipedia article on Mon Colle Knights seems to suggest that yes, yes it did.
Just last week, I was still straining for a good angle on this column. I think I've managed to kinda skip that part and just talk about fun monster-based anime of the early 2000s, but I will leave you with two final thoughts. First of all, Pokémon is still going strong. Every year there's new video games, new card games, new toys, new Pokémon themselves, and of course, new animation. Kids love the toys and cartoons, and grown-up adult babies like me love the internet memes. (My favorite one is Bidoof is On Fire, pictured above.) When is this fad gonna end?! Second of all, a few weeks ago I visited my brother and was delighted to notice one of my nephews, aged six, watching the trailer for that same Pokémon movie I'd missed, on the family iPad. I thought he was a Star Wars kid, I had no idea he liked Pokémon! So I asked him how he'd found out about Pokémon, and he couldn't really tell me. He did not know. He didn't even guess, and tell me that he'd heard about it on the TV or from his friends at school. As far as he was concerned, Pokémon was a thing that has always been with him, like the need to eat and sleep.
Fifteen years later, are you still watching Pokémon? Did you like Digimon better? Did you go for one of the lesser-known shows like Monster Rancher or Duel Masters, or were you like me, and vaguely mystified by the entire affair? Sound off in the comments!
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