Pokémon versus the Church: An Overdramatic Tale from my Childhood
When I was in the fourth grade, my family and I lived in Germany for a year.
What I find most surprising about this period in my life, in retrospect, is how very similar kids in Germany were to kids in the United States. Granted, I attended an International School, where English was the primary language, but we had kids there from all sorts of different backgrounds. Many of them couldn't speak English, and we communicated by punching, chasing, and generally brutalizing each other. The way kids do.
Anyway, one thing that we all seemed to have in common was Pokémon.
Pokémon cards, Pokémon games, Pokémon keychains, stickers, pencils- even Pokémon Kinder Eggs, and, as I think I may have posted about before, the amount of Pokémon merchandise you owned was equivalent to your social status among the miscellaneous ankle-biters. Of course, as with any fad, there existed a little bit of fandom backlash, and most of it came from the Christian kids, who had been morally convinced by their parents that Pokémon was a clandestine form of devil worship, but couldn't really explain why. Here's the story of one of those kids, to be immortalized by this blog forever.
...
I was wandering around the playground one recess when I came upon a kid playing Pokemon Gold on one of those semitransparent purple GameBoy Colors, and began to nonchalantly gravitate toward him, as though, you know, I really didn't care. He was engaged in a discussion with a very serious looking boy, standing, arms akimbo, severe as a Puritan.
"You know," said the severe boy, "Pokémon is the work of the devil."
"Really?" asked the kid with the GameBoy.
"If you own any cards, rip them up. If you own any games, smash them. That's what I did."
A stunned silence passed between the three of us. It was equivalent to someone telling us that they'd been periodically ripping up 100 dollar bills and throwing them in the Rhine.
"Why is Pokémon so bad?" I asked.
"Pokémon are not God's creatures," the serious boy responded. "Whenever you play Pokémon, the devil is nearby."
"I don't see him anywhere," responded GameBoy kid, flippantly.
Annoyed, the serious boy responded: "He's not here, he's down there." He pointed at our feet, presumably indicating the freezing bowels of Cocytus. We all looked down. By this time, our philosophical argument had attracted quite a few Pokémon fans.
Aside from the speckled concrete, the only irregularity in the ground was a water grate. We all stared down into the grate.
"All I see down there is water," said one of the newcomers.
"Maybe he's a water type?" suggested GameBoy kid.
...
I often reflect on this story when religious debates crop up among my friends. I'm more educated now, but I still don't think I've ever engaged in a discussion of God's word quite this satisfying since.
What I find most surprising about this period in my life, in retrospect, is how very similar kids in Germany were to kids in the United States. Granted, I attended an International School, where English was the primary language, but we had kids there from all sorts of different backgrounds. Many of them couldn't speak English, and we communicated by punching, chasing, and generally brutalizing each other. The way kids do.
Anyway, one thing that we all seemed to have in common was Pokémon.
Pokémon cards, Pokémon games, Pokémon keychains, stickers, pencils- even Pokémon Kinder Eggs, and, as I think I may have posted about before, the amount of Pokémon merchandise you owned was equivalent to your social status among the miscellaneous ankle-biters. Of course, as with any fad, there existed a little bit of fandom backlash, and most of it came from the Christian kids, who had been morally convinced by their parents that Pokémon was a clandestine form of devil worship, but couldn't really explain why. Here's the story of one of those kids, to be immortalized by this blog forever.
...
I was wandering around the playground one recess when I came upon a kid playing Pokemon Gold on one of those semitransparent purple GameBoy Colors, and began to nonchalantly gravitate toward him, as though, you know, I really didn't care. He was engaged in a discussion with a very serious looking boy, standing, arms akimbo, severe as a Puritan.
"You know," said the severe boy, "Pokémon is the work of the devil."
"Really?" asked the kid with the GameBoy.
"If you own any cards, rip them up. If you own any games, smash them. That's what I did."
A stunned silence passed between the three of us. It was equivalent to someone telling us that they'd been periodically ripping up 100 dollar bills and throwing them in the Rhine.
"Why is Pokémon so bad?" I asked.
"Pokémon are not God's creatures," the serious boy responded. "Whenever you play Pokémon, the devil is nearby."
"I don't see him anywhere," responded GameBoy kid, flippantly.
Annoyed, the serious boy responded: "He's not here, he's down there." He pointed at our feet, presumably indicating the freezing bowels of Cocytus. We all looked down. By this time, our philosophical argument had attracted quite a few Pokémon fans.
Aside from the speckled concrete, the only irregularity in the ground was a water grate. We all stared down into the grate.
"All I see down there is water," said one of the newcomers.
"Maybe he's a water type?" suggested GameBoy kid.
...
I often reflect on this story when religious debates crop up among my friends. I'm more educated now, but I still don't think I've ever engaged in a discussion of God's word quite this satisfying since.