Pok'emon - A pastor perspective

The popularity of the Pok'emon fad of '98 led to a lot of marketing gimmicks to get American children hooked on the franchise. Two video games, a handful of VHS tapes featuring the first season episodes, toys, and even trading cards. But what became a simple concept of strategy also targeted some concerned parents, and church pastors as well, and I actually had one of those pastors at the church I went to growing up.

It took only a couple of months for my pastor to follow in on the Pok'emon series, its merchandising and how it was affecting kids, and if you ever had one of those churches where a sermon is used for something not church related for an open and appropriate subject to pass the time, then you'll know how mine worked. The game's concept was made as a discussion in his own perspective, giving his own experience of what he knows to everyone sitting in the pews. He yapped on about how it was potentially teaching children about using witchcraft, fighting friends physically for dominance, and using weapons.

Pictured above: dramatization of every kids' reaction to Pok'emon being explained as a demonic branding

And this is where all the kids such as myself took notice of the brainwashing. At the time there were only 151 Pok'emon to count, but none of them carried weapons unless you count Blastoise, that final evolution of Squirtle that was a giant turtle with two water cannons coming out of its back. Aside from that every other Pok'emon either uses their claws or fists for physical attacks, fire types that spout fire from their mouths, water types that shoot water from their mouths, plant types that shoot leaves from sprouts, or psychic types that just use hand movements for psychic powered attacks.

Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of the franchise has autism and spent his childhood catching bugs, thus bringing the Pok'emon idea to life. Unfortunately, many pastors and parents against Pok'emon never knew about this.

As far as every kid knew, Pok'emon was a harmless, creative game of rock-paper-scissors, with one elemental type against another and the only thing it was getting in the way of was our own homework. But as long as the popularity in the series kept going, so did the sermons about how demonic sounding it was to adults. Thankfully when the 2000s rolled around it slowly became less of a subject to talk about and parents became pretty okay with the concept to the point where now pastors were jokingly talking about their own kids being hooked on the hot new Pok'emon game and how it was getting in the way of their school work.

Did you have concerned parents or pastors who were against Pok'emon? Leave a comment and as always, see you next article!

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