Pikachu, I will learn to tolerate you!

May 29, 2022 10:11 PM

I have my 6 and 4-year-old nephews for the weekend and it's become apparent to me that Pokemon will be a big part of their lives going forward. I have no desire to become an expert but I'd like to at least be able to understand what they are talking about.

They have asked me many, many questions about Pokemon. My cousins were kind enough to let them play Pokemon Go! on their phones and they loved it. I found the Pokedex and my nephews have been asking me to look up numbers and interpret their powers. Is there a book I can skim through just so I can get the gist of the various Pokemon traits and powers? Is there a pronunciation guide somewhere?

I plan on watching the Detective Pikachu movie since I do have a temporary tattoo of it on my hand. I have no intention of watching the TV shows but are there any other movies that might be interesting?

posted by Constance Mirabella to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

For whatever reason, I was born like three months too late to be properly into Pokémon, but practically everyone I know who is younger than me (and at this point that’s 36 and down) in my nerd cohort has a base Pokémon knowledge and enthusiasm so I’ve learned a lot through osmosis. I’ve also played the two Pokémon snap games, which are games where you go around islands taking pictures of Pokémon and not actually collecting them or having them fight. If you have a Switch, I recommend New Pokémon Snap, it’s very beginner friendly, charming, and something your nephews can play over and over again in short chunks. I like Snap because it’s cute as heck and nonviolent while giving me the “gotta catch ‘em all” satisfaction, a little like fantasy bird watching.

The best website for Pokémon info is Bulbapedia, as far as I’m aware. It’s been around for a long time. The pages on individual creatures, individual games, and game concepts are pretty comprehensive. You can easily get information overload, but if you are the type who enjoys poking around a wiki you can get a lot out of it. I’m not sure what you mean by looking up numbers and interpreting powers, but if you type a Pokémon name into the bulbapedia search you can get their individual page and see all kinds of stuff, like, their “national Pokédex number” and their “type” (which is like, their elemental alignment) and much more, just on the sidebar.

The thing that got me to enjoy Pokémon and not find it deadly boring is learning about Trubbish, who I declared is my favorite as soon as I learned that they are sentient bags of garbage with little pointy teeth that stop being smelly when they make friends. The world building of Pokémon is truly bizarre. There are ghost Pokémon that possess electronics and become like, haunted fans and washing machines and phones. The god of creation is apparently a Pokémon that you just like, chill with, sometimes?? It’s wild.
posted by Mizu at 10:43 PM on May 29, 2022 [5 favorites]

Best answer: You want the Super Deluxe Essential Pokemon Handbook. Yes, there is Bulbapedia, but when my kid first got into Pokemon, they carried that thing everywhere and practically memorized it. The kids would probably love their own copy, or you could have one at your place for them to refer to and keep themselves entertained.

Also, the tv show is actually quite entertaining, and includes the iconic Team Rocket. I bet your nephews would love to watch a couple of episodes with you and explain what's going on.
posted by mogget at 11:39 PM on May 29, 2022 [8 favorites]

I would get yourself onto youtube and watch a couple of summary videos about Pokemon. Much easier and quicker than reading tedious lists of stats.
posted by 0bvious at 3:40 AM on May 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: My tack was, during my kid's Pokemania years, was to pick an arbitrary Pokémon that became my "favourite." It has done me well with other children when I have been placed in Poke-centric situations. I chose one that had no other evolutionary forms, not usually a child's favourite, not obviously aggressive and seemed to have straight forward characteristics - Snorlax, the sleepy / lazy Totoro-like Pokémon who enjoys eating. This became a talking point that usually opened the gateway for the child to prattle endlessly about their favourites and/or characteristics and was often a good distraction.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:41 AM on May 30, 2022 [16 favorites]

Are you interested in Pokémon Go? I was a bit too old to be into Pokémon as a kid, but played Pokémon Go obsessively for a while and learned a lot of Pokémon from that.
posted by music for skeletons at 6:32 AM on May 30, 2022

Best answer: I also recommend getting a handbook. When my son was more into Pokémon that he is now, I would pick a Pokémon at random and quiz him on it: This one is a dragon type from the Kalos region that looks like ...

He had fun guessing (normally getting them right), and I guess I learned something too by quizzing him.

Like you're looking for, the handbook gives you an overview of each one's traits and powers and also tells you how to pronounce each Pokémon.
posted by Leontine at 7:16 AM on May 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I have no intention of watching the TV shows

Honestly, the first season (free online) is pretty good? Sweet, silly fun, and better than any of the half-dozen movies I've seen, which are generally a little too serious or too obviously just a product in a long line. It's uneven--especially so in later seasons--but sometimes it's really great.

Anyway, here's an old thread with many relevant suggestions: Poke-educate me. Updating my own comment there, the Pokémon FireRed game walkthrough covers a lot of the same territory as season 1 of the show--it's a re-vamped version of the original game--and might be the fastest way to understand the background.

Incidentally, Detective Pikachu was a lot of fun for me as a fan, and it does reference background material established in the first series and first movie (as well as an entirely different game), but as an intro, I'd guess its principal merit is it's kind of funny and watchable and related to your temporary tattoo. But the show's first season is kind of funny and watchable too, and the episodes are so short--watching even 2 hours of it goes a long way.
posted by Wobbuffet at 8:55 AM on May 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

I like the suggestions to arbitrarily pick a favorite Pokemon, if only because that will give your nephews a jumping-off point for arguing why their favorite is better. But you might be well-served to figure out which "generation" they're into (every couple of years a new set or "gen" of Pokemon become relevant, so they're probably not into the ones from the late 90s and are instead into whatever the most recent set is) and pick a Pokemon from that gen, watch a TV episode from that season, learn who the "starter Pokemon" are from that gen, buy that particular handbook, etc. Having collected the handbooks as a casual fan when I was a kid, I think the handbook will probably be more accessible to you than something like Bulbapedia.

(This question brings back memories of being five or six and being *shocked* that my grandmother didn't know who Pikachu was!)
posted by chaiyai at 2:05 PM on May 30, 2022 [1 favorite]

Thank you so much for asking this. I also have nephews, and I can hold my own with dinosaurs, Paw Patrol is pretty straightforward, but Pokemon.... it's just a whole thing that I didn't know where to start with.
posted by kjs4 at 11:37 PM on May 30, 2022

Honestly, the first season (free online) is pretty good

Or better still just learn the rocking theme song.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:16 AM on May 31, 2022 [1 favorite]