Farewell to a duo that was controversial

JC Maraddon

In the second half of the 1990s, the appearance on cable TV of a Japanese animated series called “Pokemon” kept the radars of the parent leagues on alert, raising the cry to heaven for this supposed foreign interference that, in addition , apparently irritated the sensibilities of those children prone to convulsions. As had happened twenty years before with the language of El Chavo, to which harmful effects against our language were attributed, after a few months the warnings faded and no one ever remembered that this program had ever unleashed such controversy.

What we could not imagine at that time, is that with the new millennium many more products with similar characteristics would arrive, which from the Far East landed in the local market and drove the children’s audience crazy, at the same time that they were incomprehensible for the adult public. . Consumers of anime and manga who prolonged their passion for these genres beyond their childhood, ended up forming the Otaku culture, a kind of social tribe united by a fanaticism towards those forms of Japanese expression that had been fought for so much here and that however they managed to prevail.

In 2016, that 90s phenomenon became popular again, but as a game, which had been its original format before being caught on television. Few could resist the temptation of downloading the Pokemon Go app, which from the cell phone allowed them to interact in real time with the surrounding reality and hunt pokemon to score points in the competition. It was a fleeting but very effective fever, in which millions of users caught on, now without any of the objections of the last century, which had been left out of focus by the galloping globalization promoted by the web.

After that universal explosion that motivated a large part of humanity to go on a virtual hunt for pokemons, entertainment was losing its massiveness and once again had to take refuge in the field of gamers, where it still enjoys the predilection of many fans who they persist in their preference for this invention of the Nintendo company. However, it was to be expected that the profusion offered by streaming platforms would be an incentive to recover the wide reach that the animated strip once knew how to have, despite the repulsion it generated among those who could not understand its codes.

Well, a few days ago the 11 episodes corresponding to “Pokemon’s Definitive Journeys” were released in Japan, which is announced as the last link in this saga in which Pikachu and Ash Ketchum played the main roles until now. Throughout this year, the series will return to the attack, but offering the opportunity to meet other protagonists and saying goodbye to that role to the duo that in this way managed to complete a quarter of a century at the helm of this global franchise that has enjoyed leadership in its category for most of these years.

The argument of not missing the end of the adventures of these two traveling companions is an irresistible hook for those who grew up fascinated by the exploits of characters who, being so exotic, became part of the landscape of the imagination of several generations around them. of the planet. Not everything will be new: the survival of pokemons like Sprigatito, Fuecoco and Quaxly in the next stage will mitigate the nostalgia of those who, beyond the warnings and bad omens, were carried away by the chapters of this production of Japanese origin.