Intriguing. I never dwelt on the question what made Pokémon so popular, and appreciate the relationship drawn with this earlier cultural phenomenon of beasteries.
I don't have an answer to this, or even a concrete question, but I wonder about your placing of Pokemon on the parade end of the spectrum. Pokemon is of course short for "pocket monsters," i.e. some sort of monster; nonetheless, in the series they are more cute than frightening, and, being a show directed at children (this is also true about the games, but there it might be mere technical simplification), while it is violent in essence it is not graphically violent; no blood, no real contact blows (until the first Pokemon movie, at least), nobody dies. Team Rocket are more buffoons than malicious characters, if only due to their lack of success.
"[...] in pandemonium, the natural world is haunted by powerful, sometimes malevolent creatures." It's perhaps remarkable that the human world of Pokemon, though altogether presented as modern, is penetrated and surrounded by nature. There are no roads connecting the cities; they are interspersed by meadows and forests haunted by (level appropriate) pokemon.
I think I recall not all the yokai being necessarily "demonic", either. Is that right? I'd guess it has to do with the Christian evil-good dualistic world view that is foreign to the Japanese religious worldview.
—
I wonder about the human drive behind these cultural phenomena. One is, indeed, the fascination with living beings and with their understanding. Another, I'd say, is the drive some have of cataloging. Pokemon's creator was fascinated with insects, I, as a child in a more urban environment, tabulated on a sheet of paper the (chemical) elements I found in the encyclopedia — until I accidentally hit upon the article "element," which had already such a table, and my brain exploded. Yet another, one can imagine, is a turn towards a kind of scholarly conquering of nature — if the "here be dragons" induces fear of the unknown, their arrangement in a codex prospectively deprives them of at least the element of surprise. It is even made more explicit in pokemon: Ash is not merely going out to complete a Linnaeutic project (a detail I have completely forgotten about), but also to train(!) the pokemon, and, further —here is a complete dominion— to battle them against each other. Pawns in the hands of humans.
—
It's the first time I hear about yokai karuta (or karuta in general), thank you. I wonder if you have seen such cards as described, with a description? I searched and found some photos of such cards where there's a name to the yokai, but not even a phrase, to say nothing of a description (it might be on the flip side, but I sustain my skepticism). It doesn't really matter to the greater picture, but I wonder if Foster did not add that bit to sustain the more elegant than if otherwise connection he makes between them and pokemon cards. For that matter, such monsters with description existed in Magic the Gathering (the first trading card games according to Wikipedia), which has further semblances to the Pokemon card game which it precedes (I'm thinking of the elemental aspect.. the colors of magic, white, black &c vs. the elements in Pokemon).
—
The Red Riding Hood's wolf in the woods menace had been lost not only as nature receded before the cities of Men, but because the story as I think it's commonly known today has been, as you put it, Disneyfied. A long time ago. There were stark differences between the (original, if I remember correctly) story arising/ captured at the French royal court and the story as it was recorded by the brothers Grimm (which ultimately came from the French). I vaguely recall some lewd suggestion made by the wolf to the girl — here too we can take animals to symbolize human virtues and vices.
Reading about here again, I couldn't help but see something suggestive in the virgin that alone can capture and tame a unicorn, especially with the incarnation (or resurrection of the flesh, you might say) bit.
—
I liked reading your "The bestiary’s primary ‘use,’ if we must take an instrumental approach to such an extravagantly imaginative genre, was as a repository of animal allegories for sermons." I have long thought about fiction along similar lines, as a manner by which to make abstract ideas memorable and complicated ideas easily communicable. Instead of saying "a person who is accused by authorities, against whose bureaucratic machinery he feels helpless, for an unidentifiable crime" you can simply evoke Kafka's Franz K., for example.
So we're not going to have entries about Paras or Venonat?
First, thanks so much for the very thoughtful post.
In reply to a few of your points (I'll get back to the rest when I have more time today)
"It's perhaps remarkable that the human world of Pokemon, though altogether presented as modern, is penetrated and surrounded by nature. There are no roads connecting the cities; they are interspersed by meadows and forests haunted by (level appropriate) pokemon."
In my reading, Pokémon is very much a response to the 20th century urbanization of Japan, especially of the Tokyo metropolitan area: a dream of an undeveloped, wooded Japan still inhabited by strange creatures.
"Ash is not merely going out to complete a Linnaeutic project (a detail I have completely forgotten about), but also to train(!) the pokemon, and, further —here is a complete dominion— to battle them against each other. Pawns in the hands of humans."
Pokémon's cocreator Satoshi Tajiri once described Pokémon training as a metaphor for the very real human need to control inner monsters such as fear and anger. I go into this in the post on Charizard and the influence of dragon mythology, drawing on Joseph Campbell's insight that "the mythological hero is the champion not of things become but of things becoming; the dragon to be slain by him is precisely the monster of the status quo."
Re: fiction making abstract ideas memorable and instantly legible -- there's a CS Lewis essay about The Wind in the Willows and anthropomorphic animals in general and he argues that one of the reasons why writers, artists, etc. keep returning to this theme is because of how well these humanized animals can serve as 'hieroglyphics' for aspects of the human condition, clear enough to be completely understood by children.
No, no Paras or Venonat. (Not even anything on Squirtle and its family; I just couldn't think of something interesting to write.) Oddish and the mandrake/mandragora are up next.
Much to read! I'm looking forward to going through the series.
With regards to Squirtle, I've seen him as a manifestation of kappas, and so would think he's part of a long history, but I suppose you know what it is you need to write.
By the way, it occurred to me only recently to provide a table of contents to my serial pieces, as Substack's default post listing fails in that function on several regards. I've seen that it occurred to you too, and that you put a (partial) table on the intermission-introduction post, but perhaps including a full & running table in the very introduction would do to serve passersby and new readers? Just a thought.
Going to explore the kappa connection with Golduck. (Red and Blue Pokedex: "Often seen swimming elegantly by lake shores. It is often mistaken for the Japanese monster, Kappa.")
That's a good idea and I think I will implement it when I have some time later today. Thank you.
Yes, there is absolutely an innate human need to sort and catalogue that manifests itself in the bestiary and in our modern science.
I don't know much about yokai cards and my only sources for them are the two Michael Dylan Foster books. There is absolutely a connection between Pokémon and Magic: the Gathering. Magic's publisher Wizards of the Coast was the original Pokémon Trading Card Game licensee in the United States, printing and distributing American Pokémon cards from 1998 to 2003.
You briefly covered bears and Persia. I am currently working on writing about the book of Daniel, where Persia is compared to a bear. I'd also be interested in astrological references.
Intriguing. I never dwelt on the question what made Pokémon so popular, and appreciate the relationship drawn with this earlier cultural phenomenon of beasteries.
I don't have an answer to this, or even a concrete question, but I wonder about your placing of Pokemon on the parade end of the spectrum. Pokemon is of course short for "pocket monsters," i.e. some sort of monster; nonetheless, in the series they are more cute than frightening, and, being a show directed at children (this is also true about the games, but there it might be mere technical simplification), while it is violent in essence it is not graphically violent; no blood, no real contact blows (until the first Pokemon movie, at least), nobody dies. Team Rocket are more buffoons than malicious characters, if only due to their lack of success.
"[...] in pandemonium, the natural world is haunted by powerful, sometimes malevolent creatures." It's perhaps remarkable that the human world of Pokemon, though altogether presented as modern, is penetrated and surrounded by nature. There are no roads connecting the cities; they are interspersed by meadows and forests haunted by (level appropriate) pokemon.
I think I recall not all the yokai being necessarily "demonic", either. Is that right? I'd guess it has to do with the Christian evil-good dualistic world view that is foreign to the Japanese religious worldview.
—
I wonder about the human drive behind these cultural phenomena. One is, indeed, the fascination with living beings and with their understanding. Another, I'd say, is the drive some have of cataloging. Pokemon's creator was fascinated with insects, I, as a child in a more urban environment, tabulated on a sheet of paper the (chemical) elements I found in the encyclopedia — until I accidentally hit upon the article "element," which had already such a table, and my brain exploded. Yet another, one can imagine, is a turn towards a kind of scholarly conquering of nature — if the "here be dragons" induces fear of the unknown, their arrangement in a codex prospectively deprives them of at least the element of surprise. It is even made more explicit in pokemon: Ash is not merely going out to complete a Linnaeutic project (a detail I have completely forgotten about), but also to train(!) the pokemon, and, further —here is a complete dominion— to battle them against each other. Pawns in the hands of humans.
—
It's the first time I hear about yokai karuta (or karuta in general), thank you. I wonder if you have seen such cards as described, with a description? I searched and found some photos of such cards where there's a name to the yokai, but not even a phrase, to say nothing of a description (it might be on the flip side, but I sustain my skepticism). It doesn't really matter to the greater picture, but I wonder if Foster did not add that bit to sustain the more elegant than if otherwise connection he makes between them and pokemon cards. For that matter, such monsters with description existed in Magic the Gathering (the first trading card games according to Wikipedia), which has further semblances to the Pokemon card game which it precedes (I'm thinking of the elemental aspect.. the colors of magic, white, black &c vs. the elements in Pokemon).
—
The Red Riding Hood's wolf in the woods menace had been lost not only as nature receded before the cities of Men, but because the story as I think it's commonly known today has been, as you put it, Disneyfied. A long time ago. There were stark differences between the (original, if I remember correctly) story arising/ captured at the French royal court and the story as it was recorded by the brothers Grimm (which ultimately came from the French). I vaguely recall some lewd suggestion made by the wolf to the girl — here too we can take animals to symbolize human virtues and vices.
Reading about here again, I couldn't help but see something suggestive in the virgin that alone can capture and tame a unicorn, especially with the incarnation (or resurrection of the flesh, you might say) bit.
—
I liked reading your "The bestiary’s primary ‘use,’ if we must take an instrumental approach to such an extravagantly imaginative genre, was as a repository of animal allegories for sermons." I have long thought about fiction along similar lines, as a manner by which to make abstract ideas memorable and complicated ideas easily communicable. Instead of saying "a person who is accused by authorities, against whose bureaucratic machinery he feels helpless, for an unidentifiable crime" you can simply evoke Kafka's Franz K., for example.
So we're not going to have entries about Paras or Venonat?
First, thanks so much for the very thoughtful post.
In reply to a few of your points (I'll get back to the rest when I have more time today)
"It's perhaps remarkable that the human world of Pokemon, though altogether presented as modern, is penetrated and surrounded by nature. There are no roads connecting the cities; they are interspersed by meadows and forests haunted by (level appropriate) pokemon."
This is absolutely true, and a theme I explored in this post about the series' socioeconomic context: https://walrod.substack.com/p/after-godzilla
In my reading, Pokémon is very much a response to the 20th century urbanization of Japan, especially of the Tokyo metropolitan area: a dream of an undeveloped, wooded Japan still inhabited by strange creatures.
"Ash is not merely going out to complete a Linnaeutic project (a detail I have completely forgotten about), but also to train(!) the pokemon, and, further —here is a complete dominion— to battle them against each other. Pawns in the hands of humans."
Pokémon's cocreator Satoshi Tajiri once described Pokémon training as a metaphor for the very real human need to control inner monsters such as fear and anger. I go into this in the post on Charizard and the influence of dragon mythology, drawing on Joseph Campbell's insight that "the mythological hero is the champion not of things become but of things becoming; the dragon to be slain by him is precisely the monster of the status quo."
Re: fiction making abstract ideas memorable and instantly legible -- there's a CS Lewis essay about The Wind in the Willows and anthropomorphic animals in general and he argues that one of the reasons why writers, artists, etc. keep returning to this theme is because of how well these humanized animals can serve as 'hieroglyphics' for aspects of the human condition, clear enough to be completely understood by children.
No, no Paras or Venonat. (Not even anything on Squirtle and its family; I just couldn't think of something interesting to write.) Oddish and the mandrake/mandragora are up next.
Much to read! I'm looking forward to going through the series.
With regards to Squirtle, I've seen him as a manifestation of kappas, and so would think he's part of a long history, but I suppose you know what it is you need to write.
By the way, it occurred to me only recently to provide a table of contents to my serial pieces, as Substack's default post listing fails in that function on several regards. I've seen that it occurred to you too, and that you put a (partial) table on the intermission-introduction post, but perhaps including a full & running table in the very introduction would do to serve passersby and new readers? Just a thought.
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Going to explore the kappa connection with Golduck. (Red and Blue Pokedex: "Often seen swimming elegantly by lake shores. It is often mistaken for the Japanese monster, Kappa.")
That's a good idea and I think I will implement it when I have some time later today. Thank you.
For right now, this is the whole series, oldest at the bottom:
https://walrod.substack.com/s/necessary-monsters/archive?sort=new
A few more thoughts.
Yes, there is absolutely an innate human need to sort and catalogue that manifests itself in the bestiary and in our modern science.
I don't know much about yokai cards and my only sources for them are the two Michael Dylan Foster books. There is absolutely a connection between Pokémon and Magic: the Gathering. Magic's publisher Wizards of the Coast was the original Pokémon Trading Card Game licensee in the United States, printing and distributing American Pokémon cards from 1998 to 2003.
You briefly covered bears and Persia. I am currently working on writing about the book of Daniel, where Persia is compared to a bear. I'd also be interested in astrological references.