Makeshift Parenting
Though it can admittedly come off as a bit cheesy or ham-fisted to older players, Pokémon games are absolutely loaded with life lessons and semi-preachy inhabitants, revealing exactly how your ought to go about living day to day Though these bouts of “work hard, make friends!” mostly just induce a smile and a nod from an older trainer like myself, they’re part of the fabric of the series and need to be there.
Hear me out – the first reason this works is because it creates somewhat of a paradox in the mind of the younger player (a large segment of Pokémon’s audience, remember). I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, it was always dead obvious what was “cool” and what was meant to be enriching or educational, and they rarely overlapped. It doesn’t take you long after entering kindergarten to realize that Transformers and Teen Titans are both a lot more fun and a lot less made-fun-of than what’s airing on PBS. This is unfortunate, but often a reality.
The beauty of Pokémon is that it’s something that is extremely fun, addicting, and even fashionable at the elementary and junior high age, yet also jam-packed with simple yet valid life lessons. Where a pro-tip like “always treat others with respect” might be met with a wad of Play-Doh to the head when heard from the average kindergarten teacher, kids will gladly swallow the same advice from the mouth Professor Oak without a second thought. Or one of his many arborescent cohorts, of course.
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