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- The model relationship between trainer and pokemon
- >Having refused the monster ball, Pikachu is riding with Satoshi on his bicycle when the two are attacked by killer birds overhead.When the boy is knocked un-conscious,Pikachu goes into warrior mode and saves his master from the birds. Impressed when he awakens at the boldness of his
- pokémon, the boy then returns the favor when Pikachu is hurt next and needs to be taken to a pokémon center. This sets the scene for what,in the television cartoon, is staged as the model relationship between pokémon and trainer. There is the reciprocity of friendship; the two mutually assist one another and work, in some sense, as a team. Yet crosscutting this friendship is a more hierarchical bond not unlike that of feudal servitude. Pikachu is the dependent, continu-ally serving Satoshi whenever ordered into battle (“I choose
- you
- ,Pikachu!”). In return for loyalty and service,Pikachu is taken care of, nurtured,and trained or reared. In essence,these are the basics of the human-monster relationship: something feudalistically old-fashioned yet futuristi-cally cyborgian (a pocket genie,friend,pet) as well. Time and time again in the cartoon, both aspects are played up: scenes of sharing, camaraderie, and kinship juxtaposed with scenes of monsters subjugated to, sacrificed for, and “pocketed” by humans.
- However within the show there is a contradiction to this paradigm. Pokémon are cuddly and are reminiscent of plushies, but also evoke a sense of ownership, control and mastery. The template of capitalism, but also evoking the antidote to capitalism.
- In some episodes of the show the group travel to a new area in search of capturing 'getting' new pokemon. However that area's ecosystem is in danger and they must save it. When they do save it, and decide not to capture a pokemon from this area (possibly deciding not to be colonial like the thing they just defeated) a pokemon decides to join ash because it admires him. Not only does ash gain the credit for things his pokemon did, but the narrator comes in and announces that ash gat 'gotten' another pokemon. Reintegrating the acquisition rhetoric into an instance that otherwise wouldnt warrant it.
- >In the beetle episode,nature collapses into capital (wildness into acquisi-tions) and capital into culture (a relation of things into interpersonal rela-tions).Such a ploy occurs often in the cartoon series.
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