Blogpost 1: You're Too Old For Pokemon!

I have always been fond of the Pokémon franchise. I have experienced playing countless hours and days in completing all those 150 pocket monsters in the first generation games to all 679 known and recorded Pokémon in the sixth generation games. I used to hide under the bed covers and making sure that all my Pokémon were trained well. I also played the non-traditional, rogue-like franchises that is the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and Pokemon Ranger.

Even if you have never played any Pokémon game before, you're probably familiar with the basic gameplay. You travel from town to town, exploring new characters and new creatures then capturing them into Pokéballs for them to fight and help you defeat a sinister gang and become the Pokémon champion. It's the most innocent and most wholesome idea of pet tournaments that can be played by children by ages five to twelve. So what makes Pokémon enjoyable even though you're 30 years old? 

According to Cracked.com's article about "Four Creepy Ways 'Pokémon' Changed Since You Stopped Playing", there are four reasons on why Pokémon isn't mainly targetted for children anymore: (1) Players became obsessed with Mathematics, (2) It secretly got dark, (3) The unofficial merchandise is ridiculous, and (4) Really hardcore fans became perverts. 

As a competitive Pokémon battler, I must say that the first statement is true. Even in the old games, coding involved simple mathematical equations from capturing Pokémon involving their catch rate, status ailment and type of Pokéball used, to accuracy checks and damage checks. 

Talk about calculations.

Knowing that, hardcore Pokémon fans tried to determine these computations to advanced Pokémon games to make their battling seem more complex and easy. People now can determine "Effort Values" (EV) and "Individual Values" (IV) to differentiate two same Pokémon.

According to Bulbapedia.com, "Effort Values" are the ones that affect a Pokémon's stats. The EV stats can be spread out in a Pokémon's Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed to total of 510. These EV's can be gained through battling Pokémon. Each Pokémon has a certain value that can be given out if you defeat them in battle. For example, defeating an Abra can give you 2 EV's into Special Attack and a Spearow can give you 2 EV's in Speed. 

Bulbapedia also tells us that "Individual Values" are the ones that determine the base stats of a Pokémon. It is given out when a Pokémon is hatched through an egg, similar to being a Pokémon's genes. Here you can determine a Pokémon if it were to be a male or female, shiny or not, it's nature, and it's Hidden Power. 

Pokémon fans then breeded and compiled all the best Pokémon to satisfy their battle hunger. According to WikiHow, "Perfect Pokemon" would have perfect 6 IV's and perfectly EV-trained, trained to get the perfect moves and to level 100. They'd have to breed and breed and breed the same Pokémon in order to get the characteristics they want and release the poor inferior imperfect ones just to fulfill their desired.

The Pokémon anime where Ash Ketchum stars in doesn't have the best storyline. It goes by training Pokémon, go through all towns, capture new Pokémon and battle others. It teaches us the true meaning of friendship, so it mainly appeals to the children. But what if the anime got a little darker? There are several articles about dark side-stories of Pokémon in CreepyPasta including why Ash doesn't age and the reason why there was a mass suicide of Pokémon players. 

Every single Pokémon has a weird and scary back story. It creates mixed feelings to grown-ups to know more about these fictional creatures and adds more interest to the franchise. One of those is Clefable and Gengar, Clefable being a normal-type and Gengar being a ghost-type. The Shadow Theory from CreepyPasta states that Gengar is the shadow of Clefable because it has they have the same body type and body figures. Gengar is one oddball Pokémon too, having it's evolutionary line Gastly emerging from another dimension as a gas, Haunter reaching and clawing out of the dimension into the human realm, Gengar being able to transport itself completely into the visible world, and Mega Gengar grasping itself to the ground to stay.

I think this side story is pretty cute.

The Pokémon merchandise is quite amusing too, as it gives you a slight look at the sexy but still nerdy side of  Pokémon. For starters, the unofficial merchandise released the "Pokébra", the " Pokémon Menstrual Pad" complete with all the designs of your favorite Pokémon, and the infamous "Pokémon Vibrator" designed to send your body beautiful shockwaves. 

Stay young and sexy with these all new Pokémon-bras!

Speaking of the sexual side of Pokémon, grown-ups may have become interested in the fanfictions for Pokémon. One modded version of the games involved changing the game sprites into little girls dressed up as your favorite Pokémon and fight for you. In 4chan, there is a forum category that involves frequent discussions about Pokémon in general. After spelunking through several threads, you can find pictures and stories that are not safe for work, meaning you'd find unpleasant and sexually treated creatures that were your sweet cute pets.

Or probably some arousing pictures of your favorite Gardevoir.

"A Caterpie may change into a Butterfree, but the heart that beats inside is still the same."

I may be near that age where Pokémon isn't socially acceptable to play with, but I'm sure that I will always be a fan of Pokémon and will never ever forget my childhood memories.