Pikachu's Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokemon

by David Buckingham

Book Overview

Initially developed in Japan by Nintendo as a computer game, Pok mon swept the globe in the late 1990s. Based on a narrative in which a group of children capture, train, and do battle with over a hundred imaginary creatures, Pok mon quickly diversified into an array of popular products including comic books, a TV show, movies, trading cards, stickers, toys, and clothing. Pok mon eventually became the top grossing children's product of all time. Yet...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822332876
• ISBN13: 9780822332879
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Length: 299 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.6" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Excellent comprehensive look into Japanese influence on consumer culture

Each chapter is written by a different expert in various fields (business, anthropology,etc) and offers a very deep view of the Japanese and global consumer market using pokemon as a basis for discussion. It is a very interesting read even if it is not being used as a text book. Great for business majors and anyone interested in consumer or Japanese culture and pokemon!

Pikachu's Global Adventure to My Heart =)

I loved this prodict! It was a little beat up but that was what I was expecting. I couldn't put that book down <3 Came in the mail quickly and with no problems.

Great book

The previous reviewer must have been brain dead herself when she read the book. There is no other way she could have so completely misread this text. The authors are not opponents of Pokemon -- as if that was even the point. In excerpting the statements from Tobin about the "evil" empire of Pokemon, she completely misquotes him. He CLEARLY argues in his introduction that this represents one of the perspectives on Pokemon and then goes on to lay out other perspectives. In the chapter about anti-Pokemon websites, the author is describing the discourse of these websites, not advocating for them. In fact, the author describes these as "moral panics". A moral panic is a misplaced fear that sweeps a society. If this reviewer knew anything at all about the scholarship of the people represented in this book or about the language of cultural studies, she would realize that her reading of them as children's pop culture haters is absurd. I DO use chapters from this book in my children's media studies class exactly because it represents thoughtful and sophisticated scholarship. To look at the complicated ways the Pokemon as one representative of children's popular culture circulates both as part of the global economy and as part of the childhood identity economy, I recommend this book.