I love Pokémon, it’s my special interest, I’ve been playing since Gen 1 and have pretty extensive knowledge about the Pokémon world.
However since becoming a communist I’ve realized that a lot of things are missing from the world, including basic functions on how everything works. Just the presence of police implies there are laws that have to be enforced, which in turn implies people write those laws, etc. We know that there was an industrial revolution, which led to capitalism, being the economic system in all Pokémon regions, meaning all of the contradictions that come with it. There was a war that took place, as alluded to by Lt. Surge, who might actually be from Unova.
In the manga there’s the Pokémon Association (PA), a legislative body that determines the laws involving Pokémon, similar to Congress here in the U.S., with each region apparently having its own PA.
In the anime they have the Pokémon Inspection Agency (PIA) that inspects Gyms to see if they’re up to par.
They don’t explicitly talk about politics and political views (obviously because the series is marketed to kids) but I think exploring these mechanisms could be really interesting, if not for the fact that Pokémon adds another layer to politics because they’re creatures with a material effect on the world.
Some people might be more left leaning when it comes to economics and social issues, but might be more right leaning when it comes to trainer regulations.
I’m curious to know what other people think, I’m actually writing a story that explores some of these themes so I’d love to get some ideas!
Yeah, it’s why the later games and stories are even worse, I probably will never get over how awful SwSh was…I mean we’re talking an energy crisis that won’t happen for a thousand years and this dude wants to solve it this weekend? Can’t even wait till Monday after the Gym Circuit finals lol?
At least the manga offers more insight, for example, apparently Misty and Erika are filthy rich, both of them have mansions and servants. Something definitely not explored in the games nor anime.
Apparently SwSh had an earlier draft of the script where Leon and the Chairman worked together to rig Leon’s matches in his favour. The idea of the chairman working with the champion to boost ratings for his pokemon league would’ve worked so well with the “soccer stadium” theme of the gyms. Instead we got last minute out of nowhere plot twist evil villain who is just misguided. Easily the most wasted potential out of any pokemon game.
Ugh, absolutely, one of my main gripes with Gen 7 is the fact that it felt like they were trying to do two things at once and ended up doing neither well. On one hand you have the whole Darkest Day twin heroes plotline involving the two legendaries, on the other the whole Gym Circuit soccer stadium with Team Yell (easily one of the worst antagonists ever made). Had they stuck to just one of those things it might have been a much better game (also not misleading us all to think the Wild Area would be the whole game instead of these corridor ass routes).
Maybe one day I’ll write a better Galar story that isn’t completely lame as hell.