Meeting people through Pokémon — An end to Babel
The day I’m publishing this is the day after I spent all day catching Pokémon as part of the Sinnoh Go Tour in Pokémon Go.
Did I enjoy spending my weekend walking around the park in 40-degree weather playing a video game? Sort of, yeah.
I met a pair of players who were from Japan, also playing. We exchanged friend codes and went on our way. We managed to cross the language barrier even though we were from opposite sides of the world.
This year is Pokémon’s 25th anniversary in the United States (! time magazine). Tomorrow it will mark it’s 28th year, debuting Pokémon Green in 1996.
It took three years for the franchise to reach this country. There was a lot that had to happen in the interim. Localization is the process of translating to fit a particular language and location. This means translating from Japanese to English but also from meters to feet and km/h to mph.
But there can be a lot that needs to be changed to fit a different cultural audience. For instance, Nintendo was advised that the Pokémon to be buff in order to appeal to Americans. Can you imagine a swole Pikachu?
While they didn’t do that, its debut was still controversial. A small bunch of busybodies claimed the whole thing was satanic. Pokémon cards would be banned in many schools. PETA’s concern for digital characters was later mocked in Pokémon Black and White.
Nintendo did make some changes. Jynx and Bellossom were modified to be less racially tinged. Leaked beta designs from the follow-up, Gold and Silver, show how Pokémon like Murkrow leaned more into witchcraft and had to be changed.
All the while, there was definitely a convergence. It took two and a half years for the first games to reach the US, but Pokémon X and Y had a simultaneous release around the world. The localization process happened in tandem across many different languages, allowing everyone to start playing together.
This has continued not just with subsequent games but with other games and other software. Today the software you download usually comes with translations in many languages. Your phone is the same one that is used by people in many other countries.
A Korean movie like Parasite can win international accolades and Americans can watch it right now on Max. Netflix carries a number of good Korean series. American fans of anime can get a subscription for Crunchyroll and watch the same episodes as Japanese viewers with subtitles a day after airing.
Localization is a different kind of job today. Perhaps it was once a sort of apologism, trying to change the concepts entirely to fit a very different audience. Today it is more about bridging differences and connecting people from different backgrounds by finding what they have in common.
Tomorrow is Pokémon Day, and there’ll be a number of new announcements. There is a lot of speculation for a remastering of either the Gold/Silver or Black/White games. That speculation is discussed on forums around the world.
The old story of Babel was about cultural and language differences making it impossible for us to build big things. Today, there are still many divisions, but a lot more understanding.
