My kids have turned to Pokemon old-school
Everything old is new again.
I thought I had escaped the Pokemon fad unscathed — the Japanese manga was popular among the grade school set when I was in high school. But it turns out toys are just like fashion trends — and the ’90s are back, baby.
This time around, Pokemon playing is confined to children (and adults!) wandering around with their smartphones trying to “catch” Pokémon and bumping into light poles.
My cousin, who is in university, introduced me to Pokemon Go in the summer.
“Look, there’s a Pokemon on the street,” he said excitedly. I peered over and around his phone. “I don’t see it,” I said. My reality veers hard to the literal.
By some cruel twist of fate, my children have no access to the Pokemon Go app.
And by cruel twist of fate, I mean me. I refuse to turn on my phone’s GPS and drain my battery in 20 minutes flat just so they can hunt for imaginary friends.
“Can I get data on my tablet?” Ibrahim asks. “I can pay!” I tell him that his money will run out pretty fast, and does he have any idea how the big telecommunications companies work in Canada? That shuts him up — he knows better than to get me started on my cellphone bill. My husband calls Pokemon Go a “killer app,” which is tech speak for the type of monster hit that makes people upgrade their hardware just so they can play new software.
This explains why Mustafa has been petitioning hard for an iPad. His current (three-year-old) tablet can’t play the game. My counter offer (a trip to the library) has us at an impasse.
So my kids settle for an old-school solution: they invest their Eid money in Pokemon playing cards, and the games begin.
At Toys “R” Us, the dizzying variety of Pokémon cards puts the cereal aisle to shame. You can get them in tin boxes, booster packs, legendary, X and Y, Red and Blue. There’s even a Spring collection.
My sons bring their loot home and rip open the packaging. “Oooh, I got Pikachu!” Ibrahim says. “I got Mewtwo!” Mustafa says.
They tell me about energy cards, lightning cards and offer to teach me how to play.
Mustafa tells me to pick six cards from my pile. “This is your deck, this is your discard pile. Okay, now we need to flip a coin. You go first.”
I look at my hand — mutant thingies with names like Geodude, Gastly, Metapod and Snorunt stare back at me.
I choose the Clefairy, the friendliest looking one. Next I put down a card named White Kyurem.
“You can’t do that,” Ibrahim says. “You don’t have the energy to use it.” Truer words, my friend.
They point out microscopic red, orange, blue and yellow circles on the cards — each one indicates a power level and energy.
At the top of each card, the characters are given a class: Basic, Stage 1, Stage 2, Trainer.
The characters also evolve. Froakie turns into Stage 1 Frogadier, which evolves to Stage 2 Greninja.
I’m not sure how Darwinian natural selection is relevant to Pokemon, but I appreciate the biology lesson.
Also, I’m completely confused — and the box says ages 6 and up.
I put down another card and Mustafa flips a coin. “You’re dead,” he says and points to the discard pile.
“But I didn’t do anything,” I protest. “Are you making these rules up as you go?”
Manga-mania has them in their grip.
They watch Pokemon on Netflix, and Ibrahim draws Pikachu at home. They take their cards to school and trade with friends at recess. And now their ’90s fixation is spreading.
They watch Full House reruns, and Ibrahim even has an “Uncle Jesse” outfit — white T-shirt, skinny jeans, and a black vest.
Every kid has their thing — I remember an obsession with skipping rope games and She-Ra.
They’ll look back on this stage with retro nostalgia one day, when they are adults with no time for the small, consumerist pleasures of childhood.
Which is when I’ll bring out my picture of the “Uncle Jesse” and challenge them to a game of Pokemon.
They’ll have forgotten all the rules, but not me. I just downloaded the Pokedex. Uzma Jalaluddin is a high school teacher in the York Region. She writes about parenting and other life adventures. Reach her at ujalaluddin@outlook.com