The Lure of Pokémon: Main text

ebook

By NAKAZAWA Shinichi

cover image of The Lure of Pokémon: Main text

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From its humble beginnings as a video game launched in the mid-90s, Pokémon has become a global entertainment franchise, even reaching into the real world via "augmented reality" with the mobile game Pokémon Go. In this work, Nakazawa Shinichi argues that the Pokémon worldview is the best contemporary example of Claude Lévi-Strauss's "savage mind" (la pensée sauvage), suggesting that computer games can often be viewed as attempts to reconnect the human unconscious with the true, hidden essence of nature. The author supports his argument through close analysis of the development of electronic gaming in Japan. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis, Lévi-Straussian structuralism, and other resources, he explores cultural touchstones like Space Invaders and the RPG genre, showing how their rich expression appeals directly to the urges and impulses within children. This book is both a work of game criticism revealing la pensée sauvage within today's video games and an examination of the Japanese popular culture.
The Lure of Pokémon: Main text