What is Pokemon?

Series Summary

Pokemon burst on the scene of Nintendo’s Game Boy in 1995 as a role-playing game that allowed players to link Game Boys together and compete against their friends. Second only to the popularity of the Mario Brothers, the fame of Pokemon grew into a gigantic media franchise, spawning toys, books, anime, manga, and a collectible card game (CCG) called the Pokemon Trading Card Game. The card game was first produced by Wizards of the Coast, but later, after so much success, was pulled back under the wing of Nintendo itself. There have been 35 complete sets of cards released from 1998 to 2008! Each containing anywhere from 61-368 cards. Only 8 of these sets, however, are allowed in most tournament or league games.

In this free video series on playing Pokemon, a resident Pokemon Master, Jodi Serge, teaches you how to play Pokemon TCG. You will learn about each kind of card, strategies for attacking, and how damage is dealt. Besides damage, special conditions can affect each pokemon, and Jodi runs through those as well. Knocking out pokemon is key to winning, but other cards change the pace of the game without doing direct damage; trainer cards introduce new stadiums, healing, or effects that alter game play. Learn to catch 'em all here!

Video Transcript

"Hello, let's talk a little bit about what Pokemon is. Pokemon was created around nineteen ninety-five by a gentleman by the name Satogi Seteri. He had a love of collecting insects and so he wanted to create a game that was about collecting and he came up with Pokemon. Pokemon is the second longest running card game next to magic, and it's played all over the world by kids in video game format, in the trading card game format, there's anime, there's manga, which are Japanese comics, there's plush toys, you name it, there's a Pokemon for it. Pokemon started as a video game, and now they are very many incarnations of it including the most recent Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. There's Pokemon T-shirts and modeled by my friend, Mack here. There are Pokemon toys in every incarnation, from toys to plushes and backpacks. Pikachu is so snuggly. There's everything from anime, or Japanese cartoons, and there's the Japanese manga which are Japanese comics, usually seen black and white, and for the most part you actually read them backwards from regular American comics, but this one has been reprinted in our reading way. There are younger versions of the Pokemon comics, there are Pokemon magazines, which can tell you everything from strategies, tips and tricks to playing both the video games and the card game, as well as complete card listings on the inside with prices if you want to find out how much your cards are worth. You can get Pokemon stickers and this special Pokemon album to put them inside, or Pokemon game books usually made for younger children, where you can look and find different Pokemon inside. And Pokedexes will hopefully help you with your game both in the trading card game and the video games. My favorite is the Pokedex. There are over six hundred different kinds of Pokemon now, with the Diamond and Pearl expansion. And this is going to give you information on pretty much all of them. There's also electronic Pokedexes as well. Brand new to the Pokemon universe, is the Pokemon spinning figure game. As you can see, Pokemon is a phenomenon that has taken the world by storm."