REVIEW: Monster Kids: How Pokémon Taught a Generation of Kids to Catch Them All (nonfiction book) by Daniel Dockery

Monster Kids is nonfiction. I bought my copy new.

Review:

In this book, Dockery covers the history of Pokemon and its North American (particularly US) marketing and popularity. Connected to that marketing aspect, Dockery also covers franchises such as Digimon, Monster Rancher, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Cardcaptors (not Cardcaptor Sakura).

I got this for the in-depth focus on Pokemon, which wasn't a franchise I was ever much interested in when I was younger, although I've come to appreciate the videogames as an adult. I hadn't expected this book to spend so much time on Digimon (in the "Pokemon vs. Digimon?" debate, Younger Me was very firmly in the Digimon camp, probably because I was at the older end of the age range these franchises targeted). Dockery hit me right in the nostalgia.

While I could see how Yu-Gi-Oh! was part of this overall conversation, I admit that I was initially annoyed at the inclusion of Cardcaptors. I vaguely remember watching that, and I think I enjoyed it, although I could be mixing my feelings up with my later exposure to Cardcaptor Sakura. I was molified when Dockery emphasized that Cardcaptor Sakura did not, in fact, have much in common with monster collecting franchises such as Digimon and Pokemon. The issue was that North American advertising and television executives thought that it did, and saw that connection as a way to snag young audiences (and, hopefully, their parents' dollars). From that perspective, the mess that was Cardcaptors suddenly makes more sense.

This was a fascinating and enjoyable read. I only wish Dockery had included a bibliography. In his acknowledgments, he mentions many of the sites he used as resources and thanks Daryl Harding, Crunchyroll Japanese correspondent, for his translation work, but if you want to know the source of a specific interview quote in the book you're going to have to hunt for it yourself.