Our theme for the month of March is “monsters.”

I had just come home from school, and I sat down to watch TV. I checked through some of the channels that I liked: Cartoon Network (channel 36), Nickelodeon (35), and Kids WB (7). On this last channel I found something interesting: what appeared to be a fight between a giant green mantis with swords for hands and some kind of weird yellow bear thing that could shoot electricity. Behind each creature, a cartoon human shouted instructions to the monsters, who were evidently theirs to command. I was seven and enthralled.

About a month ago, Pokémon celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. Although my first exposure was to the animated series back in 1999, the now-multi-billion-dollar franchise began in 1996 with the release of the video game titles Pocket Monsters: Red and Pocket Monsters: Green for the Game Boy in Japan. To this day, I would still call myself an avid fan of the franchise, though I stick mostly to the main series video game titles and a few figurines that I like to keep on my desk (for company). From seven to twenty-nine, I’ve never really stopped loving Pokémon, and over the years, I’ve wondered frequently: what exactly is the appeal? 

The story and character writing have never been all that great. There isn’t really a moral or lesson (to be the best???), and the humans in the story aren’t even all that special—it’s the monsters that have magical abilities and do all the work. 

The monsters. 

In other stories and mythologies, “monsters” are often bad and/or grotesque. Undesirable things that characters must slay/defeat/capture/expel/overcome/etc. There’s the occasional familiar or loyal beast, but for the most part, monsters tend to be foes, not friends. But here’s something that turns that on its head: what if we made monsters into adorable magic pets?

I’ll circle back to that adorable monster thing in a sec. Another thing that made at least the video games particularly unique at the time of their release was their use of multiplayer mechanics. Since the original titles were released a quarter century ago, every main series game has featured a mechanism for trading Pokémon between games. And, more importantly, trading between games is not just possible, it’s necessary. In any given game, there are certain Pokémon that are impossible to obtain unless another person trades them to you (the specific monsters you can’t get vary between games). So in order to actually do as the box says and catch them all, you need to collaborate with at least one other person. I think this matters. 

My mom sometimes refers to mental illness as a “monster” in the brain—a separate entity that drives behaviors that our conscious self may not even like or want, but we do them anyway. As I’ve come along my own mental health journey, I’ve found I like this metaphor, but I prefer to add a twist. See, I think of those monsters—anxiety and depression, mistakes and misfortunes, hurts and harms and addictions—as adorable little critters I catch and collect and carry as I go about my journey. They come in all different types and may evolve over time, into something more terrible or maybe more beautiful.

“The anxious tend to seek solitude, yet we simultaneously crave connection.” — Sarah Wilson, from first, we make the beast beautiful

How interesting that in a video game (made by and for introverts) one not only has the option but is required to play with a friend. I’ve discussed elsewhere how games, for me, are a space for enriching social relationships. Quite honestly, some of the best friendships I have were made and maintained at least partly because of a mutual interest in Pokémon. 

As I go along my own journey, collecting and growing with my various monsters, I’m reminded over and over of how much I rely on and thrive with connections with others, who have monster collections of their own. There is empathy in this.

So that’s my grossly optimistic reading. Pokémon is, possibly, a metaphor for the human condition. Or it’s just a silly game. You pick. 

Alex Westenbroek

Alex Westenbroek (’14) works as a speech language pathologist for WordPlay Speech and Language, a small company serving charter schools, grades K-12, in the Twin Cities metro area. Alex enjoys many things, including collecting and listening to vinyl records and playing board games. He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.