"Pokemon : I wanna Catch them all!"
Pokémon (ポケモン) is a media franchise published by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri around 1995. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video game-based media franchise in the world, behind only Nintendo's own Mario series. Pokémon properties have since been merchandised into anime, manga, trading cards, toys, books, and other media. The franchise celebrated its tenth anniversary on February 27, 2005, and as of 23 April 2008 (2008 -04-23), cumulative sales of the video games (including home console versions, such as the "Pikachu" Nintendo 64) have reached more than 186 million copies.
The name Pokémon is the romanized contraction of the Japanese brand, "Pocket Monsters" (ポケットモンスター),[as such contractions are very common in Japan. The term "Pokémon", in addition to referring to the Pokémon franchise itself, also collectively refers to the 493 fictional species that have made appearances in Pokémon media as of the recent release of the newest Pokémon role-playing game (RPG) for the Nintendo DS, Pokémon Platinum. Like the words deer and sheep, the word "Pokémon" is identical in both the singular and plural, as is each individual species name; in short, it is grammatically correct to say both "one Pokémon" and "many Pokémon". In November 2005, 4Kids Entertainment, which had managed the non-game related licensing of Pokémon, announced that it had agreed not to renew the Pokémon representation agreement. Pokémon USA Inc., a subsidiary of Japan's Pokémon Co., now oversees all Pokémon licensing outside of Asia.
"Here starts the great adventure..."
In a world much like our own, there exists over 450 creatures of all shapes, sizes, colors, and personalities, called pocket monsters("pokemon" for short.) Some pokemon are Fire types, some are Water types, some are Grass types, and so on. Some live on land, some in the water, and some live underground. But all pokemon are equipped with special attacks that pertain to whatever type of element they are. Certain people, called pokemon trainers, use pokemon for battles. When drawn into the capture device called a pokeball, pokemon become easily portable. The goal of a pokemon trainer is to have their pokemon battle against other pokemon in order for their pokemon to get stronger.
If a pokemon gets enough battle experience, it could evolve into another, more powerful creature. In order to be a good pokemon trainer, you must capture a lot of pokemon, train some of them to be really strong in pokemon battles, and most importantly, you must get your pokemon to love you and trust you, or else they won't obey you! The Pokemon anime follows the adventures of Ash Ketchum, a pokemon trainer from Pallet Town, who travels the different regions of the pokemon world with his friends, meeting all kinds of people and pokemon, stopping Team Rocket from stealing and controlling rare pokemon, battling against other trainers and gym leaders, and all the while, Ash tries to fulfill his dream of becoming a Pokemon Master and befriend all the pokemon he can.
source: Wikipedia.org and www.animeyume.com/pokemon/pksynopsis.html (Article) and Google Image Search (Pictures).
