I walk into a card shop in downtown Madison, and I am immediately greeted by the lone worker. I wander around the shop for a few moments glancing at the different games, boxes, figures, and other items on display, even though I know exactly what I came into the store for. Last time I was here I was with my partner who's just as passionate about video games and manga as I am, and when we were walking around the shop, I noticed a Pokémon card on display of one of his favorite mons in the current generation. With Christmas right around the corner, a gift idea forms!
Back to my most recent visit to the card shop. During my tour of the items on shelves, two other guys walk into the shop to start their shift and a smaller individual with headphones follows soon after. Finally building up the courage to ask my uninformed questions about the cards on display, I walk up to counter. I thoughtfully look at the cards on the display and immediately spot the card I was looking for, a holographic orange Tatsugiri (Curly Form). When I was last in the shop, none of these cards in the hard and soft plastic sleeves had prices. I try my best to discern if prices are listed somewhere on the cards or if there is a quick reference sheet that broadly displays the prices. I see nothing and I feel like I've put enough effort into trying to find context clues that I need to ask.
I look up to the first worker and say I have a few questions. My first question is blur to me now because all I remember is that all three employees tried answering my question all at once. I next ask about pricing and ask if the prices are listed on the cards somewhere I just can't yet see. The second employee, possibly one of the owners, says that they base their prices off an online website I've never heard of before, but also mention checking eBay prices. As I ask another uninformed question about listing the prices on the cards, I'm told that the prices fluctuate so much that those prices would be irrelevant almost immediately.
I say thank you and move aside a little for the person with the headphones to come browse the display case as well. As I look through all the cards, I think to myself, 'Maybe I can get my partner's brother one of these cards as well since he likes Pokémon and collects cards as well?' Headphones person, being bolder than I am at the moment and maybe just as naive about Pokémon cards, points out two cards in the hard plastic holders, which I later find out are referred to as slabs and indicated the card has been Graded, asks to see them and about the price. The employee happily obliges in pulling out the two cards, one an Eeveelution and the other a Rayquaza. As the employee turns to the computer by the register, opens a new tab on the browser, and cross checks the specific card name listed at the top of the PSA Graded card slab, Headphones talks about their Art major and their interest in the drawing of the card art.
I watch as the employee pulls up a website with a stock market-esque graph with updating info. As casual as ever, the employee turns to headphones and says, 'The first card is about $400.' If there was candid camera look at Headphones and myself, I'm sure you would have seen both of our eyes open wide in disbelief. He lists the price of the other card and it's also in the hundreds of dollars. I think to myself, 'Well. . . maybe I won't pick his brother up a card.'
I pull out my phone and start trying to look up the cards on display on eBay. As a novice in the Pokémon TCG (Trading Card Game) realm, I'm not entirely sure I'm looking up the exact item I'm looking at. I know I can match the name, and the year listed on the card, but I know nothing about subtle differences between cards, like variations in color (e.g., rainbow) and type (e.g., EX). I try googling Tatsugiri and the result I see shows one listed at $100. I swallow and I think about what I'm going to do next. I finally work up the courage and ask what the cards price is.
Unlike the cards looked up for Headphones, the time looking up Tatsugiri isn't as simple. Apparently, the card I'm asking about is so new, that one hasn't been sold yet on the website to list the price to dictate a price on the market. The presumed owner says, try checking eBay. Same situation where the exact card I'm asking about isn't listed, but instead a different, more standard version of it listed for a few bucks. The Owner explains that the one they have in the shop is a special promotional Tatsugiri that was only given out to those working at an in-person Pokémon event that took place this year. I think to myself, 'Oh, no. That sounds expensive.'
I watch as the two workers try and figure out what to do next. They know they have a potential customer and I'm sure they want to make a sale, especially on a volatile item such as a card. The Owner says something along the lines of, ‘well given the base pricing I can sell it to you for [redacted]’. His use of the first-person and his confidence is what makes me think he is an owner of the shop or at least a senior employee/supervisor. The price he gives me is much, much lower than what I was expecting. I let the two employees chat back and forth for a few moments, and I say, "Sold!' before minds and prices can be changed.
They check me out at the register and in the middle of the transaction I ask what their most expensive card is now. They say it's most definitely the shiny Charizard at a whopping $1000. I joke with them that I'll be in for that one later and they let out a chuckle. I walk outside with the card in my hand in its very sturdy slab. As I walk to where I’m staying in the city, I study the card. I see it's in great condition (Grade 9 – Mint) and look for the special promo logo on it the Owner pointed out. I see the letters STAFF in gold holographic on the left-hand side. As I get back to the room I'm staying in, I can't stop looking at and thinking about this card. That night I make the mistake of reading articles and watching YouTube videos explaining more about Pokémon TCG.
A Gay Boy and his GameBoy
In the few weeks that have passed since I purchased the Tatsugiri card, I've gone down a rabbit hole of Pokémon cards, one that I avoided for decades. I’m still carrying the card around in my bag until I gift it to my partner within these next few days (I hope you like it JP!) and it has been a constant reminder about the card game. This adjacency to Pokémon and the desire to incorporate it more into my life has been haunt(er)ing me for years. I grew up in the era of the original Pokémon card sets and the original games on the Gameboy but I remember fellow kids in my community hopping from one popular franchise to the another (e.g., Pokémon to Yu-Gi-Oh!) and this was when being nerdy and into hobbies like video games was taboo, meaning very few kiddos were openly into these activities.
My connection to Pokémon had a short stint into Pokémon cards, a few of which I still have, and I've played the games when I could. I cite the games as my biggest commitment to the franchise. My single player playthroughs of Pokémon Blue, Gold, and Ruby through the years led me to the summer of 2007 where a friend of mine, her siblings, and I played Pokémon Diamond and Pearl all summer. During the same time, a relative and I reconnected over other video games like the Halo franchise. Talk about a pivotal moment in my life for recognizing the fun and community that can be built based on video games. Thank you, Rachel and Jimmy!
As I got busier in life, the rust started forming on my Pokémon knowledge. It wasn't until 2016 with the release of Pokémon Go that I started polishing up my franchise knowledge. Pokémon Go (PoGo) brought fans of all ages out of the woodwork to live out their dream of walking around and catching Pokémon. It was also such a powerful cultural moment where Pokémon was the coolest to a broad audience. Keeping up the Pokémon momentum, I decided to catch up on the franchise and played through Pokémon White, X, and Moon and was up to speed for the release of Pokémon Sword in 2019. In the following years a global pandemic happened and I met my partner in 2022. Being adjacent to his fellow gaming passion, I redownloaded Pokémon Go and picked up Pokémon Scarlet (if you couldn't tell, I'm always a sucker for the red-themed games). Flash forward to now and my knowledge on the franchise is reaffirmed, born from years of casual flings with the games and finding community throughout my life.
An era of Science, Video Games, and Culture
I kept Pokémon at arm’s length many years, since my primary focus was on Science. As I've become more interdisciplinary and I now recognize the influence of cultures on sciences and sciences on culture, I see this barrier built up to preventing me from embracing both Pokémon and Science. I have dabbled in allowing both in my work and passions. I've created beadwork pieces portraying Pokémon, a perfect starter for a new beadwork artist working with solid lines and vibrant colors, and I incorporated Pokémon into my Science communication. I had short series where I would take pictures of different non-human animals I came across in graduate school and called it my "Who's that Pokémon?" series, and I was a co-host on the PikaScience (formerly The Science of Pokémon and PokéScience) podcast for about a year. The latter experience being a mixed bag with me being able to meet multiple other scientists and sharing our mutual interest in Pokémon, which was wonderful, but having to work with a founder whose new interest in diversity was built upon an individualistic mentality of self-promotion, and their constant microaggressions on the racialized co-hosts made it a terrible environment to make change in the Pokémon communities (see my open letters linked here and here).
Thinking back to a tweet I wrote in 2022 about my encounters with Science communication media "as so anti-Indigenous and colonial that I can't enjoy most of them anymore" I shouldn't be surprised that a podcast made by and for the majority in society didn't want to change or acknowledge where it was harming others or did nothing to change the status quo. It's been about a year since I've really engaged with Pokémon on the art and science front, with my biggest focus being on PoGo. Even the PoGo experience has been tumultuous where my partner and I go out into the city for bigger events like Mega Raid days, where multiple individuals are needed to work together to defeat a powerful Pokémon so we can all have the opportunity to catch them. Individualism runs rampant in these encounters where there is a disregard for other peoples' time, requests, and contributions. One common occurrence during these events is where someone or a small group will start the raid and not ask if people are ready, or they will communicate that they are going to do something at a specific time and place and not follow through. Resulting in raid losses, people losing the opportunity to catch the Pokémon, or folks wasting their time or real money because folks don’t follow through. In a franchise where the original song says, "I want to be the very best," it's not hard to see why individualism runs rampant and stepping on others to get what you want reigns supreme.
Simultaneously, as Pokémon and video games in general has grown in popularity, the amount of gatekeeping and active exclusion of folks has become even more clear. I can think of a handful of Indigenous folks online who love the franchise and incorporate it into their work, but an overwhelming majority of folks who engage as successful content creators are straight presenting men and are usually white. Like the summer of 2007 and my time with my partner these past few years, I want to create and/or grow spaces where I'm not the very best, but instead my communities can find commonality, relationships, and cultural critique and improvement in a now 25-year-old franchise.
I think I've already started the journey along this path where I blend the traditional and modern in my artwork with Pokémon and I'm still aiming to engage on the science front as well. But I want to engage more. When I was young kid, I wish I had a role model who knew about Pokémon and could help me learn and participate in popular activities like the trading card game. I'm at the point in my life where I really want to submerge myself in Pokémon and now have the flexibility in timing and funds to do so. I want to understand the current culture, the expectations, what makes something collectable and wanted, and I want to be able to educate and critique the systems.
This post is my official start to this full embrace of Pokémon and building upon the close-knit community I have now. I think what may be a bit jarring to some is that I'm aiming to bring Pokémon TCG collecting and filming into the embrace as well. The TCG scene is ripe with men dominating the scene, buying and ripping wild amounts of card packs and rare items, implementing get rich quick schemes, and/or producing click bait and reactionary videos to drive up views and polarizing opinions. I've been mulling it over this past month of what would it look like to do a pared-down version of this where I do occasionally purchase and open card packs, boxes and other official item, but I do it in a pointed manner. By that, I mean I have a goal to complete a card set, look for a specific card periodically, or purchase an item I’m very interested in like the Pincurchin plush I bought since I did research on sea urchins. I also want to pair this with unboxing purchased or traded hand-crafted items, especially beadwork, quillwork, drawing/painting done by Native artists. This past year, the media production company Rooster Teeth was shut down, and I had been a follower of their podcasts since I was in high school. I’m fortunate that some of my favorite people part of the company created The Stinky Dragon podcast and that I’m able to support and promote their independent work. Supporting small creators such as them and fellow Native crafters is more important than ever.
What I am aiming not to do in this TCG hobby is to be engulfed by consumerism and self-promotion. And to adopt majority practices, culture, and terminology that are harmful to others or promote stereotypes. Terminology such as hunting for specific Pokémon. For example, 'I'm hunting shiny Charizard.’ Depending on the Pokémon of interest, this can entail an astronomically amount of time, money, or personal connections to achieve. In PoGo, this can take investing lots of real money buying raid passes, and for TCG it can be ripping open hundreds of packs and literally tossing all the irrelevant cards to the side or buying the hot item on eBay. There are also folks who actively film themselves destroying (e.g., ripping up) items that are coveted by others to gain viewership. As a person critical of male gendering and hypermasculinity, I find the exclusive use of hunting hilarious and a bit yucky. Only a man can cast his aside his emotions and overcome Nature to achieve his goal. Then he will be the champion and the best there has ever been.
Hunting is important, but aren't gathering and crafting just as important? When they buy and open retro game packs or boxes, there was someone who took the time to find and caretake those items for the future, or the reason a card is Grade 10 – GM MT (Gem Mint - the highest ranking in the PSA system) was because someone took care of the item. I look at some of these content creators and I also wonder how they got to where they are today, where their knowledge came from, who's supporting them in the background now and in the past, and how do they give-back to their local community. Growing up as a rural Native kid, I wonder what this looks like from an Indigenous, or specific to my situation, an Ojibwe context. I think to myself, I know enough from years of playing the games to not start from scratch and I also think about my graduate school training that has given me the skills and confidence to learn a new subject quickly. Pair that with my work in laboratory settings working with delicate and rare samples has given important knowledge to handle items with care and analyze fine details. You mean I can nitpick how perfectly cut and equal the borders of a card are? Sign me up! I also find it ironic to be a Native person studying and preserving Western cultural items such as Pokémon cards, protecting them from being misused or abused by those in the majority culture, a practice often justified in the same manner for items stolen from Indigenous communities throughout the world and on display in museums.
All that's been stopping me is this idea that it's only a fad or that I'm too late to the card game. I've finally convinced myself that Pokémon isn't going anywhere soon and that if I don't do something now, I'll be saying the same thing when Pokémon celebrates its 50th anniversary! To begin my slow-paced introduction to Pokémon TCG, I created the YouTube channel Aabibidoon (rip it open) where I uploaded my first video of me unboxing this year’s Ultra Premium Collection Box – Terapagos EX. You can watch me stumble a bit in this process and you'll see that I acknowledge I have a lot to learn still. I'll be spending these next few months finding my footing in the TCG realm and my local communities' interest in Pokémon. Stay tuned and wish me luck as I dive into the chaos of Pokémon!