Pokemon

Although Punahou’s a good school where a lot of the usual “high school stereotypes” don’t apply. However, a few are ubiquitous, and still persist even here. One of those is of course, th at people who play video games, specifically “anime/Japanese video games”, are nerdy. Normally “nerdy’ people then get harassed by “cool” people, presumably because they fail at life for playing “Japanese video games”. Yet, there is one video game that crosses all such boundaries. I’m of course talking about Pokemon.
Recently, the latest installments in the Pokemon line, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl were released. Since my friends and I are into that sort of thing, we had known about the release. A few of my friends got the game, and of course, since its on a portable system, played it at school. I saw a few other “nerdy” people playing the game as well. All in all, there was a marked increase in the number of Nintendo DS’s that could be seen around the campus, Pokemon games at the ready.
One of my more “nerdy” friends was playing Pokemon before class as other people filtered in. pretty soon, a “cool” person walked in, went up to him, and commented on the pokemon. Because my friend sometimes gets targeted by the “cool” people, I was getting ready to stand up and chew him out when something funny happened. A conversation began in earnest between the two over strategies for beating the game, different tricks to try, and whatnot. Pokemon was common ground.
Since then, I have been amazed by the prevalence of Pokemon. I’ve seen people who would never be caught dead with a gameboy in hand play pokemon between classes. It’s served as a common ground between the cliques that sometimes form, and gotten people who would normally ignore each other to start talking. All in all, its been a good influence on the school (not counting the people who play it in assembly and chapel).
I wonder if anyone’s told Nintendo about this.