Choosing Pathways

One of the things that have been involved in my life with Pokémon is making choices. I've determined which games to play, which episodes of the anime to watch, which merchandise to buy... and it even continues today with which costume I will wear in the next event and even what song I will perform if there's a singing competition of some sort. In relation to Pokémon, there is even something in particular that I can enjoy by making choices.

Years ago, I possessed a Pokémon book subtitled Choose Your Own Pathway to Adventure. As the title indicates, this book is a choose-your-own-adventure book. In general, the storyline involves Ash and is loosely based on the anime. The reader starts by reading the prologue, and from there, the reader flips to different pages in order to proceed through the story, which is scrambled among all its pages, the intention being to prevent one from reading through in sequence to see where one might end up. Every choice leads the reader down a path that may be different from before.

No matter where the reader goes in this book, the reader eventually winds up on one of nine endings. Five of them are good, four of them are bad, and one of the good endings is actually a "secret special ending". I've gone through all of these, and the "secret special ending" took me a bit of time to discover; it is especially rewarding, just as the other good endings are joyful and the bad endings are regrettable. These, of course, are for the reader to enjoy, so I don't need to describe them. I cannot anyhow without possessing the book.

Even so, technically, I still possess the book; it's just not with me at the moment, but it is instead with all the other Pokémon things I left behind in the U.S., which to some extent I wish I had with me. A search on the Internet seems to indicate that the book may be hard to get in recent times, let alone to where I am now. And that's a bit of a shame for such a greatly enthralling book.

Making choices will surely remain a part of my life, especially regarding Pokémon. It leads to different things I can enjoy from it, of which some may be good and others may be great. The choose-your-own-adventure book above is just another one of those things, and I can remarkably make further choices within it in order to enjoy it. That's a great thing for something that I have to constantly do within my life.

And today, I have one important choice to make - actually, make that five of them. Blessed be all the things that I choose, including Pokémon.

One year ago: And Again, I Dream
Two years ago: We're All Tied to Pokémon