It's Pi Day!

Aside from being a Pokémon fan, I'm a bit of a math geek. I like knowing things about math, and I've studied it for a good number of years. By doing so, I'm also absorbed into its quirky and odd sides, and one of those just happens to be today. Today is what is known as Pi Day, because when the month and day of today are written in numbers in that order, they make up the first three digits of the constant Pi (π = 3.14...) before and after the decimal point. This may seem insignificant, but the constant itself reaches far and wide, even in a way being applicable to Pokémon.

This constant is most commonly tied to circles. The ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle always equals this value, so by knowing one, it is possible to know the other. The beauty of this is that circles occur as much in the Pokémon world as they do in the real world, so this mathematical feature conceivably applies as much there as it does to the real world. If the history of Poké Balls is accurate, as depicted in the fourth Pokémon feature film, then Poké Balls were not quite circular (spherical) at first, but later on they became as such. This development tells me that at some point the Poké Balls were redesigned so that they were nearly perfectly spherical-circular, and thus the calculations for this design might just involve the constant Pi. If the world of Pokémon is much like the real world and calculation of circles is needed, then the constant is also very much needed. This ubiquity of Pi (as well as in other fields of science) makes it worthy of a celebration, and thus, Pi Day.

Which brings me back to the celebration portion. That celebration is today, as I've mentioned, and in fact it goes back to 30 years ago this year. While it may be considered a Western thing, as the celebration started in the West, I'd rather believe that this is important and rightful all over even in the East, which is why I'm writing about it and how it can relate to Pokémon as well. And the reason why I didn't do this last year is because... I forgot, purely and simply. One other thing: "Pi" in English is pronounced like "pie", as in the pastry that is also often circular, so that opens the door for these pastries to be part of the celebration. One of those well-known pastries is apple pie, and apples have a connection to Pokémon too, because they are the namesake of the Leppa Berry, the Berry that restores 10 PP in battle in the main series games. Of course, Berries can be eaten by people too, and maybe in a pie, so the celebration can and may hold true. That leads me (and I just can't resist) to make something to try to bring together all of these things with a bit of humor...

Some explanation is in order. If you've read my teaser post, then you know I needed to post an image on Facebook in regard to what I cosplayed in order to participate in the cosplay walk or parade back in last Sunday's event or convention. It turns out that this image also got parodied, once by a staff member, and again at the event as a photo spot. This is my parody on that image, bringing in Pokémon elements as well as the elements of today. It might be considered an East-meets-West kind of thing, but then again Pokémon is as adored in the West as it is in the East, and the same goes for Pi (although just considered important). Also, the event or convention in question may have passed, but at least this will embed the memory of it for some time. I still think this parody is hilarious and befitting of today.

If numbers are equally important inside and outside, within and outwards of Pokémon, then this has to be one important number too. It's deserving of a celebration, and I don't see why I can't bring Pokémon with that too.

Happy Pi Day!

One year ago: Pokémon and Puzzle Games