Who's That...

Any person who has been involved with Pokémon for a long time will likely know a certain verbalism. (I've already explained the concept of verbalisms and three others in a different post last year.) That verbalism concerns something that the Pokémon anime does to get its viewers - which are most likely kids of all ages - to identify Pokémon by looks and name. The western version of that goes by a single, well-known question: "Who's that Pokémon?" For the purpose of this post, I've trimmed the Pokémon part in the title to be able to discuss it in a more general setting.

In the anime, prior to the middle break of an episode, the silhouette of a Pokémon is displayed, with the question being asked. After the middle break, the silhouette is revealed and the name of the Pokémon is stated and displayed (the statement being prepended by "It's..."). The Pokémon featured in this manner is often an important one in the episode and/or plays a pivotal role. The intent, of course, is to instill the name and appearance of the Pokémon in the minds of the viewers... and in one case on the Pokémon Christmas Bash album, through just voices. It's an effective tactic, really.

So effective is the tactic that it has inspired its share of memes and parodies. Quite a few of these memes involve a particular silhouette being forced to be named as a particularly different Pokémon, even though the Pokémon is clearly not that. I personally think that this rather points out how the tactic is practically foolproof. As for parodies, the tactic has been implemented for things other than Pokémon; a certain chain of local convenience stores, which so happens to be the one linked to the efforts to make the localized TCG a success, has promoted their mascot in a manner not unlike the tactic. What this tells me is that they identified the link of the tactic to Pokémon, and they can tell it would help those fans to identify that the cards are indeed being sold there. Therefore, this tactic is quite profound, especially in connection to Pokémon.

The way that it is, it's something that is distinctively Pokémon, especially when given the verbalism. To ask a viewer to identify something might seem normal, but doing it gives a sense of confirmation. It doesn't seem too much of a wonder that it ends up being parodied for other purposes. The verbalism and tactic is to make Pokémon very much recognizable - as well, to keep it that way among its most dedicated fans.

One year ago: Worldly Reverence
Two years ago: All in Good (Life)Time