Saturday, August 28, 2021

Road of 25th Anniversary: Divided and United

I had planned on posting this later in the month, but then I realized that the supposed "half-anniversary" of Pokémon, which makes it as far away from the 25th anniversary of Pokémon this year as it is closer to the 26th anniversary that will occur next year, was yesterday... and I had posted the Pokémon Go event rollup in its place. Still, last year was the event rollup for that month (see below) so by posting about the anniversary road update today, I've performed an "equivalent exchange" of sorts and things still work out. So, the road of the 25th anniversary of Pokémon continues regardless.

I've decided to tag this road as "divided and united" because it describes the way things go up to this month. The reason is that things at a glance may appear to be or have been divided, or in other words separated that it dissipates the sense of togetherness. In reality, they still do appear together and united, and that's an important thing. No matter what Pokémon is or has been to many people, it can still present something that may be considered a united face. That's a truism that has to be carried through these current times and even beyond. That's the philosophical background - now it's time for concrete things.

As has been the case since the height of this year's anniversary, the special web site has featured a certain region of the world of Pokémon, and predictably from the previous month, the featured region for this month is Hoenn. This is a distinctively insular and partly archipelagic region based off on Kyushu, which alludes to the tag because of its divided appearance; nevertheless, it has an engagingly united story, one that I'm happy to have witnessed close to entirety. Other than that, my memories of Hoenn can be found in another post. It's a fondly united region for my Pokémon experiences as well.

On the next divided but united front, there is the P25 Music program. As an adjunct to the full album release later this year, the program has come up with two EP releases called The Red EP and The Blue EP. The former contains new songs by Vince Staples ("Got 'Em") and Cyn ("Wonderful"), along with the song by Mabel, while the latter contains those same songs, but remixed by Grammy Award nominee ZHU. All of the above will also be on the full album, with the remixes on the digital edition. The division here is of course along the lines with the traditional division of the main series games, but of course still being united.

Speaking of those games, it's worth noting that the practice has survived to this very day for the main series games, especially with the upcoming Sinnoh remake games. Even so, now Pokémon has loads of fans distributed across all its games, including the main series, TCG, Pokémon Go, and casual fans of its spinoff games (with Unite being what could possibly the next big thing), all of them not necessarily being played by one person. Yet in a sense, they remain united as anyone can conceivably transfer across games, especially if they're diehard fans like me and can stand to do as such with whatever they've got going. 

In a few month's time, it will be the actual time to part with the 25th anniversary as it moves on to the 26th and beyond. I had originally intended on this being the last post of the road, but with there being more to go, it seems inappropriate to end things right here. So this road will continue (or I will continue it) until the anniversary becomes ("divides" into) the 26th. Whatever happens, though, Pokémon will remain united - with me nonetheless - whatever anniversary it might be, and much is still to be expected no matter how the roads diverge ("divide") and converge ("unite") along further developments.

Two years ago: Allying with Characters
Three years ago: PokéVerbalisms

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