Whoops You’re A Grown-Up

Pokemon was a multi-green Game Boy time-waste from the playground. You caught ‘em all, some of your friends did, then you grew up. In Tokyo, your kidhood just kept playing.

This is your subconscious, where your fear of getting old won out and young fantasy stayed alive.

By now, TVs that you used to call “widescreen” are bigger than your Independence Day poster and flipped vertical for larks two feet from your face. An actual pokéball sits there like it’s normal and dim cartoon mice and tortoises have been replaced by roaring-great mythological killerbeasts.

The kids squeeze two-a-stool and natter unblinking, eyes ahead to the heavens. They live this stuff – but cheat-sheet instructions dangle down to the prize-out flaps for you, grandad.

Pokémon GaO-re sucks in and spits out plastic disks. Playable, collectible, tradable. Pocket-money-purchasable – still young, but not still innocent.