Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry is an American series of theatrical animated cartoon films created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, centering on a never-ending rivalry between a cat (Tom) and a mouse (Jerry) whose chases and battles often involved comic violence. Hanna and Barbera ultimately wrote and directed one hundred and fourteen Tom and Jerry shorts at the MGM cartoon studio in Hollywood, California between 1940 and 1957, when the animation unit was closed. The original series is notable for having won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film seven times, tying it with Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies as the theatrical animated series with the most Oscars. A longtime television staple, Tom and Jerry has a worldwide audience that consists of children, teenagers and adults, and has also been recognized as one of the most famous and longest-lived rivalries in American cinema. In 2000, TIME named the series one of the greatest television shows of all time.
Beginning in 1960, in addition to the original 114 H-B cartoons, MGM had new shorts produced by Rembrandt Films, led by Gene Deitch in Eastern Europe. Production of Tom and Jerry shorts returned to Hollywood under Chuck Jones's Sib-Tower 12 Productions in 1963; this series lasted until 1967, making it a total of 161 shorts. The cat and mouse stars later resurfaced in television cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera and Filmation Studios during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s; a feature film, Tom and Jerry: The Movie, in 1992 (released domestically in 1993); and in 2001, their first made-for TV short, Tom and Jerry: The Mansion Cat for Boomerang. The most recent Tom and Jerry theatrical short, The Karate Guard, was written and co-directed by Barbera and debuted in Los Angeles cinemas on September 27, 2005.
Today, Time Warner (via its Turner Entertainment division) owns the rights to Tom and Jerry (with Warner Bros. handling distribution). Since the merger, Turner has produced the series, Tom and Jerry Tales for The CW's Saturday morning "The CW4Kids" lineup, as well as the recent Tom and Jerry short, The Karate Guard, in 2005 and a string of Tom and Jerry direct-to-video films — all in collaboration with Warner Bros. Animation. In February 2010, the cartoon celebrated its 70th anniversary and a DVD collection of 30 shorts, Tom and Jerry Deluxe Anniversary Collection, was released in late June 2010 to celebrate the animated duo's seventh decade. It then had a rerun on Cartoon Network.
The series features comedic fights between an iconic set of enemies, a house cat and mouse. The plots of each short usually center on Tom's numerous attempts to capture Jerry and the mayhem and destruction that ensues. Since Tom rarely attempts to eat Jerry and because the pair actually seem to get along in some cartoon shorts, and they sometimes even put their differences aside whenever they have to, and it is sometimes unclear why Tom chases Jerry so much. Some reasons given may include normal feline/murine enmity, duty according to his owner, Jerry's attempt at ruining a task that Tom is entrusted with, Jerry eating Tom's master's food which Tom has been entrusted with safeguarding, revenge, Jerry saving other potential prey (such as ducks, canaries, or goldfish) from being eaten by Tom, competition with another cat, and Jerry ruining Tom's attempts to seduce feline femme fatales, which Jerry does either out of disgust, jealousy, or just to be mean. Despite the sometimes heavy amount of fantasy violence, most Tom and Jerry episodes now carry a TV-G rating, although it was originally rated TV-Y. Tom rarely succeeds in catching Jerry, mainly because of Jerry's cleverness, cunning abilities, and luck. Interestingly enough, many of the title cards show Tom and Jerry smiling at each other which seems to depict a love-hate relationship rather than the extreme annoyance each displays towards the other in each cartoon. There are also several instances within the cartoons where they display genuine friendship (e.g., Springtime for Thomas) and concern for each other's well-being (such as in "Jerry and the Lion", where Jerry in one instance tricks Tom into thinking that he has shot Jerry, and Tom comes running with the first aid kit). Other times the pair would have to set aside their rivalry in order to pursue a common goal, such as a baby who escaped the watch of a negligent teen babysitter, and both Tom and Jerry would need to pursue the baby and keep it away from danger.
The short episodes are infamous for some of the most comically gory gags ever devised in theatrical animation, such as Jerry slicing Tom in half, shutting his head in a window or a door, Tom using everything from axes, firearms, explosives, traps and poison to try to murder Jerry, Jerry stuffing Tom's tail in a waffle iron and a mangle, kicking him into a refrigerator, plugging his tail into an electric socket, pounding him with a mace, club or mallet, causing a tree or an electric pole to drive him into the ground, sticking matches into his feet and lighting them, tying him to a firework and setting it off, and so on.[1] Despite all its popularity, Tom and Jerry has often been criticized as excessively violent.[2]:42[3]:134 Despite the frequent violence, there is no blood or gore in any scenes of the original cartoons, and neither of the pair are ever (seriously) injured. In a very rare instance, when Tom gets sliced into pieces in the opening credits of Tom and Jerry: The Movie, blood is clearly visible, and Heavenly Puss deals with Tom dying after being crushed by a piano, although later it is revealed to be a dream. A recurring gag involves Jerry hitting Tom when he's preoccupied, with Tom initially oblivious to the pain and only feeling the effects moments later, and vice versa; and another involves Jerry stopping Tom in mid-chase (as if calling for a time-out), before he does something, usually putting the hurt on Tom.
The cartoon is also noteworthy for its reliance on tropes, such as the blackening of characters following explosions and the use of heavy and enlarged shadows (e.g., Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse). Resemblance to everyday objects and occurrences is arguably the main appeal of visual humor in the series. The characters themselves regularly transform into ridiculous but strongly associative shapes, most of the time involuntarily, in masked but gruesome ways.
Music plays a very important part in the shorts, emphasizing the action, filling in for traditional sound effects, and lending emotion to the scenes. Musical director Scott Bradley created complex scores that combined elements of jazz, classical, and pop music; Bradley often reprised contemporary pop songs, as well as songs from MGM films, including The Wizard of Oz and Meet Me In St. Louis. Generally, there is little dialogue as Tom and Jerry almost never speak; however, minor characters are not similarly limited, and the two lead characters are able to speak English on rare occasions and are thus not mute. For example, the character Mammy Two Shoes has lines in every episode in which she appears except The Little Orphan. Most of the dialogue from Tom and Jerry are the high-pitched laughs and gasping screams, which may be provided by a horn or other musical instrument.
Before 1954, all Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced in the standard Academy ratio and format; from late 1954 to 1955, some of the output was dually produced in both Academy format and the widescreen CinemaScope process. From 1956 until the close of the MGM cartoon studio a year later, all Tom and Jerry cartoons were produced in CinemaScope, some even had their soundtracks recorded in Perspecta directional audio. The 1960s Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones shorts were all produced in Academy format, but with compositions that made them compatible to be matted to Academy widescreen format as well. All of the Hanna and Barbera cartoons were produced in three-strip Technicolor; the 1960s entries were done in Metrocolor.
Characters
Main article: List of Tom and Jerry characters
Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse
Tom (called "Jasper" in his debut appearance) is a blue and white domestic shorthair cat. He is the main protagonist of the story, who usually lives a pampered life, although they usually live in several lifestyles, while Jerry is a small brown house mouse who always lives in close proximity to him and is the deuteragonist of the story. "Tom" is a generic name for a male cat (The Warner Bros. cartoon character Sylvester was originally named Thomas).[citation needed] Tom was originally in the very first short, Puss Gets the Boot, and Jerry was seen in the short also, although it was not billed as a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Jerry possesses surprising strength for his size, lifting items such as anvils with relative ease and withstanding considerable impacts with them. Despite the typical cat-eats-mouse scenario, it is surprisingly quite rare for Tom to actually try and consume Jerry. Most of his attempts are just to torment or humiliate Jerry. Despite being very energetic and determined, Tom is no match for Jerry's brains and wits. By the final "fade-out" of each cartoon, Jerry usually emerges triumphant, while Tom is shown as the loser. However, other results may be reached; on rare occasions, Tom triumphs, usually when Jerry becomes the aggressor or when he crosses some sort of line (the best example of which occurs in The Million Dollar Cat where, after finding out that Tom's newly acquired wealth will be taken away if he harms any animal, including a mouse, he torments Tom until Tom finally loses his temper and attacks him). Sometimes, usually ironically, they both lose, usually when Jerry's last trap potentially backfires on him after it affects Tom (An example is in Chuck Jones' Filet Meow short where Jerry orders a shark to scare Tom away from eating a goldfish. Afterwards, the shark scares Jerry away as well) or when Jerry overlooks something at the end of the course. Sometimes, they both end up being friends (only for something to happen so that Tom will chase Jerry again). Both characters display sadistic tendencies, in that they are equally likely to take pleasure in tormenting each other. However, depending on the cartoon, whenever one character appears to be in mortal danger (in a dangerous situation or by a third party), the other will develop a conscience and save him. Sometimes, they bond over a mutual sentiment towards an unpleasant experience and their attacking each other is more play than serious attacks. Multiple shorts show the two getting along with minimal difficulty, and they are more than capable of working together when the situation calls for it, usually against a third party who manages to torture and humiliate them both. Sometimes this partnership is forgotten quickly when an unexpected event happens or when one character feels that the other is no longer necessary. (Example is when in Posse Cat, when Jerry decides to pretend to get chased by Tom in exchange for half his food. Tom agrees to this, but then he goes back on his word later.) Other times however, Tom does keep his promise to Jerry and the partnerships are not quickly disolved after the problem is solved.
Tom changes his love interest many times. The first love interest is Toots who appears in Puss n' Toots, and calls him "Tommy" in The Mouse Comes to Dinner. He is also interested in a cat called Toots in The Zoot Cat although she has a different appearance to the original Toots. The most frequent love interest of Tom's is Toodles Galore, who never has any dialogue in Tom and Jerry cartoons.
Despite five shorts ending with a depiction of Tom's apparent death, his demise is never permanent; he even reads about his own death in a flashback in Jerry's Diary. He appears to die in explosions in Mouse Trouble (after which he is seen in heaven) and in Yankee Doodle Mouse, while in The Two Mouseketeers he is guillotined offscreen.
Although many supporting and minor characters speak, Tom and Jerry rarely do so themselves. Tom, most famously, sings while wooing female cats; for example, Tom sings Louis Jordan's "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby" in the 1946 short Solid Serenade. In a couple of shorts, Tom, when romancing a female cat, woos her in a French-accented voice similar to that of screen actor Charles Boyer. At the end of The Million Dollar Cat after beginning to antagonize Jerry he says "Gee, I'm throwin' away a million dollars... BUT I'M HAPPY!" . In Tom and Jerry: The Magic Ring, Jerry says no,no,no,no,no when choosing the shop to remove his ring. In The Mouse Comes to Dinner Tom speaks to his girlfriend while inadvertently sitting on a stove: "Gee, what's cookin'?" (The girl replies "You are, stupid.") Another instance of speech comes in Solid Serenade and The Framed Cat, where Tom directs Spike through a few dog tricks in a dog-trainer manner. In Mouse Trouble, Tom says "Don't you believe it," after being beaten up by Jerry. Co-director William Hanna provided most of the squeaks, gasps, and other vocal effects for the pair, including the most famous sound effects from the series, Tom's leather-lunged scream (created by recording Hanna's scream and eliminating the beginning and ending of the recording, leaving only the strongest part of the scream on the soundtrack) and Jerry's nervous gulp. The only other reasonably common vocalization is made by Tom when some external reference claims a certain scenario or eventuality to be impossible, which inevitably, ironically happens to thwart Tom's plans - at which point, a bedraggled and battered Tom appears and says in a haunting, echoing voice "Don't you believe it!", a reference to some famous World War II propaganda shorts of the 1940s. In the 1946 short Trap Happy, Tom hires a mouse exterminator who, after several failed attempts to dispatch Jerry, changes profession to Cat exterminator by crossing out the "Mouse" on his title and writing "Cat", resulting in Tom spelling out the word out loud before reluctantly pointing at himself. One short, 1956's Blue Cat Blues, is narrated by Jerry in voiceover (voiced by Paul Frees) as they try to win back their ladyfriends. Both Tom and Jerry speak more than once in the 1943 short The Lonesome Mouse. Tom and Jerry: The Movie is the first (and so far only) installment of the series where the famous cat-and-mouse duo regularly speak.
Spike and Tyke
In his attempts to catch Jerry, Tom often has to deal with Spike (known as "Killer" in some episodes), an angry, vicious but extremely dumb guard bulldog who tries to attack Tom for bothering his son Tyke while trying to get Jerry. Originally Spike was unnamed and mute (aside from howls and biting noises) as well as attacking indiscriminately, not caring whether it was Tom or Jerry though usually attacking Tom. In later cartoons Spike spoke often, using a voice and expressions (performed by Billy Bletcher and later Daws Butler) modeled after comedian Jimmy Durante. Spike's coat has altered throughout the years between grey and creamy tan. The addition of Spike's son Tyke in the late 1940s led to both a slight softening of Spike's character and a short-lived spin-off theatrical series (Spike and Tyke). Most cartoons with Spike in it have a system; usually Spike is trying to accomplish something (such as building a dog house or sleeping) when Tom and Jerry's antics stop him from doing it, Spike then (presumably due to prejudice) singles out Tom as the culprit and threatens him that if it ever happens again he will do "something horrible" to Tom (effectively forcing Tom to take the blame of anyone else) while Jerry overhears, afterwards Jerry usually does anything he can to interrupt whatever Spike is doing while Tom barely manages to stop him (usually getting injured in the process), usually Jerry does eventually wreck whatever Spike is doing in spectacular fashion and leaving Tom to take the blame, forcing him to flee from Spike and inevitably lose (usually due to the fact the Tom is usually framed by Jerry and that Spike just doesn't like Tom) off-screen, Spike does something to Tom and finally Tom is generally shown injured or in a bad situation while Jerry smugly cuddles up to Spike unscathed. At least once however Tom does something that benefits Spike, who promises not to interfere ever again; causing Jerry to frantically leave the house and run into the distance (in Hic-cup Pup). Spike is well known for his famous "Listen pussy cat!" catchphrase when he threatens Tom, his other famous catchphrase is "That's my boy!" normally said when he supports or congratulates his son. Tyke is described as a cute, sweet looking, happy and a lovable puppy. He is Spike's son, but unlike Spike, Tyke does not speak and only communicates (mostly towards his father) by barking, yapping, wagging his tail, whimpering and growling. Tyke's father Spike would always go out of his way to care and comfort his son and make sure that he is safe from Tom. Tyke loves his father and Spike loves his son and they get along like friends, although most of time they would be taking a nap or Spike would teach Tyke the main facts of life of being a dog. Like Spike, Tyke's appearance has altered throughout the years, from grey (with white paws) to creamy tan. When Tom and Jerry Kids first aired, this was the first time that viewers were able to hear Tyke speak.
Butch and Toodles Galore
Butch is a black cat who also wants to eat Jerry. He is the most frequent adversary of Tom. However, for most of the episodes he appears in, he's usually seen rivaling Tom over Toodles. Butch also was Tom's pal or chum as in some cartoons, where Butch is leader of Tom's buddies, who are Meathead and Topsy. Butch talks more often than Tom or Jerry in most episodes.
History and evolution
"Tom and Jerry" was a commonplace phrase for youngsters indulging in riotous behaviour in 19th-century London. The term comes from Life in London, or Days and Nights of Jerry Hawthorne and his elegant friend Corinthian Tom (1823) by Pierce Egan.[4] However Brewer notes no more than an "unconscious" echo of the Victorian-era original in the naming of the cartoon.[5]
Hanna-Barbera era (1940–1958)
Tom and Jerry creators/directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with the seven Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) their Tom and Jerry shorts won.
Willliam Hanna and Joseph Barbera were both part of the Rudolf Ising unit at the MGM cartoon studio in the late 1930s. After the financial disaster of the Captain and the Kids series, Barbera, a storyman and character designer, was paired (out of desperation) with Hanna, an experienced director, to start directing films for the Ising unit. In their first discussion for a cartoon, Joseph Barbera suggested Cat-and-Mouse cartoon entitled Puss Gets the Boot. "We knew we needed two characters. We thought we needed conflict, and chase and action. And a cat after a mouse seemed like a good, basic thought", as he recalled in an interview.[6] Hanna and many other employees complained that the idea wasn't very original, nevertheless the short was completed in late 1939, and released to theaters on February 10, 1940. Puss Gets The Boot centers on Jasper, a gray tabby cat trying to catch a mouse named Jinx (whose name is not mentioned), but after accidentally breaking a houseplant and its stand, the African American housemaid Mammy (later Tom's owner) has threatened to throw Jasper out ("O-W-T, out!" as Mammy spells it) if he breaks one more thing in the house. Naturally, Jinx uses this to his advantage, and begins tossing wine glasses, ceramic plates, teapots, and any and everything fragile, so that Jasper will be thrown outside. Puss Gets The Boot was previewed and released without fanfare, and Hanna and Barbera went on to direct other (non-cat-and-mouse related) shorts such as Gallopin' Gals and Officer Pooch. "After all," remarked many of the MGM staffers, "haven't there been enough cat-and-mouse cartoons already?"
The pessimistic attitude towards the cat and mouse duo changed when the cartoon became a favorite with theater owners and with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which nominated the film for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons of 1941. It lost to another MGM cartoon, Rudolph Ising's The Milky Way.
Producer Fred Quimby, who ran the MGM animation studio, quickly pulled Hanna and Barbera off the other one-shot cartoons they were working on, and commissioned a series featuring the cat and mouse. Hanna and Barbera held an intra-studio contest to give the pair a new name by drawing suggested names out of a hat; animator John Carr won $50 with his suggestion of Tom and Jerry.[7] The Tom and Jerry series went into production with The Midnight Snack in 1941, and Hanna and Barbera rarely directed anything but the cat-and-mouse cartoons for the rest of their tenure at MGM. Barbera would create the story while Hanna would supervise production.
Tom's physical appearance evolved significantly over the years. During the early 1940s, Tom had an excess of detail—shaggy fur, numerous facial wrinkles, and multiple eyebrow markings, all of which were streamlined into a more workable form by the end of the 1940s—and looked like a realistic cat; in addition from his quadrupedal beginnings Tom became increasingly, and eventually almost exclusively, bipedal. By contrast, Jerry's design remained essentially the same for the duration of the series. By the mid-1940s, the series had developed a quicker, more energetic (and violent) tone, due to the inspiration from the work of their colleague in the MGM cartoon studio, Tex Avery, who joined the studio in 1942.
Even though the theme of each short is virtually the same - cat chases mouse - Hanna and Barbera found endless variations on that theme. Barbera's storyboards and rough layouts and designs, combined with Hanna's timing, resulted in arguably MGM's most popular and successful cartoon series. Thirteen entries in the Tom and Jerry series (including Puss Gets The Boot) were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons; seven of them went on to win the Academy Award, breaking the Disney studio's winning streak in that category. Tom and Jerry won more Academy Awards than any other character-based theatrical animated series.
Tom and Jerry remained popular throughout their original theatrical run, even when the budgets began to tighten somewhat in the 1950s and the pace of the shorts slowed slightly. However, after television became popular in the 1950s, box office revenues decreased for theatrical films, and short subjects. At first, MGM combated this by going to all-CinemaScope production on the series. After MGM realized that their re-releases of the older shorts brought in just as much revenue as the new films, the studio executives decided, much to the surprise of the staff, to close the animation studio. The MGM cartoon studio was shut down in 1957, and the final of the 114 Hanna and Barbera Tom and Jerry shorts, Tot Watchers, was released on August 1, 1958. Hanna and Barbera established their own television animation studio, Hanna-Barbera Productions, in 1957, which went on to produce famous TV shows and movies.
Gene Deitch era (1960–1962)
In 1960, MGM revived the Tom and Jerry franchise, and contacted European animation output Rembrandt Films to produce thirteen Tom and Jerry shorts overseas.All thirteen shorts were directed by Prague-based animator Gene Deitch and produced by company owner William L. Snyder in Czechoslovakia. Deitch states that, being a member of the UPA, he has always had a personal dislike of Tom and Jerry, citing them as the "primary bad example of senseless violence - humor based on pain - attack and revenge - to say nothing of the tasteless use of a headless black woman stereotype house servant."Štěpán Koníček, a student of Karel Ančerl and conductor of the Film Symphony Orchestra, and Václav Lídl provided the musical score for the Deitch short, while Larz Bourne, Chris Jenkyns, and Eli Bauer wrote the cartoons. The majority of vocal effects and voices in Deitch's films were provided by Allen Swift. For the purposes of avoiding being linked to Communism, Deitch altered the names for his crew in the opening credits of the shorts (e.g., Štěpán Koníček became "Steven Konichek", Václav Lídl became "Victor Little").These shorts are among the few Tom and Jerry cartoons not to carry the "Made In Hollywood, U.S.A." phrase at the end. Due to Deitch's studio being behind the Iron Curtain, the production studio's location is omitted entirely on it. In the midst of production, Joe Vogel, the head of production, was fired from MGM, who ordered Deitch and his team to finish the shorts and rush them out to release. The contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer expired, and the final of the thirteen shorts, Carmen Get It!, was released on December 1, 1962.
Since the Deitch/Snyder team had seen only a handful of the original Tom and Jerry shorts, and since Deitch and Snyder produced their cartoons on a tighter budget of $10,000, the resulting films were considered unusual, and, in many ways, bizarre.The characters' gestures were often performed at high speed, frequently causing heavy motion blur. As a result, the animation of the characters looked choppy and sickly. The soundtracks featured sparse music, futuristic sound effects, dialogue that was mumbled rather than spoken, and heavy use of reverb. Fans that typically rooted for Tom criticized Deitch's cartoons for having Tom never become a threat to Jerry. Most of the time, Tom only attempts to hurt him when he gets in his way. Tom's new owner, a corpulent and grumpy middle-aged white man (with serious temper problems, often going red in the face similar to Deitch's earlier "Clint Clobber"character at Terrytoons), was also more graphically brutal in punishing Tom's mistakes as compared to Mammy Two-Shoes, beating and thrashing Tom repeatedly, searing his face with a grill, and forcing Tom to drink an entire carbonated beverage. Despite these criticisms, the Gene Deitch Tom and Jerry cartoons are still rerun today on the Cartoon Network and Boomerang channels on a semi-regular basis. Deitch's Tom and Jerry shorts have seen limited release outside of Europe and Asia; all thirteen shorts are currently available in Japan, where they have been ported to the Tom and Jerry & Droopy laserdisc and VHS, and the United Kingdom, where the shorts are available on the B-side of the Tom and Jerry: Classic Collection volume 5 DVD. The only short to have seen DVD release in the United States is The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit, where it is included on the Paws for a Holiday DVD.All thirteen shorts were commercial successes; in 1961, the Tom and Jerry series became the highest-grossing film series of all-time, dethroning the Looney Tunes series which had held the position for sixteen years; this success was repeated once more in 1962.However, unlike the Hanna and Barbera shorts, none of Deitch's films were nominated nor did they win an Academy Award.The episodes created by Deitch have generally been less favorably received by audiences. In his review for Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection, Paul Kupperberg of Comicmix called the shorts "perfectly dreadful" and "too often released", as well as a result of "cheap labor".Deitch has frequently defended his films; in an interview with the New York Times, when asked about working on the Tom and Jerry series, Deitch responded "All the experts say [my shorts are] the worst of the 'Tom and Jerry's, [...] I was a UPA man -- my whole background was much closer to the Czechs. 'Tom and Jerry' I always considered dreck, but they had great timing, facial expressions, double takes, squash and stretch," all of which the interviewer stated were "techniques the Czechs had to learn," adding, "The Czech style had nothing in common with these gag-driven cartoons. Chuck Jones era (1963–1967)
After the last of the Deitch cartoons were released, Chuck Jones, who had been fired from his thirty-plus year tenure at Warner Bros. Cartoons, started his own animation studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions, with partner Les Goldman. Beginning in 1963, Jones and Goldman went on to produce 34 more Tom and Jerry shorts, all of which carried Jones' distinctive style (and a slight psychedelic influence). However, despite being animated by essentially the same artists who worked with Jones at Warners, these new shorts had varying degrees of critical success.
Jones had trouble adapting his style to Tom and Jerry's brand of humor, and a number of the cartoons favored full animation, personality and style over storyline. The characters underwent a slight change of appearance: Tom was given thicker eyebrows (resembling Jones' Grinch or Count Blood Count), a less complex look (including the color of his fur becoming gray), sharper ears, and furrier cheeks, while Jerry was given larger eyes and ears, a lighter brown color, and a sweeter, Porky Pig-like expression.
Some of Jones' Tom and Jerry cartoons are reminiscent of his work with Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, included the uses of blackout gags and gags involving characters falling from high places. Jones co-directed the majority of the shorts with layout artist Maurice Noble. The remaining shorts were directed by Abe Levitow and Ben Washam, with Tom Ray directing two shorts built around footage from earlier Tom and Jerry cartoons directed by Hanna and Barbera, and Jim Pabian directed a short with Maurice Noble. Various vocal characteristics were made by Mel Blanc and June Foray. Jones' efforts are considered superior to the previous Deitch efforts (and most cartoons made during that time, albeit visually), and contain the memorable opening theme, in which Tom is trapped inside the "O" of his name.
Though Jones managed to recapture some of the magic from the original Hanna-Barbera efforts, MGM ended production on Tom and Jerry in 1967, by which time Sib Tower 12 had become MGM Animation/Visual Arts. Jones had moved on to television specials and the feature film The Phantom Tollbooth.
Tom and Jerry hit television
Beginning in 1965, the Hanna and Barbera Tom and Jerry cartoons began to appear on television in heavily edited form. The Jones team was required to take the cartoons featuring Mammy Two-Shoes and remove her by pasting over the scenes featuring her with new scenes. Most of the time, she was replaced with a similarly fat White Irish woman; occasionally, as in Saturday Evening Puss, a thin white teenager took her place instead, with both characters voiced by June Foray. However, recent telecasts on Cartoon Network and Boomerang retain Mammy with new voiceover work performed by Thea Vidale to remove the stereotypical black jargon featured on the original cartoon soundtracks.
Debuting on CBS' Saturday morning schedule on September 25, 1965, Tom and Jerry moved to CBS Sundays two years later and remained there until September 17, 1972.
The intros of each episode shown on TV and DVD today are re-issues from the 1950s–1960s, with the exception of Puss Gets the Boot and The Night Before Christmas, which still retain their original opening and closing credits from the early 1940s.
Second Hanna-Barbera era (1975–1977)
In 1975, Tom and Jerry were reunited with Hanna and Barbera, who produced new Tom and Jerry cartoons for Saturday mornings. These 48 seven-minute short cartoons were paired with The Great Grape Ape and Mumbly cartoons, to create The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape Show, The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape/Mumbly Show, and The Tom and Jerry/Mumbly Show, all of which initially ran on ABC Saturday Morning between September 6, 1975 and September 3, 1977. In these cartoons, Tom and Jerry (now with a red bow tie), who had been enemies during their formative years, became nonviolent pals who went on adventures together, as Hanna-Barbera had to meet the stringent rules against violence for children's TV. The Tom and Jerry Show is still airing on the Canadian channel, Teletoon, and its classical counterpart, Teletoon Retro.Filmation era (1980–1982)
Filmation Studios (in association with MGM Television) also tried their hands at producing a Tom and Jerry TV series. Their version, The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show, debuted in 1980, and also featured new cartoons starring Droopy, Spike (another bulldog created by Tex Avery), and Barney Bear, not seen since the original MGM shorts. The Filmation Tom and Jerry cartoons were noticeably different from Hanna-Barbera's efforts, as they returned Tom and Jerry to the original chase formula, with a somewhat more "slapstick" humor format. This incarnation, much like the 1975 version, was not as well received by audiences as the originals, and lasted on CBS Saturday Morning from September 6, 1980 to September 4, 1982.[18] Its animation style bore a strong resemblance to that of The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle.
Tom and Jerry's new owners
In 1986, MGM was purchased by WTBS founder Ted Turner. Turner sold the company a short while later, but retained MGM's pre-1986 film library, thus Tom and Jerry became the property of Turner Entertainment (where the rights stand today via Warner Bros.), and have in subsequent years appeared on Turner-run stations, such as TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, The WB, Boomerang, and Turner Classic Movies.
Tom and Jerry Kids (1990–1994)
One of the biggest trends for Saturday morning television in the 1980s and 1990s was the "babyfication" of older, classic cartoon stars, and on March 2, 1990, Tom and Jerry Kids, co-produced by Turner Entertainment and Hanna-Barbera Productions (which would be sold to Turner in 1991) debuted on Fox Kids and for a couple of years, aired on British children's show, CBBC. It featured a youthful version of the famous cat-and-mouse duo chasing each other. As with the 1975 H-B series, Jerry wears his red bowtie, while Tom now wears a red cap. Spike and his son Tyke (who now had talking dialogue) and Droopy and his son Dripple, appeared in back-up segments for the show, which ran until November 18, 1994.
Individual episodes (2001 and 2005)
In 2001, a new television special entitled Tom and Jerry: The Mansion Cat premiered on Boomerang. It featured Joe Barbera (who was also a creative consultant) as the voice of Tom's owner, whose face is never seen. In this cartoon, Jerry, housed in a habitrail, is as much of a house pet as Tom is, and their owner has to remind Tom to not "blame everything on the mouse".
In 2005, a new Tom and Jerry theatrical short, entitled The Karate Guard, which had been written and directed by Barbera and Spike Brandt, storyboarded by Joseph Barbera and Iwao Takamoto and produced by Joseph Barbera, Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone premiered in Los Angeles cinemas on December 16, 2005. As part of the celebration of Tom and Jerry's sixty-fifth anniversary, this marked Barbera's first return as a writer, director and storyboard artist on the series since his and Hanna's original MGM cartoon shorts. Director/animator, Spike Brandt was nominated for an Annie award for best character animation. The short debuted on Cartoon Network on January 27, 2006.
Warner Bros. era (2006–2008)
During the first half of 2006, a new series called Tom and Jerry Tales was produced at Warner Bros. Animation. Thirteen half-hour episodes (each consisting of three shorts, some of them—like The Karate Guard—were produced and completed in 2003 as part of a 30-plus theatrical cartoon schedule aborted after the financial disaster of Looney Tunes Back in Action) were produced, with only markets outside of the United States and United Kingdom signed up. The show then came to the UK in February 2006 on Boomerang, and it went to the U.S. on The CW4Kids on The CW.[19] Tales is the first Tom and Jerry TV series that utilizes the original style of the classic shorts, along with the violence. The series was canceled on March 22, 2008.[citation needed]
Tom and Jerry outside the United States
When shown on terrestrial television in the United Kingdom (from 1967 to 2000, usually on the BBC) Tom and Jerry cartoons were not cut for violence and Mammy was retained. As well as having regular slots (mainly after the evening BBC News with around 2 episodes shown every evening and occasionally shown on children's network CBBC in the morning), Tom and Jerry served the BBC in another way. When faced with disruption to the schedules (such as those occurring when live broadcasts overrun), the BBC would invariably turn to Tom and Jerry to fill any gaps, confident that it would retain much of an audience that might otherwise channel hop. This proved particularly helpful in 1993, when Noel's House Party had to be cancelled due to an IRA bomb scare at BBC Television Centre - Tom and Jerry was shown instead, bridging the gap until the next programme. In 2010, a mother complained to OFCOM of the smoking scenes shown in the cartoons, since Tom often attempts to impress love interests with the habit, resulting in reports that the smoking scenes in Tom and Jerry films may be subject to censorship.[20]
Due to its lack of dialogue, Tom and Jerry was easily translated into various foreign languages. Tom and Jerry began broadcast in Japan in 1964. A 2005 nationwide survey taken in Japan by TV Asahi, sampling age groups from teenagers to adults in their sixties, ranked Tom and Jerry #85 in a list of the top 100 "anime" of all time; while their web poll taken after the airing of the list ranked it at #58 - the only non-Japanese animation on the list, and beating anime classics like Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, A Little Princess Sara, and the ultra-classics Macross and Ghost in the Shell (it should be noted that in Japan, the word "anime" refers to all animation regardless of origin, not just Japanese animation).[21] Tom and Jerry are long-time licensed mascots for Nagoya-based Juuroku Bank.
Tom and Jerry have long been popular in Germany. However, the cartoons are overdubbed with rhyming German language verse that describes what is happening onscreen, sometimes adding or revising information. The different episodes are usually embedded in the episode Jerry's Diary (1949), in which Tom reads about past adventures.
In India, South East Asia, Armenia, the Middle East, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, other Latin American countries, and in eastern European countries (such as Romania), Cartoon Network still airs Tom and Jerry cartoons every day. In Russia, local channels also air the show in their daytime programming slot. Tom and Jerry was one of the few cartoons of western origin broadcast in Czechoslovakia (1988) and Romania (until 1989) before the fall of Communism in 1989.
Doraemon (ドラえもん) adalah judul sebuah manga populer yang dikarang Fujiko F. Fujio (藤子・F・不二雄) sejak tahun 1969 dan berkisah tentang kehidupan seorang anak pemalas kelas 5 SD yang bernama Nobi Nobita (野比のび太) yang didatangi oleh sebuah robot kucing bernama Doraemon yang datang dari abad ke-22. Dia dikirim untuk menolong Nobita agar keturunan Nobita dapat menikmati kesuksesannya daripada harus menderita dari utang finansial — yang akan terjadi di masa depan — yang disebabkan karena kebodohan Nobita.
Nobita, setelah gagal dalam ulangan sekolahnya atau setelah diganggu oleh Giant dan Suneo, akan selalu mendatangi Doraemon untuk meminta bantuannya. Doraemon kemudian biasanya akan membantu Nobita dengan menggunakan peralatan-peralatan canggih dari kantong ajaibnya; peralatan yang sering digunakan misalnya "baling-baling bambu" dan "Pintu ke Mana Saja". Sering kali, Nobita berbuat terlalu jauh dalam menggunakan peralatannya dan malah terjerumus ke dalam masalah yang lebih besar.
Sejak pertama kali muncul pada tahun 1969, cerita Doraemon telah dikumpulkan dan dibagi ke dalam 45 buku yang dipublikasikan sejak tahun 1974 sampai 1996, dan telah terjual lebih dari 80 juta buku pada tahun 1992. Sebagai tambahan, pada tahun 2005, Shōgakukan menerbitkan sebuah serial tambahan sejumlah 5 jilid dengan judul Doraemon+ (Doraemon Plus), dengan cerita yang berbeda dari 45 volume aslinya.
Cerita terfokus tentang kehidupan sehari-hari Nobita, tokoh utama cerita ini. Doraemon memiliki sebuah kantung 4 dimensi yang ia isi dengan benda-benda dari masa depan. Seringkali Nobita datang merengek-rengek karena masalah di sekolah atau di lingkungannya, setelah memohon atau memaksa, Doraemon akan mengeluarkan sebuah alat yang membantu Nobita menyelesaikan masalah, membalas dendam, atau hanya sekedar pamer ke teman-temannya.
Bagaimanapun, Nobita biasanya bertindak terlalu jauh, mengacuhkan saran atau perintah Doraemon, dan mengakibatkannya terjerumus ke masalah yang lebih dalam. Terkadang, teman Nobita (biasanya Suneo atau Giant) mencuri alat tersebut dan berakhir dalam kekacauan karena salah menggunakannya.
Misi Doraemon adalah untuk menolong Nobi Nobita (buyut dari Sewashi yang memiliki Doraemon). Nobita adalah seorang anak yang selalu mengalami nasib sial dan tak punya kemampuan apa-apa. Ia bodoh dalam pelajaran sekolah dan tidak bisa berolahraga, Nobita hanya berbakat dalam tembak-menembak,bermain karet, dan tidur; kemampuan yang hampir tak berguna di zaman Jepang modern. Inilah alasan mengapa ia gagal menjalani kehidupannya. Dan Doraemon dikirim dari masa depan untuk menjadikannya seorang pria yang sukses. Sangat ironis, sebuah robot gagal datang membantu seorang anak yang gagal. Tetapi pada kenyataannya, persahabatan kedua anak ini membuat mereka menjadi seseorang yang lebih baik.
Doraemon tiba di tahun 1969, pada hari Tahun Baru Jepang. Ia keluar dari laci meja milik Nobita, dan sejak saat itu ia tinggal bersama Nobita, misinya adalah untuk mencegah Nobita menjadi orang gagal. Setiap kali Nobita tertimpa masalah, Doraemon akan segera membantu dengan alat-alat ajaibnya.
Kelihatannya misi Doraemon berhasil, karena ketika mereka menjelajah ke masa depan, Nobita melihat dirinya menikah dengan Shizuka, bukan dengan Jaiko. Dia juga melihat keturunannya hidup dalam kondisi yang lebih baik daripada ketika Sewashi mengirim Doraemon dulu; bahkan keturunan Nobi mampu membeli robot yang "tidak gagal", Dorami.
Diceritakan dalam manga dan anime, Doraemon dan Nobita saling bekerja sama untuk memperbaiki kehidupan mereka masing-masing. Mereka saling bekerja sama dan tolong-menolong. Banyak juga cerita yang menampilkan kisah keberanian dan kegigihan mereka untuk mempertahankan persahabatan yang sudah mereka jalin.
Sebenarnya, Doraemon adalah sebuah robot kucing yang diciptakan oleh Nobita sendiri, dan setelah sekian lama doraemon berpindah - pindah sejak pertama kali diciptakan, doraemon diperbaharui dan tubuhnya dicat baru sehingga berwarna kuning yang dirancang untuk keperluan rumah tangga keluarga kaya. Sayangnya, sebuah kesalahan terjadi ketika ia menjalani proses produksi. Tak seperti robot kucing lainnya, ia gagal melewati tes sehingga ia dilelang ke keluarga kelas bawah, yang tak lain adalah keluarga keturunan Nobi Nobita. Doraemon tetap menjadi sebuah robot kucing berwarna kuning hingga suatu hari, ketika ia sedang mengurus bayi keluarga tersebut,sebuah robot tikus menggigit telinganya sampai hancur, sehingga terpaksa diamputasi. Doraemon menangis dan terus menangis, ia mencoba untuk mengembalikan telinganya kembali dengan cairan penumbuh, tetapi ia mengambil cairan yang salah dan akhirnya melunturkan cat ditubuhnya yang semula kuning menjadi warna dasarnya, biru. Ia pun berubah menjadi seperti sekarang ini: sebuah robot kucing berwarna biru, tanpa telinga. Sampai sekarang pun Doraemon menjadi benci dan takut terhadap tikus.
Sebenarnya Doraemon sendiri adalah robot canggih yang diciptakan sendiri oleh Nobita. Doraemon diciptakan saat Nobita sudah berumur sekitar separuh baya. Dan sebenarnya doraemon sudah berada dikeluarga nobita sejak awalnya ia diciptakan. Meskipun gagal dalam proses tes, Doraemon tetap menjadi sebuah robot canggih yang memiliki alat-alat ajaib yang mampu memecahkan semua masalah. Ia juga pengertian dan memiliki rasa kasih sayang; ketika Nobita menangis dan merengek kepadanya, Doraemon dengan senang hati mendengarkan semua keluhan dan membantunya. Doraemon juga mampu memahami perasaan manusia, baik itu sedih, takut, marah, gembira, simpati, dan lainnya. Ia mempelajarinya, dan bertindak sesuai apa yang ia pelajari; ia dapat berteriak kegirangan, meloncat ketakutan, dan mengangis haru. Namun, ia juga bertindak sangat emosional, apalagi ia memiliki sifat tempramental yang cukup buruk ketika sedang bertengkar dengan Nobita. Ia juga memiliki "senjata rahasia" yang bisa digunakan dalam keadaan terdesak, yaitu kepalanya yang lebih keras daripada batu sekalipun. Singkatnya, ia menjadi sebuah robot yang memiliki perasaan seperti manusia.
Tubuh Doraemon sangat sensitif, ia tak dapat beraktivitas dengan normal jika ia kehilangan suku cadangnya; walaupun hanya sebuah mur. Ia memiliki seorang adik bernama Dorami yang siap menggantikan tugasnya menjaga Nobita ketika ia menjalani servis rutin di masa depan.
Dirinya dari masa depan seringkali datang kembali dengan mesin waktu untuk menyuruh Nobita belajar. Ini diakibatkan kemalasan Nobita sewaktu disekolah dasar yang akhirnya terbawa ketingkat selanjutnya dan membuat dirinya yang lebih tua menyesal dan mencoba merubahnya seperti itu.
Fujimoto, pengarang komik ini, pernah mengatakan, "Nobita sebenarnya bukan tidak bisa berbuat apa-apa, ia hanya malas jika harus bersungguh-sungguh ketika melakukan sesuatu, Karenanya, setiap hari ia selalu bersantai-santai. Tapi kalau memang diperlukan, ia bisa melakukannya dengan bersungguh-sungguh."
Berbeda dengan ibunya, Nobita adalah seorang pecinta binatang. Ia pernah memelihara — dengan sembunyi-sembunyi — berbagai macam hewan mulai dari kucing, anjing, Fuuko si anak angin, sampai seekor gajah Afrika yang terpisah dari induknya.
Dalam komiknya, Nobita diceritakan pernah tinggal di suatu pulau kecil terpencil selama 10 tahun akibat keteledorannya sendiri. Namun tak ceritakan apakah peristiwa tersebut memberikan efek terhadap perilaku atau sifatnya.
Suneo memiliki seorang adik laki-laki bernama Sunetsugu. Ia tinggal bersama pamannya di New York, Amerika Serikat dan jarang pulang ke Jepang. Meskipun begitu, Suneo dan Sunetsugu sering berkomunikasi lewat surat. Sunetsugu sangat bangga dengan Suneo karena dalam suratnya, Suneo selalu berbohong untuk membanggakan dirinya; misalnya dengan mengatakan bahwa ia adalah anak yang paling pintar di sekolah, paling kuat di lingkungan, dan disukai banyak perempuan. Suneo juga memiliki sepupu bernama Sunekichi yang sering membuatkan remote control untuknya.
Nobisuke selalu mengharapkan Nobita agar tidak menjadi seperti dirinya; seorang pekerja kantoran dan gagal dalam melakukan apapun. Ia sering membelikan Nobi setumpuk ensiklopedia yang kemudian hanya dijadikan pajangan saja. Nobisuke juga suka petualangan, ia juga sering menasihati agar Nobita keluar rumah menikmati hangatnya sinar matahari daripada hanya tidur-tiduran di rumah. Meskipun begitu, ia sangat memanjakan Nobita, ia jarang sekali memarahi Nobi.
Terdapat tiga akhir yang resmi untuk kisah Doraemon yang dibuat. Doraemon tidak dilanjutkan di dua media karena pembaca semakin besar dan akhir dari kisah ini dipercaya dibutuhkan.
The name Pokémon is the romanized contraction of the Japanese brand Pocket Monsters (ポケットモンスター Poketto Monsutā ), as such contractions are quite common in Japan. The term Pokémon, in addition to referring to the Pokémon franchise itself, also collectively refers to the 649 fictional species that have made appearances in Pokémon media as of the release of the Pokémon role-playing game (RPG) for the Nintendo DS, Pokémon Black and White. Like the words deer and sheep, the word Pokémon is identical in both the singular and plural, as is each individual species name; in short, it is grammatically correct to say both "one Pokémon" and "many Pokémon" as well as "one Pikachu" and "many Pikachu". In November 2005, 4Kids Entertainment, which had managed the non-game related licensing of Pokémon, announced that it had agreed not to renew the Pokémon representation agreement. Pokémon USA Inc. (now The Pokémon Company International), a subsidiary of Japan's Pokémon Co., now oversees all Pokémon licensing outside of Asia.
In most incarnations of the fictional Pokémon universe, a Trainer that encounters a wild Pokémon is able to capture that Pokémon by throwing a specially designed, mass-producible spherical tool called a Poké Ball at it. If the Pokémon is unable to escape the confines of the Poké Ball, it is officially considered to be under the ownership of that Trainer. Afterwards, it will obey whatever its new master commands, unless the Trainer demonstrates such a lack of experience that the Pokémon would rather act on its own accord. Trainers can send out any of their Pokémon to wage non-lethal battles against other Pokémon; if the opposing Pokémon is wild, the Trainer can capture that Pokémon with a Poké Ball, increasing his or her collection of creatures. Pokémon already owned by other Trainers cannot be captured, except under special circumstances in certain games. If a Pokémon fully defeats an opponent in battle so that the opponent is knocked out (i.e., "faints"), the winning Pokémon gains experience and may level up. When leveling up, the Pokémon's statistics ("stats") of battling aptitude increase, such as Attack and Speed. From time to time the Pokémon may also learn new moves, which are techniques used in battle. In addition, many species of Pokémon possess the ability to undergo a form of metamorphosis and transform into a similar but stronger species of Pokémon, a process called evolution.
In the main series, each game's single-player mode requires the Trainer to raise a team of Pokémon to defeat many non-player character (NPC) Trainers and their Pokémon. Each game lays out a somewhat linear path through a specific region of the Pokémon world for the Trainer to journey through, completing events and battling opponents along the way. Each game features eight especially powerful Trainers, referred to as Gym Leaders, that the Trainer must defeat in order to progress. As a reward, the Trainer receives a Gym Badge, and once all eight badges are collected, that Trainer is eligible to challenge the region's Pokémon League, where four immensely talented trainers (referred to collectively as the "Elite Four") challenge the Trainer to four Pokémon battles in succession. If the trainer can overcome this gauntlet, he or she must then challenge the Regional Champion, the master Trainer who had previously defeated the Elite Four. Any Trainer who wins this last battle becomes the new champion and gains the title of Pokémon Master.
The second generation of Pokémon began in 1999 with the release of Pokémon Gold and Silver for Game Boy Color. Like the previous generation, an enhanced version titled Pokémon Crystal was later released. The second generation introduced 100 new species of Pokémon (starting with Chikorita and ending with Celebi), with a total of 251 Pokémon to collect, train, and battle. The Pokémon mini is a handheld game console released in November 2001 in North America, December 2001 in Japan, and 2002 in Europe.
Pokémon entered its third generation with the 2002 release of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire for Game Boy Advance and continued with the Game Boy Advance remakes of Pokémon Red and Blue, Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, and an enhanced version of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire titled Pokémon Emerald. The third generation introduced 135 new Pokémon (starting with Treecko and ending with Deoxys) for a total of 386 species. However, this generation also garnered some criticism for leaving out several gameplay features, including the day-and-night system introduced in the previous generation, and it was also the first installment that encouraged the player to collect merely a selected assortment of the total number of Pokémon rather than every existing species (202 out of 386 species are catchable in the Ruby and Sapphire versions).
In 2006, Japan began the fourth generation of the franchise with the release of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl for Nintendo DS. The fourth generation introduces another 107 new species of Pokémon (starting with Turtwig and ending with Arceus), bringing the total of Pokémon species to 493.[11] The Nintendo DS "touch screen" allows new features to the game such as cooking poffins with the stylus and using the "Pokétch". New gameplay concepts include a restructured move-classification system, online multiplayer trading and battling via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, the return (and expansion) of the second generation's day-and-night system, the expansion of the third generation's Pokémon Contests into "Super Contests", and the new region of Sinnoh, which has an underground component for multiplayer gameplay in addition to the main overworld. Pokémon Platinum, the enhanced version of Diamond and Pearl—much like Pokémon Yellow, Crystal, and Emerald—was released September 2008 in Japan, March 2009 in North America, and was released in Australia and Europe in May 2009. Spin-off titles in the fourth generation include the Pokémon Stadium follow-up Pokémon Battle Revolution for Wii, which has Wi-Fi connectivity as well.Nintendo announced in May 2009 that enhanced remakes of Pokémon Gold and Silver, entitled Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, released for the Nintendo DS system. HeartGold and SoulSilver are set in the Johto region and were released in September 2009 in Japan.
The fifth generation of Pokémon began on September 18 with the release of Pokémon Black and White in Japan for Nintendo DS.The games were originally announced by the Pokémon Company on January 29, 2010 with a tentative release later that year, before the announcement on June 27, 2010, of the games' release on September 18, 2010. This version is set in the Unova region (イッシュ地方 Isshu-chihō , Isshu region) and utilizes the Nintendo DS's 3-D rendering capabilities to a greater extent than Platinum, HeartGold, and SoulSilver, as shown in game footage of the player walking through the Castelia City (ヒウンシティ Hiun Shiti ) metropolis. A total of 153 new Pokémon were introduced as well as new game mechanics such as the C Gear (Cギア C Gia ) wireless interactivity featuresand the ability to upload game data to the internet and the player's computer. Pokémon Black and White was released in Europe on March 4, 2011, in North America on March 6, 2011, and in Australia on March 10, 2011.
On January 28, 2011, Nintendo had announced that they had plans to release new Pokémon titles for Nintendo Wii and Nintendo 3DS at some point in 2011. No other details have been revealed.Game mechanics
The saga continues in Pokémon: Advanced Battle, based on the third generation games. Ash and company travel to Hoenn, a southern region in the Pokémon World. Ash takes on the role of a teacher and mentor for a novice Pokémon trainer named May. Her brother Max accompanies them, and though he isn't a trainer, he knows large amounts of handy information. Brock (from the original series) soon catches up with Ash, but Misty has returned to Cerulean City to tend to her duties as a gym leader (Misty, along with other recurring characters, appears in the spin-off series Pokémon Chronicles). The Advanced Battle series concludes with the Battle Frontier saga, based on the Emerald version and including aspects of FireRed and LeafGreen. The Advanced Generation series ended with Max leaving to pick his starter Pokémon, and May going to the Grand Festival in Johto.
In the Diamond and Pearl series, based on the fourth generation games, Ash, Brock, and a new companion, an aspiring Pokémon coordinator named Dawn traveled through the region of Sinnoh. In the end of the series, Ash and Brock returned to their home region where Brock started to follow his newfound dream of becoming a Pokémon doctor himself.
Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes!, based on the fifth generation games, Pokémon Black and White, is the newest installment of the Pokémon anime series being broadcast only Japan and the United States. It features Ash and Pikachu traveling through the new region of Unova (Isshu in Japan) along two new companions, Iris and Cilan (Dent in Japan).
In addition to the TV series, thirteen Pokémon films have been made, with a pair of films in the making. Collectible bonuses, such as promotional trading cards, have been available with some of the films
Doraemon
Dari Wikipedia bahasa Indonesia, ensiklopedia bebas
Doraemon | |
---|---|
Doraemon dan kawan-kawan | |
Genre | Komedi Petualangan Fiksi ilmiah |
Manga | |
Pengarang | Fujiko F. Fujio |
Penerbit | |
Penerbit bahasa Indonesia | |
Anime TV | |
Sutradara | Tsutomu Shibayama |
Studio | Shin-ei Animation |
Jaringan | |
Jaringan bahasa Indonesia | TVRI (1979-1991) RCTI(1991-sekarang) |
Ditayangkan | 8 April 1979–Sekarang |
Jumlah episode | Original: (1049) Current: 50+ |
Terkait | |
Nobita, setelah gagal dalam ulangan sekolahnya atau setelah diganggu oleh Giant dan Suneo, akan selalu mendatangi Doraemon untuk meminta bantuannya. Doraemon kemudian biasanya akan membantu Nobita dengan menggunakan peralatan-peralatan canggih dari kantong ajaibnya; peralatan yang sering digunakan misalnya "baling-baling bambu" dan "Pintu ke Mana Saja". Sering kali, Nobita berbuat terlalu jauh dalam menggunakan peralatannya dan malah terjerumus ke dalam masalah yang lebih besar.
Sejarah
Pada bulan Desember 1969, manga Doraemon terbit berkesinambungan dalam 6 judul majalah bulanan anak. Majalah-majalah tersebut adalah majalah Yoiko (anak baik), Yōchien (taman kanak-kanak), Shogaku Ichinensei (kelas 1 SD), Shogaku Yonnensei (kelas 4 SD), dan sejak 1973 majalah Shogaku Gogensei (kelas 5 SD) dan Shogaku Rokunensei (kelas 6 SD). Cerita yang terkandung dalam majalah-majalah itu berbeda-beda, yang berarti pengarang cerita ini harus menulis lebih dari 6 cerita setiap bulannya. Pada tahun 1979, CoroCoro Comic diluncurkan sebagai majalah Doraemon.Sejak pertama kali muncul pada tahun 1969, cerita Doraemon telah dikumpulkan dan dibagi ke dalam 45 buku yang dipublikasikan sejak tahun 1974 sampai 1996, dan telah terjual lebih dari 80 juta buku pada tahun 1992. Sebagai tambahan, pada tahun 2005, Shōgakukan menerbitkan sebuah serial tambahan sejumlah 5 jilid dengan judul Doraemon+ (Doraemon Plus), dengan cerita yang berbeda dari 45 volume aslinya.
Setting
Doraemon dikirim kembali ke masa Nobita hidup oleh cicit Nobita, Sewashi, untuk memperbaiki kehidupan Nobita agar keturunannya merasakan kehidupan yang lebih baik. Dalam kehidupan aslinya (tanpa dibantu Doraemon), Nobita gagal dalam pelajaran sekolahnya, gagal dalam karier, dan meninggalkan keluarganya dengan masalah finansial.Cerita terfokus tentang kehidupan sehari-hari Nobita, tokoh utama cerita ini. Doraemon memiliki sebuah kantung 4 dimensi yang ia isi dengan benda-benda dari masa depan. Seringkali Nobita datang merengek-rengek karena masalah di sekolah atau di lingkungannya, setelah memohon atau memaksa, Doraemon akan mengeluarkan sebuah alat yang membantu Nobita menyelesaikan masalah, membalas dendam, atau hanya sekedar pamer ke teman-temannya.
Bagaimanapun, Nobita biasanya bertindak terlalu jauh, mengacuhkan saran atau perintah Doraemon, dan mengakibatkannya terjerumus ke masalah yang lebih dalam. Terkadang, teman Nobita (biasanya Suneo atau Giant) mencuri alat tersebut dan berakhir dalam kekacauan karena salah menggunakannya.
Sinopsis
Kehidupan awal Doraemon tidak begitu baik. Ia adalah sebuah robot gagal yang dilelang kepada sebuah keluarga miskin yang terlilit utang, yang tak lain adalah keluarga keturunan Nobi Nobita. Doraemon pernah menjalani masa-masa berat: Ia hanya menjadi penjaga bayi setelah gagal melewati ujian di akademi robot, kedua telinganya hancur setelah digigit robot tikus, catnya luntur akibat ulahnya sendiri, dan masih banyak kisah sedih yang ia lalui pada tahun pertama sejak kelahirannya. Sampai suatu ketika, keluarganya mengirimkan ia kembali ke masa lalu, kira-kira 250 tahun yang lalu, zaman dimana Nobita Nobi, leluhur keluarga ini, masih hidup di Tokyo.Misi Doraemon adalah untuk menolong Nobi Nobita (buyut dari Sewashi yang memiliki Doraemon). Nobita adalah seorang anak yang selalu mengalami nasib sial dan tak punya kemampuan apa-apa. Ia bodoh dalam pelajaran sekolah dan tidak bisa berolahraga, Nobita hanya berbakat dalam tembak-menembak,bermain karet, dan tidur; kemampuan yang hampir tak berguna di zaman Jepang modern. Inilah alasan mengapa ia gagal menjalani kehidupannya. Dan Doraemon dikirim dari masa depan untuk menjadikannya seorang pria yang sukses. Sangat ironis, sebuah robot gagal datang membantu seorang anak yang gagal. Tetapi pada kenyataannya, persahabatan kedua anak ini membuat mereka menjadi seseorang yang lebih baik.
Doraemon tiba di tahun 1969, pada hari Tahun Baru Jepang. Ia keluar dari laci meja milik Nobita, dan sejak saat itu ia tinggal bersama Nobita, misinya adalah untuk mencegah Nobita menjadi orang gagal. Setiap kali Nobita tertimpa masalah, Doraemon akan segera membantu dengan alat-alat ajaibnya.
Kelihatannya misi Doraemon berhasil, karena ketika mereka menjelajah ke masa depan, Nobita melihat dirinya menikah dengan Shizuka, bukan dengan Jaiko. Dia juga melihat keturunannya hidup dalam kondisi yang lebih baik daripada ketika Sewashi mengirim Doraemon dulu; bahkan keturunan Nobi mampu membeli robot yang "tidak gagal", Dorami.
Diceritakan dalam manga dan anime, Doraemon dan Nobita saling bekerja sama untuk memperbaiki kehidupan mereka masing-masing. Mereka saling bekerja sama dan tolong-menolong. Banyak juga cerita yang menampilkan kisah keberanian dan kegigihan mereka untuk mempertahankan persahabatan yang sudah mereka jalin.
Tokoh cerita
Tokoh-tokoh utama
- Doraemon, (ドラえもん).
Sebenarnya, Doraemon adalah sebuah robot kucing yang diciptakan oleh Nobita sendiri, dan setelah sekian lama doraemon berpindah - pindah sejak pertama kali diciptakan, doraemon diperbaharui dan tubuhnya dicat baru sehingga berwarna kuning yang dirancang untuk keperluan rumah tangga keluarga kaya. Sayangnya, sebuah kesalahan terjadi ketika ia menjalani proses produksi. Tak seperti robot kucing lainnya, ia gagal melewati tes sehingga ia dilelang ke keluarga kelas bawah, yang tak lain adalah keluarga keturunan Nobi Nobita. Doraemon tetap menjadi sebuah robot kucing berwarna kuning hingga suatu hari, ketika ia sedang mengurus bayi keluarga tersebut,sebuah robot tikus menggigit telinganya sampai hancur, sehingga terpaksa diamputasi. Doraemon menangis dan terus menangis, ia mencoba untuk mengembalikan telinganya kembali dengan cairan penumbuh, tetapi ia mengambil cairan yang salah dan akhirnya melunturkan cat ditubuhnya yang semula kuning menjadi warna dasarnya, biru. Ia pun berubah menjadi seperti sekarang ini: sebuah robot kucing berwarna biru, tanpa telinga. Sampai sekarang pun Doraemon menjadi benci dan takut terhadap tikus.
Sebenarnya Doraemon sendiri adalah robot canggih yang diciptakan sendiri oleh Nobita. Doraemon diciptakan saat Nobita sudah berumur sekitar separuh baya. Dan sebenarnya doraemon sudah berada dikeluarga nobita sejak awalnya ia diciptakan. Meskipun gagal dalam proses tes, Doraemon tetap menjadi sebuah robot canggih yang memiliki alat-alat ajaib yang mampu memecahkan semua masalah. Ia juga pengertian dan memiliki rasa kasih sayang; ketika Nobita menangis dan merengek kepadanya, Doraemon dengan senang hati mendengarkan semua keluhan dan membantunya. Doraemon juga mampu memahami perasaan manusia, baik itu sedih, takut, marah, gembira, simpati, dan lainnya. Ia mempelajarinya, dan bertindak sesuai apa yang ia pelajari; ia dapat berteriak kegirangan, meloncat ketakutan, dan mengangis haru. Namun, ia juga bertindak sangat emosional, apalagi ia memiliki sifat tempramental yang cukup buruk ketika sedang bertengkar dengan Nobita. Ia juga memiliki "senjata rahasia" yang bisa digunakan dalam keadaan terdesak, yaitu kepalanya yang lebih keras daripada batu sekalipun. Singkatnya, ia menjadi sebuah robot yang memiliki perasaan seperti manusia.
Tubuh Doraemon sangat sensitif, ia tak dapat beraktivitas dengan normal jika ia kehilangan suku cadangnya; walaupun hanya sebuah mur. Ia memiliki seorang adik bernama Dorami yang siap menggantikan tugasnya menjaga Nobita ketika ia menjalani servis rutin di masa depan.
- Nobi Nobita, (野比のび太)
Dirinya dari masa depan seringkali datang kembali dengan mesin waktu untuk menyuruh Nobita belajar. Ini diakibatkan kemalasan Nobita sewaktu disekolah dasar yang akhirnya terbawa ketingkat selanjutnya dan membuat dirinya yang lebih tua menyesal dan mencoba merubahnya seperti itu.
Fujimoto, pengarang komik ini, pernah mengatakan, "Nobita sebenarnya bukan tidak bisa berbuat apa-apa, ia hanya malas jika harus bersungguh-sungguh ketika melakukan sesuatu, Karenanya, setiap hari ia selalu bersantai-santai. Tapi kalau memang diperlukan, ia bisa melakukannya dengan bersungguh-sungguh."
Berbeda dengan ibunya, Nobita adalah seorang pecinta binatang. Ia pernah memelihara — dengan sembunyi-sembunyi — berbagai macam hewan mulai dari kucing, anjing, Fuuko si anak angin, sampai seekor gajah Afrika yang terpisah dari induknya.
Dalam komiknya, Nobita diceritakan pernah tinggal di suatu pulau kecil terpencil selama 10 tahun akibat keteledorannya sendiri. Namun tak ceritakan apakah peristiwa tersebut memberikan efek terhadap perilaku atau sifatnya.
- Shizuka Minamoto (源静香)
- Takeshi Goda (nama panggilan: Giant, Jaian dalam romaji; 剛田武、ジャイアン)
- Suneo Honekawa (骨川スネ夫)
Suneo memiliki seorang adik laki-laki bernama Sunetsugu. Ia tinggal bersama pamannya di New York, Amerika Serikat dan jarang pulang ke Jepang. Meskipun begitu, Suneo dan Sunetsugu sering berkomunikasi lewat surat. Sunetsugu sangat bangga dengan Suneo karena dalam suratnya, Suneo selalu berbohong untuk membanggakan dirinya; misalnya dengan mengatakan bahwa ia adalah anak yang paling pintar di sekolah, paling kuat di lingkungan, dan disukai banyak perempuan. Suneo juga memiliki sepupu bernama Sunekichi yang sering membuatkan remote control untuknya.
Keluarga Nobita
- Ayah Nobita
Nobisuke selalu mengharapkan Nobita agar tidak menjadi seperti dirinya; seorang pekerja kantoran dan gagal dalam melakukan apapun. Ia sering membelikan Nobi setumpuk ensiklopedia yang kemudian hanya dijadikan pajangan saja. Nobisuke juga suka petualangan, ia juga sering menasihati agar Nobita keluar rumah menikmati hangatnya sinar matahari daripada hanya tidur-tiduran di rumah. Meskipun begitu, ia sangat memanjakan Nobita, ia jarang sekali memarahi Nobi.
- Ibu Nobita
- Nenek (dari pihak ayah)
- Kakek (dari pihak ayah)
- Nobisuke
- Sewashi
Tokoh-tokoh lainnya
- Dorami (ドラミ)
- Hidetoshi Dekisugi (出木杉英才)
- Gariben (ガリベンくん?)
- Jaiko
- Sunetsugu
- Sunekichi
- Pak guru
- Sunetaro
- Hideo
- Kaminari
Akhir cerita
Sejak tahun 1980-an, banyak sekali bermunculan cerita dan spekulasi tentang akhir kisah Doraemon.- Kisah pertama —dan paling optimistik— dipublikasikan oleh Nobuo Satu beberapa tahun yang lalu. Diceritakan suatu hari, Nobita pulang ke rumah dan merengek-rengek mengadu ke Doraemon. Tapi tak lama, ia menyadari ada sesuatu yang salah dengan Doraemon; robot kesayangannya itu hanya diam dan tak menjawab keluhannya. Ia pun segera menelepon Dorami, adik Doraemon, dan meminta petunjuk darinya. Dorami kemudian memberi tahu bahwa baterai milik Doraemon habis. Lebih jauh lagi, Dorami menjelaskan bahwa robot kucing versi lama seperti Doraemon seharusnya memiliki cadangan baterai pendukung memori di bagian telinga, tetapi karena Doraemon telah kehilangan telinganya, ia tidak memiliki tenaga cadangan untuk menyimpan memori dan ingatannya. Satu-satunya cara untuk menghidupkan kembali Doraemon adalah dengan mengganti baterainya, namun itu berarti Doraemon akan kehilangan seluruh ingatan tentang diri dan kawan-kawannya; termasuk tentang Nobita.
Disaat bersamaan, polisi-waktu membuat peraturan baru dan melarang adanya "perjalanan waktu" dan menghalangi Nobita yang berusaha membawa Doraemon untuk diperbaiki di masa depan. Dorami kemudian memberikan pilihan: nekat menerobos polisi-waktu, memperbaiki Doraemon di masa depan dan menghapus ingatannya atau menunggu seseorang dari masa depan datang dan memperbaiki Doraemon; Nobita memilih cara kedua. Nobita —yang sangat kehilangan Doraemon— kemudian berjanji untuk belajar keras demi Doraemon. Usaha Nobita berhasil, tiga tahun kemudian Nobita lulus SMA dengan nilai terbaik dan menjadi seseorang yang sangat populer di sekolahnya. Meskipun demikian, sifat Nobita yang ceria dan optimistik hilang, ia menjadi seorang kutubuku yang selalu menyendiri. Dua puluh sembilan tahun kemudian, diceritakan Dekisugi yang telah menjadi presiden Jepang, mengadakan reuni dengan Suneo dan Jaian. Ketiganya membahas mengenai masalah tentang "hilangnya" Doraemon dan tentang Time Paradox; sebuah teori yang menjelaskan bahwa sejarah dunia dapat berubah dengan diciptakannya mesin waktu. dan dari percakapan itulah terpapar alasan kenapa patroli waktu tak memberikan izin nobita untuk memperbaiki Doraemon di masa depan, karena Nobita itu sendiri yang menciptakan Doraemon. Setelah diperbaiki, doraemon menjadi mempunyai telinga dan berwarna kuning, dipeluknya erat-erat Doraemon. Dan mereka hidup bahagia selamanya.[2][3]
- Yang kedua, akhir yang lebih pesimistik mengusulkan bahwa Nobita menderita autisme dan semua karakter yang ada (termasuk Doraemon) hanyalah karakter fiksi dalam imajinasinya saja. Gagasan bahwa Nobita yang sakit dan sekarat membayangkan semua seri di tempat tidurnya untuk membantunya menghilangkan depresi dan rasa sakitnya membuat marah banyak fans. Banyak fans di Jepang protes di luar kantor utama penerbit dari seri setelah mengetahui tentang hal ini. Penerbit akhirnya mengeluarkan pernyataan publik bahwa hal ini tidak benar.
- Yang ketiga berisi bahwa Nobita jatuh dan kepalanya terbentur batu. Ia mengalami koma. Untuk mendapatkan uang operasi agar Nobita selamat, Doraemon menjual seluruh peralatannya di kantong ajaibnya. Sayangnya, operasi tersebut gagal. Doraemon menjual semua peralatannya kecuali satu alat yang ia gunakan untuk memperbolehkan Nobita pergi kemanapun ia mau. Pada akhirnya, Nobita ingin pergi ke surga.
Terdapat tiga akhir yang resmi untuk kisah Doraemon yang dibuat. Doraemon tidak dilanjutkan di dua media karena pembaca semakin besar dan akhir dari kisah ini dipercaya dibutuhkan.
- Pada bulan Maret tahun 1971, di majalah Shogaku 4-nensei [5]: Karena fakta bahwa pengunjung dari masa depan menyebabkan masalah, pemerintah pada abad ke-22 melarang adanya perjalanan waktu, berarti Doraemon harus kembali ke waktunya di zamannya dan meninggalkan Nobita.
- Pada bulan Maret tahun 1972, isi dari majalah Shogaku 4-nensei: Doraemon, untuk beberapa alasan harus kembali ke masa depan dan berbohong untuk masalah mekanik sehingga Nobita memperbolehkannya pergi. Nobita mempercayainya dan berjanji untuk menunggu sampai Doraemon sembuh. Menyadari bahwa Nobita dapat merelakan kepergiannya, Doraemon memberitahu yang sebenarnya dan Nobita menerimanya. Doraemon kembali ke masa depan.
- Pada bulan Maret tahun 1973, isi dari majalah Shogaku 4-nensei, Nobita kembali kerumah setelah kalah bertempur melawan Jaian. Doraemon lalu menjelaskan bahwa ia harus kembali. Nobita mencoba untuk menghalangi hal ini, tetapi setelah mendiskusikannya dengan orang tuanya, ia menerima kepergian Doraemon. Mereka melakukan perjalanan terakhir di taman. Setelah mereka berpisah, Nobita menemui Jaian dan kembali bertempur. Setelah pertarungan yang lama dengan Nobita mencoba untuk menang sehingga Doraemon dapat pergi tanpa khawatir, Jaian membiarkan Nobita menang karena Nobita tidak menyerah. Doraemon menemukan Nobita pingsan dan membawanya pulang. Ia duduk disebelah Nobita yang tidur dan setelah itu, Doraemon kembali ke masa depan. (cerita ini dapat ditemukan di bagian terakhir komik Doraemon nomor 6)
- Versi animasi mirip tetapi lebih panjang. Pada saat hari April Mop, Nobita ditipu oleh Suneo dan Jaian yang menipunya tentang kembalinya Doraemon. Ia dengan senang pulang dan menanyakan kepada ibunya dimana Doraemon dan ternyata ia tahu bahwa ia ditipu. Nobita sedih dan membuka kotak dari Doraemon. Isinya adalah botol liquid. Ia mendengarkan suara Doraemon yang menjelaskan bahwa cairan tersebut disebut Uso 800 (Bohong 800) yang digunakan agar semua hal yang tidak benar yang diucapkan orang yang minum cairan tersebut sebagai hal yang benar. Nobita menggunakannya untuk menipu Jaian dan Suneo, seperti ia mengatakan cuaca hari ini sangat bagus, yang menjadi bohong dan mulai turun hujan deras sebelum ia mengatakan hari ini hujannya deras dan hujan tersebut berhenti. Jaian dan Suneo takut setelah beberapa trik dan ketika Nobita mengatakan apa yang akan terjadi. Nobita sangat gembira pada awalnya, tetapi segera hilang karena kangen akan Doraemon. Ia pulang, dan ibunya mengatakan Doraemon sudah pulang, ia tetapi tidak yakin dan yakin Doraemon tidak akan pernah kembali, seperti yang dikatakan Doraemon terhadap Nobita sebelum ia pergi. Cairan tersebut masih berfungsi, ketika ia sampai di kamarnya ia menemukan Doraemon, dan mereka gembira, tetapi karena pengaruh dari cairan, semua kata-katanya berubah menjadi Aku sangat tidak senang bahwa kita dapat kembali lagi.
- Bagian ekstra dari animasi ini berasal dari buku komik Doraemon nomor tujuh.
Peralatan Doraemon
Peralatan yang sering digunakan oleh Doraemon antara lain:- Kantong Ajaib
- Mesin Waktu
- Pintu ke Mana Saja
- Jendela ke Mana Saja
- Kaca Mata Fantasi
- Baling-Baling Bambu
- Konyaku Penerjemah
- Kue cap Momotaro
- Senter Pengecil
- Senter Pembesar
- Sarung Tangan Super
- Meriam Angin
- Shot Gun
- Mantel Pelindung
- Lingkaran Penembus
- Selimut Waktu
Pokémon
Pokémon (ポケモン Pokemon , pronunciation: /ˈpoʊkeɪmɒn/ poh-kay-mon[1][2]) is a media franchise published and owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1996. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video game-based media franchise in the world, behind only Nintendo's own Mario series.Pokémon properties have since been merchandised into anime, manga, trading cards, toys, books, and other media. The franchise celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2006,and as of 28 May 2010 cumulative sales of the video games (including home console versions, such as the "Pikachu" Nintendo 64) have reached more than 200 million copies.
The name Pokémon is the romanized contraction of the Japanese brand Pocket Monsters (ポケットモンスター Poketto Monsutā ), as such contractions are quite common in Japan. The term Pokémon, in addition to referring to the Pokémon franchise itself, also collectively refers to the 649 fictional species that have made appearances in Pokémon media as of the release of the Pokémon role-playing game (RPG) for the Nintendo DS, Pokémon Black and White. Like the words deer and sheep, the word Pokémon is identical in both the singular and plural, as is each individual species name; in short, it is grammatically correct to say both "one Pokémon" and "many Pokémon" as well as "one Pikachu" and "many Pikachu". In November 2005, 4Kids Entertainment, which had managed the non-game related licensing of Pokémon, announced that it had agreed not to renew the Pokémon representation agreement. Pokémon USA Inc. (now The Pokémon Company International), a subsidiary of Japan's Pokémon Co., now oversees all Pokémon licensing outside of Asia.
Concept
The concept of the Pokémon universe, in both the video games and the general fictional world of Pokémon, stems from the hobby of insect collecting, a popular pastime which Pokémon executive director Satoshi Tajiri-Oniwa enjoyed as a child.[8] Players of the games are designated as Pokémon Trainers, and the two general goals (in most Pokémon games) for such Trainers are: to complete the Pokédex by collecting all of the available Pokémon species found in the fictional region where that game takes place; and to train a team of powerful Pokémon from those they have caught to compete against teams owned by other Trainers, and eventually become the strongest Trainer, the Pokémon Master. These themes of collecting, training, and battling are present in almost every version of the Pokémon franchise, including the video games, the anime and manga series, and the Pokémon Trading Card Game.In most incarnations of the fictional Pokémon universe, a Trainer that encounters a wild Pokémon is able to capture that Pokémon by throwing a specially designed, mass-producible spherical tool called a Poké Ball at it. If the Pokémon is unable to escape the confines of the Poké Ball, it is officially considered to be under the ownership of that Trainer. Afterwards, it will obey whatever its new master commands, unless the Trainer demonstrates such a lack of experience that the Pokémon would rather act on its own accord. Trainers can send out any of their Pokémon to wage non-lethal battles against other Pokémon; if the opposing Pokémon is wild, the Trainer can capture that Pokémon with a Poké Ball, increasing his or her collection of creatures. Pokémon already owned by other Trainers cannot be captured, except under special circumstances in certain games. If a Pokémon fully defeats an opponent in battle so that the opponent is knocked out (i.e., "faints"), the winning Pokémon gains experience and may level up. When leveling up, the Pokémon's statistics ("stats") of battling aptitude increase, such as Attack and Speed. From time to time the Pokémon may also learn new moves, which are techniques used in battle. In addition, many species of Pokémon possess the ability to undergo a form of metamorphosis and transform into a similar but stronger species of Pokémon, a process called evolution.
In the main series, each game's single-player mode requires the Trainer to raise a team of Pokémon to defeat many non-player character (NPC) Trainers and their Pokémon. Each game lays out a somewhat linear path through a specific region of the Pokémon world for the Trainer to journey through, completing events and battling opponents along the way. Each game features eight especially powerful Trainers, referred to as Gym Leaders, that the Trainer must defeat in order to progress. As a reward, the Trainer receives a Gym Badge, and once all eight badges are collected, that Trainer is eligible to challenge the region's Pokémon League, where four immensely talented trainers (referred to collectively as the "Elite Four") challenge the Trainer to four Pokémon battles in succession. If the trainer can overcome this gauntlet, he or she must then challenge the Regional Champion, the master Trainer who had previously defeated the Elite Four. Any Trainer who wins this last battle becomes the new champion and gains the title of Pokémon Master.
Video games
Generations
The original Pokémon games were Japanese RPGs with an element of strategy, and were created by Satoshi Tajiri for the Game Boy. These role-playing games, and their sequels, remakes, and English language translations, are still considered the "main" Pokémon games, and the games which most fans of the series are referring to when they use the term "Pokémon games". All of the licensed Pokémon properties overseen by The Pokémon Company International are divided roughly by generation. These generations are roughly chronological divisions by release; every several years, when an official sequel in the main RPG series is released that features new Pokémon, characters, and gameplay concepts, that sequel is considered the start of a new generation of the franchise. The main games and their spin-offs, the anime, manga, and trading card game are all updated with the new Pokémon properties each time a new generation begins. The franchise began the fifth generation on September 18, 2010 in Japan.The Pokémon franchise started off in its first generation with its initial release of Pocket Monsters Aka and Midori ("Red" and "Green", respectively) for the Game Boy in Japan. When these games proved extremely popular, an enhanced Ao ("Blue") version was released sometime after, and the Ao version was reprogrammed as Pokémon Red and Blue for international release. The games launched in the United States on September 30, 1998. The original Aka and Midori versions were never released outside of Japan.Afterwards, a further enhanced version titled Pokémon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition was released to partially take advantage of the color palette of the Game Boy Color, as well as to feature more elements from the popular Pokémon anime. This first generation of games introduced the original 151 species of Pokémon (in National Pokédex order, encompassing all Pokémon from Bulbasaur to Mew), as well as the basic game concepts of capturing, training, battling, and trading Pokémon with both computer and human players. These versions of the games take place within the fictional Kanto region, though the name "Kanto" was not used until the second generation.
The second generation of Pokémon began in 1999 with the release of Pokémon Gold and Silver for Game Boy Color. Like the previous generation, an enhanced version titled Pokémon Crystal was later released. The second generation introduced 100 new species of Pokémon (starting with Chikorita and ending with Celebi), with a total of 251 Pokémon to collect, train, and battle. The Pokémon mini is a handheld game console released in November 2001 in North America, December 2001 in Japan, and 2002 in Europe.
Pokémon entered its third generation with the 2002 release of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire for Game Boy Advance and continued with the Game Boy Advance remakes of Pokémon Red and Blue, Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, and an enhanced version of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire titled Pokémon Emerald. The third generation introduced 135 new Pokémon (starting with Treecko and ending with Deoxys) for a total of 386 species. However, this generation also garnered some criticism for leaving out several gameplay features, including the day-and-night system introduced in the previous generation, and it was also the first installment that encouraged the player to collect merely a selected assortment of the total number of Pokémon rather than every existing species (202 out of 386 species are catchable in the Ruby and Sapphire versions).
In 2006, Japan began the fourth generation of the franchise with the release of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl for Nintendo DS. The fourth generation introduces another 107 new species of Pokémon (starting with Turtwig and ending with Arceus), bringing the total of Pokémon species to 493.[11] The Nintendo DS "touch screen" allows new features to the game such as cooking poffins with the stylus and using the "Pokétch". New gameplay concepts include a restructured move-classification system, online multiplayer trading and battling via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, the return (and expansion) of the second generation's day-and-night system, the expansion of the third generation's Pokémon Contests into "Super Contests", and the new region of Sinnoh, which has an underground component for multiplayer gameplay in addition to the main overworld. Pokémon Platinum, the enhanced version of Diamond and Pearl—much like Pokémon Yellow, Crystal, and Emerald—was released September 2008 in Japan, March 2009 in North America, and was released in Australia and Europe in May 2009. Spin-off titles in the fourth generation include the Pokémon Stadium follow-up Pokémon Battle Revolution for Wii, which has Wi-Fi connectivity as well.Nintendo announced in May 2009 that enhanced remakes of Pokémon Gold and Silver, entitled Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, released for the Nintendo DS system. HeartGold and SoulSilver are set in the Johto region and were released in September 2009 in Japan.
The fifth generation of Pokémon began on September 18 with the release of Pokémon Black and White in Japan for Nintendo DS.The games were originally announced by the Pokémon Company on January 29, 2010 with a tentative release later that year, before the announcement on June 27, 2010, of the games' release on September 18, 2010. This version is set in the Unova region (イッシュ地方 Isshu-chihō , Isshu region) and utilizes the Nintendo DS's 3-D rendering capabilities to a greater extent than Platinum, HeartGold, and SoulSilver, as shown in game footage of the player walking through the Castelia City (ヒウンシティ Hiun Shiti ) metropolis. A total of 153 new Pokémon were introduced as well as new game mechanics such as the C Gear (Cギア C Gia ) wireless interactivity featuresand the ability to upload game data to the internet and the player's computer. Pokémon Black and White was released in Europe on March 4, 2011, in North America on March 6, 2011, and in Australia on March 10, 2011.
On January 28, 2011, Nintendo had announced that they had plans to release new Pokémon titles for Nintendo Wii and Nintendo 3DS at some point in 2011. No other details have been revealed.Game mechanics
Main article: Gameplay of Pokémon
Starter Pokémon
One of the consistent aspects of the Pokémon games—spanning from Pokémon Red and Blue on the Nintendo Game Boy to the Nintendo DS games Pokémon Black and White—is the choice of one of three different Pokémon at the start of the player's adventures; these three are often labeled "starter Pokémon". Players can choose a Grass-type, a Fire-type, or a Water-type.For example, in Pokémon Red and Blue (and their respective reworks, Pokémon FireRed and Pokémon LeafGreen), the player has the choice of starting with Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle. The exception to this rule is Pokémon Yellow (a remake of the original games that follows the story of the Pokémon anime), where players are given a Pikachu, an Electric-type mouse Pokémon, famous for being the mascot of the Pokémon media franchise; in this game, however, the three starter Pokémon from Red and Blue can be obtained during the quest by a single player, something that is not possible in any other installment of the franchise.Another consistent aspect is that the player's rival will always choose as his or her starter Pokémon the one that has a type advantage over the player's Pokémon. For instance, if the player picks a Grass-type Pokémon, the rival will always pick the fire-type starter. Of course, the exception to this is again Pokémon Yellow, in which the rival picks an Eevee, but whether this Eevee evolves into Jolteon, Vaporeon, or Flareon is decided by when the player wins and loses to the rival through the journey.Pokédex
The Pokédex is a fictional electronic device featured in the Pokémon video game and anime series. In the games, whenever a Pokémon is first captured, its data will be added to a player's Pokédex, but in the anime or manga, the Pokédex is a comprehensive electronic reference encyclopedia, usually referred to in order to deliver exposition. "Pokédex" is also used to refer to a list of Pokémon, usually a list of Pokémon by number. In the video games, a Pokémon Trainer is issued a blank device at the start of the journey. A trainer must then attempt to fill the Pokédex by encountering and at least briefly obtaining each of the different species of Pokémon. A player will receive the name and image of a Pokémon after encountering one that was not previously in the Pokédex, typically after battling said Pokémon either in the wild or in a trainer battle (with the exceptions of link battles and tournament battles, such as in the Battle Frontier). In Pokémon Red and Blue, some Pokémon's data is added to the Pokédex simply by viewing the Pokémon, such as in the zoo outside of the Safari Zone. Also, certain NPC characters may add to the Pokédex by explaining what a Pokémon looks like during conversation. More detailed information is available after the player obtains a member of the species, either through capturing the Pokémon in the wild, evolving a previously captured Pokémon, hatching a Pokémon egg (from the second generation onwards), or through a trade with another trainer (either an NPC or another player). This information includes height, weight, species type, and a short description of the Pokémon. Later versions of the Pokédex have more detailed information, like the size of a certain Pokémon compared to the player character, or Pokémon being sorted by their habitat (so far, the latter feature is only in the FireRed and LeafGreen versions). The most current forms of Pokédex are capable of containing information on all Pokémon currently known. The GameCube games, Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, have a Pokémon Digital Assistant (P★DA) which is similar to the Pokédex, but also tells what types are effective against a Pokémon and gives a description of its abilities.In other media
Anime series
Main article: Pokémon (anime)
The Pokémon anime series and films are a meta-series of adventures separate from the canon that most of the Pokémon video games follow (with the exception of Pokémon Yellow, a game based loosely on the anime storyline). The anime follows the quest of the main character, Ash Ketchum (known as Satoshi in Japan) a Pokémon Master in training, as he and a small group of friends travel around the fictitious world of Pokémon along with their Pokémon partners. The original series, titled Pocket Monsters, or simply Pokémon in western countries (often referred to as Pokémon: Gotta Catch 'Em All to distinguish it from the later series), begins with Ash's first day as a Pokémon trainer. His first (and signature) Pokémon is a Pikachu, differing from the games, where only Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle could be chosen. The series follows the storyline of the original games, Pokémon Red and Blue, in the region of Kanto. Accompanying Ash on his journeys are Brock, the Pewter City Gym Leader, and Misty, the youngest of the Gym Leader sisters from Cerulean City. Pokémon: Adventures in the Orange Islands follows Ash's adventures in the Orange Islands, a place unique to the anime, and replaces Brock with Tracey Sketchit, an artist and "Pokémon watcher". The next series, based on the second generation of games, include Pokémon: Johto Journeys, Pokémon: Johto League Champions, and Pokémon: Master Quest, following the original trio of Ash, Brock, and Misty in the western Johto region.The saga continues in Pokémon: Advanced Battle, based on the third generation games. Ash and company travel to Hoenn, a southern region in the Pokémon World. Ash takes on the role of a teacher and mentor for a novice Pokémon trainer named May. Her brother Max accompanies them, and though he isn't a trainer, he knows large amounts of handy information. Brock (from the original series) soon catches up with Ash, but Misty has returned to Cerulean City to tend to her duties as a gym leader (Misty, along with other recurring characters, appears in the spin-off series Pokémon Chronicles). The Advanced Battle series concludes with the Battle Frontier saga, based on the Emerald version and including aspects of FireRed and LeafGreen. The Advanced Generation series ended with Max leaving to pick his starter Pokémon, and May going to the Grand Festival in Johto.
In the Diamond and Pearl series, based on the fourth generation games, Ash, Brock, and a new companion, an aspiring Pokémon coordinator named Dawn traveled through the region of Sinnoh. In the end of the series, Ash and Brock returned to their home region where Brock started to follow his newfound dream of becoming a Pokémon doctor himself.
Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes!, based on the fifth generation games, Pokémon Black and White, is the newest installment of the Pokémon anime series being broadcast only Japan and the United States. It features Ash and Pikachu traveling through the new region of Unova (Isshu in Japan) along two new companions, Iris and Cilan (Dent in Japan).
In addition to the TV series, thirteen Pokémon films have been made, with a pair of films in the making. Collectible bonuses, such as promotional trading cards, have been available with some of the films