I had to explain Pokemon to my coworker the other day. She told me that her son liked the cards but had no idea what they were beyond that. Having to explain it to someone else, made me have to consider what did I like about it in the first place.

I think the games themselves offer a fantasy that any child would love. First, you get to leave home on an exciting adventure! You’re going to travel from town to town, seeing the sights. Encountering new people and doing new things. That was what the anime was, a road movie as much as an advertisement for the games.

Secondly, kids love pets. But what’s the problem with pets? You can only have one or two. Well, Pokemon offers you the dream of having several hundred pets all at the same time. And there are so many kinds of pets. Forget your normal dog and cat. You can have a sentient pile of garbage as your pet!

Then comes the joy of just collecting things. Kids collect trading cards and bottle caps and all kinds of things. Now they have cute animals on them. And of course, the aforementioned sentient bag of trash.

There’s over a thousand of them at this point. Your kid is going to be able to find at least one that they love above all others. For me, it was the Pokemon, Lapras.

I loved dinosaurs as a kid but found real plesiosaurs to be terrifying. I think they were the ones that gave me my initial hydromegathalassaphobia, the fear of large things in the water. Most things prehistoric things made me scared of the ocean.

Lapras was a nice alternative. You could ride on its back. It was gentle and kind. But the problem was that they were so few in the game. They were hunted to near extinction. But then through conservation methods, they became plentiful again.

I thought that no one could shake my love for Lapras. But then one of the new games introduced a new challenger. The one and only, little pig: Lechonk.

Gotta love a little pig that’s so round. While my love for Lapras will never be shaken or replaced, this little guy comes a close second.

But this is kind of the point, isn’t it? I’m sure that someone even loves the garbage bag. With that many, every person has to have a favorite and every pokemon is someone’s favorite.

It’s always been a weird thing for me to have such affection for these silly little games. But the fact of the matter is that they have influenced me throughout my life. Part of my love of adventure and wanting to see new places comes from these games. There’s always been a lifelong want to walk across America and it definitely came from watching Ash, Misty and Brock walking something like several thousand miles.

Lord of the Rings offers the same thrill of adventure. Leaving home and doing something great and I think that Pokemon elicits the same feelings. Except instead of having the fate of the world and a big eye staring at you, you get a nice little friend.