Unless your current address reads Under a Big Rock, you've heard something about the Japanese kid's anime series Pokémon. What you may not have heard, but I'm more than prepared to tell you (especially since we weren't sent a screener and had to go shell out hard cold plastic to obtain a copy), is that Pokémon is just another soulless merchandising ploy to make parents part with bucks so that their children can amass character tie-ins--in this case, a shamelessly greedy 150-plus--in collections that will end up in the dipsy dumpster two years hence. In Psychic Surprise, which features three mind-numbingly similar episodes, hero kid Ash and his friends compete against a villainously nerdy pair of kids who call themselves Team Rocket in twenty minutes of diddly-dinking around aimed at catching a Pokémon (of which there are the aforementioned lucrative 150). The animation (especially for Japanese) is unexceptional, the stories transparently feeble sales pitches, and the prognosis for the future, pretty dim (how many copies of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoons are circulating well these days?) Tough call. If you want to save local parents some dinero, you're certainly justified in purchasing this title (and at least four other tapes that are also available) on the basis of popularity alone. If, on the other hand, you're putting together a quality children's video collection, this doesn't pass muster. Schools, it goes without saying, should definitely skip. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)
Pokémon: Psychic Surprise
(1998) 75 min. $14.98. Pioneer Entertainment (avail. from most distributors). Color cover. Vol. 14, Issue 5
Pokémon: Psychic Surprise
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