by Dogasu
Posted July 25th, 2000

Pokemon:  The First Movie made over $50 million within five days.  It was the number one movie for its opening weekend.  It opened on a Wednesday, a day when many kids skipped school to watch the movie.  Merely a year later, Pokemon:  The Movie 2000 only raked in around $20 million and ranked number three on its opening weekend.  Even with the Ancient Myuu Card giveaway, the movie wasn't nearly as big a success as the first one.  So what gives?

In case you've been living under a cave lately, Pokemon's popularity is dropping quickly.  While the franchise is still a top seller in other countries around the world, Pokemon is almost dead in America.  Why?  It's a combination of bad decisions made by both Nintendo and Kids' WB!

Here's what happened.  Back in the fall of 1999, Pokemon was at its prime.  The show had been the number one show for several months, and a new season was about to begin.  But Kids' WB! made a bad decision.  A VERY bad decision.  They decided to air as many new episodes as they had.  You'd get a new episode every weekday, and then two or three new episodes on the weekend.  Pokemon fans continued to tune in everyday, and it maintained its top position. 

But the thing is, Kids' WB! used up half a year's episodes in two months.  After that initial two months, there was a drought.  Fans didnt' get any new episodes until January, and then they only aired three.  Then for the next three months, Kids' WB! gave us endless theme weeks.  "Best Battles Week," "Team Rocket Week," "Parents Who Get It Week," etc.  Episodes were no longer shown in order, making it impossible for new fans to get into it.  And the episodes they DID air were the same ones over and over.  In one week, they'd rerun the "Water Flowers of Cerulean City" episode three times!  The Natsume/Sabrina battle was re-runned to death.  The Pokemon League and the Orange League episodes were shown maybe once every two months. 

Many fans turned away.  The only new thing pokemon fans were getting was Pokemon Stadium (Pokemon Stadium 2 in Japan), and that was just the Game Boy game minus all the fun of catching the pokemon.  Sure, the game sold very well, but Pokemon Stadium's the kind of game you lose interest with after about ten minutes.  So many kids moved on.  They watched Digimon, they watched Flint the Time Detective, they watched Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z, and a few even watched Gundam Wing.  Pokemon was being beaten by Digimon, Cartoon Network's the Rising Sun...shoot, even Mickey Mouse (on ABC) was beating Pokemon!

Then in May, it was sweeps weeks.  This is when ratings are crucial for networks, for it determines how much money the networks get.  So new episodes of Pokemon were aired.  But, Kids' WB!, not learning from its past mistakes, started airing three new episodes a week.  They kept this up for about...three weeks?  Then it was back to the endless theme weeks.  Sure, Nintendo was going to release Gold and Silver, but that would be months away.  Pokemon fans wanted something now.  And they weren't getting it.

In June, the Lost Pokemon Episode 18 was aired.  Few people noticed.  I would be chatting to people on-line, and would talk about the Lost Episode, and most people said "They aired it?  When?"  Most people hadn't seen the show in months, and so the only way you could find out was by watching Kids' WB's other shows.  Like "Cardcaptors" *shudder*. 

So now the movie's out.  Does anyone care?  Since it only ranked number three when it would have been number one a year ago proves that they don't.  It doesn't seem that the movie had as much publicity as the first.  By the time the movie came out in Japan, they were up to Episode 103.  We're up to Japanese Episode 103 ("Misty Meets Her Match") as the movie comes out.  So we're in the same place they were.  But in order to keep the episodes from contradicting the movie (such as why Lizardon wouldn't obey Satoshi in the movie but does in the TV series) Kids' WB! can't air newer episodes.  So we have to wait until September to get the rest of the Orange League series.

All the while, Nintendo's in denial.  "Our sales have risen 220% since this time last year."  Yeah right.  Then explain why Pokemon products are being discounted up to 60% off to get them off the shelves?  Explain why every network has beaten Kids' WB! for several consecutive months.  Explain why kids are walking away from Pokemon.  And now explain why the movie's not doing as well as the first. 

Then explain this action:  they forced UPNetwork to remove their video clips.  Apparently, their video sales were dropping.  Kind of contradicts the whole "220%" thing, doesn't it?  Anyway, Nintendo felt that the UPNetwork's video clip library was the cause of this.  So UPNetwork had to take down all their video clips.  There were only episode clips, it's not like you could download full episodes off the site or anything.  Yet all were taken down.  Even the humorous commercials Kids' WB! aired (remember the Batman singing the Jigglypuff song one?) were taken down.  And the Japanese video clips.  Suuuuuuuuure...the Japanese clips of the opening and ending sequences are causing little kids to stop buying their dubbed videos.  Suuuuuuure....

As far as I see it, Kids' WB! has one chance left.  In September, we'll see whether they repeat the mistakes of last fall or turn over a new leaf.  Because if they get greedy again and air all their episodes within a space of two or three months, Pokemon will be dead by this time next year.  There will be no third movie, no Pokemon Stadium Gold/Silver...watch yourselves, Nintendo.