ABSTRACT
This is an essay about the experience of encountering Pokémon in the fi rst couple of years after the release of the videogames here in the United Kingdom. The dichotomous paradigms of “cute” and “cool” that shape the zeitgeist of Pokémon motivate academics to discuss the culture and reception of the game. I argue that by looking closely at the art of Pokémon we can begin to understand the complex rhetoric of the design, that oscillates between the poles of Japanese “cute” and American “cool.”
