ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights how both Pokemon Black and White and the law itself construct a human-orientated rights discourse. It discusses Pokemon, persona and the Poke Ball and examines how categories of legal personhood trap the non-human within Pokemon, reading the Poke Ball as a representation of the technic of persona – that which brings the wild creature within the scope of legality. The chapter moves away from the Pokemon trainer capturing nature through battles against wild Pokemon to the battles between trainers themselves. It turns from the structure of Pokemon as an analogy of law to the very nature of the game as a site of legality which, through its interactivity, reproduces an 'optical delusion' – the anthropocentric gaze of law. This perspective points to the need for law to evolve beyond these delusions of anthropocentricity, embracing a change which may provide equity for the non-human creature.
