TIME Pokemon

by The Editors of TIME

96 pages, Paperback

Published February 9, 2024

Reviews

[Leslie Carnahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a fun read of the history of one of my favorite franchises. I had to give it 3 stars however only because Jake Paul was pictured in this.

[émilie ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're a hardcore Pokémon lover, I feel like you could skip this. I'm a ''I LOOOOOVE Pokémon but on a surface level'' kind of fan, so I was able to learn a few things and enjoy the magazine.

I'll just get this over with already, the cover is so cute. I got the Pikachu cover, but really they're all amazing. I wish I had enough money to waste to buy them all.

It was really interesting to learn about how Pokémon came to be; where the idea came from, how it was actually created, how it grew through the years. The road map showing Pokémon's timeline was also great in this regard.

The collabs article was fun to see! It did remind me that I wasn't able to get one of those amazing pair of Puma shoes though, but it's ok... I did get a Pokémon x Levi's t-shirt, so I guess there's that!

The articles about the Detective Pikachu movie were the most interesting, in my opinion. There's so much work that went behind it all. It gives us a bit of an idea of how they were able to get these Pokémons translated from fiction to real lil' things.

I didn't love the ''When we feared Pokémon'' article. It's totally ok to see Pokémon from another point of view, but this article was a reprint from 1999 and it really shows. It just felt weird to read.

Talking about reprinted articles, there were 6 of them, which seems like a lot... Felt like a lot while reading, anyway.

The Pokémon Go articles were very mid. I didn't learn anything crazy, it wasn't out-of-this-world interesting.

[Nate Hipple · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really hoped for more from this. It was beautifully put together but fairly shallow in content with a large number of reprinted articles and repetitive material. Outside of the first few articles, it felt more like it was explaining what Pokémon was than celebrating with a deep dive for the fans. As another reviewer pointed out, the section on Pokemon Go was given far too many pages while the anime was MIA.

[Lorellie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've loved Pokemon nearly all my life. About 25 of my 32 years, as this mag points out. If anything, I love it now even more than I did as a child, considering it prime bonding to share the anime with Tot. That being the major reason I just think this an okay read, there's almost no discussion of the anime. Then there's tons of discussion of the Go phone game, which felt like a total cash grab to me. What I did really love was the old interview with the game's creator, the timeline of Pokemon content, the cool merchandise shown, and the guide to spotting a fake card.

[Aaron I · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got the best cover of this (Gengar).
I agree with the other reviewers, too much Go. Could’ve done another article or two of anything else.
& I’ll always say justice for Raichu! Pikachu is just a means to an to an end to the best! Get that fool to learn quick attack so your rai rai isn’t slow & you’re good. Pika is a bish, tired of him stealing the spotlight from my dude. lol.

[Borgia Barton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some truly bizarre choices in here, like complaining about the “white male protagonist” (a Japanese kid whose gender you decide?) and lamenting that blind kids can’t play the game well, all before even introducing the brand or any of the actual characters or culture. Journalists 🤮

[Chaz Culver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Repetitive content. Little to nothing in regard to the anime. But overall still enjoyed the read and found it interesting.

[Lana Dunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

i heart my hyperfixation 🫶