The Pokémon anime has been around for a long time, and technology has changed a lot over that timeframe. However, the series did manage to call one common aspect of present-day technology: the prevalence of video calls.
Pokémon‘s world has always been moderately futuristic, as many of the technologies surrounding Pokémon, such as Poké Balls and the storage system, rely on tech that just doesn’t exist in the real world. In the first season, it was especially clear with how frequently Ash would make use of video phone stations at Pokémon Centers to contact both his mother and Professor Oak. These video phone calls are astonishingly similar to how video calls are conducted today, and their common use is certainly reflective of the modern day.
Pokémon Foresaw the Ubiquity of Video Calls
Video Calls Were a Revolutionary Idea in the 90s
While the actual video phone appliance that they use is a bit dated looking, with a phone attached to the screen in its earliest appearances, it was updated in later seasons to no longer include a phone, featuring Ash speaking directly to the screen. The video phones are depicted as something that nearly everyone has access to, with both home units and public units akin to old-style payphones. Pokémon certainly wasn’t the first series to depict a video phone, but its frequent use as an everyday tool, even taking the place of audio-only calls, was a bit more unique at the time.
Obviously, video calling technology has evolved somewhat beyond what Pokémon predicted; most people use the smartphones on their person, rather than a dedicated calling unit, although such devices do exist. Public payphone-style video phones like those seen at the Pokémon Centers have never really been common as a result, but one can imagine that’s just part of the adventure. After all, many situations in episodes of Pokémon could be resolved a little too easily with access to video calling technology at any time. Being alone in the wilderness with Pokémon is part of the fantasy aspect.
Pokémon Predicted More than Just Video Calls
Pokémon Also Foresaw Wearable Tech, GPS, and More
The video phone is far from the only piece of tech in Pokémon that was ahead of its time. The Pokégear seen in the second generation is effectively a smartwatch with a variety of valuable functions, including the ability to make calls, and the PokéNav, introduced in the third generation, functions like a GPS device. Pokémon was a bit slow to embrace smartphones, however, perhaps for the reasons outlined above. They didn’t make their appearance in the series until Pokémon Journeys, with the advent of Rotom Phones, which have the Pokémon Rotom embedded within them.
It’s certainly strange to think of Pokémon as a prescient series, but at least in these cases, the franchise was a bit ahead of the technological curve. It’s not necessarily that Pokémon invented these ideas, but rather the way they’re used in the series is quite reflective of how the tech is used in real life, and that’s something that even sci-fi series have a tough time nailing.
Pokémon
- Release Date
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1997 – 2022
- Network
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TV Tokyo, TV Osaka, TV Aichi, TVh, TVQ, TSC
- Directors
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Kunihiko Yuyama, Daiki Tomiyasu, Jun Owada, Saori Den
- Writers
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Takeshi Shudo, Junki Takegami, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Aya Matsui, Shoji Yonemura, Dai Saito
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Rica Matsumoto
Pikachu (voice)
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Mayumi Iizuka
Satoshi (voice)
