There are plenty of people in the world that will say that Pokemon is childish, nerdy, a fad, pointless, lacking adult content and a cash in. This annoys me, it truly does.
The entire world seems judgemental on such matters. In the UK Pokemon is considered a past time for the under twelves and if you show even the slightest implication that you like Pokemon past that age you would probably be beaten up, even businesses see it as 'targeting the age 6-9 market'. I have met just three people in my life who like Pokemon age six and far less who liked it at seven, eight and nine than like it in their teens. In China most aspects of Pokemon are banned for being too heavily capitalist and Japanese. In America, I would expect much the same as here in the UK.
So what exactly is it that makes it come across as childish and if it is childish and unchanging then it would be a complete contradiction for it to be nerdy too. Granted the anime is probably aimed at younger children, but it started as a game and that is still what it is best at being, a game. Also, the entry level for TCG tournaments is 11 and it goes all the way up to 18+.
Another thing that annoys me is when people say it started as a nerdy little TCG. It started as Pocket Monsters Red and Green in Japan in the mid 1990's, '96 as far as I know. I think that such people are kidding themselves into thinking that Pokemon was always crap right from humble roots, which is far from the case.
So lets look at the games. If every single copy of Diamond and Pearl were sold to people under the age of twelve, then how come so many millions sold so quickly? My best bet is that for many people of our age it is a guilty pleasure, which is frankly stupid when faux promiscuity and the use of recreational and illegal drugs is rife. Is it so that in our teenage years we are expected to grow out of Pokemon and 'move on to other things' as many put it?
I have never seen anyone under the age of 10 understand the complex game mechanics of Pokemon and very few under the age of 13. How many young children have had the education or the development of mind to work out complex fractions in the EV system. How many have the social understanding to trade fairly? Not many. If I ever meet someone between the ages 6 and 9 who has the competitive skill to beat me in a battle on Diamond, I will eat my large screen TV.
So then, we have established that Pokemon is far more complex than is believed by what seems to be the majority, we have also established that Pokemon is most likely a guilty pleasure to be kept behind locked doors but cocaine isn't and finally that I will eat a Hitachi if I get beaten on Pokemon by a six to nine year old.
Onto the next thing. What are we as teenagers meant to be doing then? Stereotypically this would mean beginning to start vices and to detach from our parents. Basically we are expected to do wrong by the status quo and we are expected to be exploring the world of adulthood with merely immature minds. I wonder if anyone has thought that if such negative expectations were not so then maybe they wouldn't occur. Pokemon is seen as a definition of childhood by a consumer dominant generation (born '92 to '94), yet it is so much more than a millennium craze. I would far rather be a Pokemon fan than someone who has broken the age of consent by two years and has had his life ruined by the burden of impregnating a girl who he didn't care about, who has a criminal record and because of this is bitter and supports far left wing politics. And for what, rushing into something that should have been preserved for meeting someone special in later teenage years or even the early twenties.
These cliches hold back franchises such as Pokemon from achieving their full potential, but there is one final thing which implements such stereotypes. Ripoffs. Fans of Digimon may argue that it was conceived a year before Pokemon, but it is evident that the ideas may well have been stolen from Satoshi Tajiri during his original plans. There are also programmes like Yu-Gi-Oh which are branded as Pokemon ripoffs, but they aren't. Yu-Gi-Oh did not start as a video game, Pokemon did and that's what makes it special. The franchise was built around the games, not the other way round. Okay, Yu-Gi-Oh shared a similar target audience earlier in this decade, but upon the release of Ruby and Sapphire and the lowering ratings of Yu-Gi-Oh, this didn't last for long.
In conclusion to it all, I think that Pokemon is overlooked by too many people. It is a great game and it shouldn't have to be kept secret, if enough people like it and I suspect enough do, then eventually it will become accepted as something that is actually aimed more at the over twelves.
As for myself, I do feel that I am slowly becoming less interested in Pokemon. I will probably always like the games, but as is the case with my opinion on Burnout it is ever so slowly losing its hold of me. If Pokemon has to end somewhere, I would love to see a remake of Gold and Silver.

So what do you think, vote and converse now. Thanks for reading my article.