>>46528993The next theme of the series plays off the last one as well, and that's the series positive and uplifting retrofuturism/futurism mixed with the (then) modern day. Pokemon is a world of matter transporters, instant healing that is so easy it's no strain on the world to have it freely available, short range time jumps, man-created lifeforms that have personalities and emotional range and needs and feelings, what was functionally an early smart device in the Pokegear and also 90's television sets, normal toilets, normal payphones, normal clothes, doors, people living their lives without integrating the technology into every facet of their life, so on and so forth. It speaks a really hopeful and positive message about the future, it depicts a fantastical and dramatized but ultimately still very much tied to earth depiction of our world that has both achieved scientific feats once thought impossible and also lives in harmony with the nature on their planet. Pokemon makes the claim that were all gonna make it, we don't have to sacrifice our planet and our past and the health of society to modernize and we similarly don't need to drag humanity kicking and screaming backwards to save the planet. The balance CAN be struck. And while Pokemon doesn't try to gloss over the fact that part of achieving this is personal sacrifice (despite all this high scifi technology, people in the Pokemon world live very similar lives to our own, it also doesn't rely on the current paradigms the world unanimously recognizes such as healthcare industry and overarching governmental bodies and banks, there is also a message about the disarmament of nukes in that normal war is able to take place once again as evidenced by Lt. Surge) it chooses to focus on preemptively celebrating our achievement over knocking us over the head with how difficult it will be to get there.
