Has Pokemon just been reduced to a "dying fad"? Fossil cards have just come out in Australia. The second movie is on its way, along with new episodes in a couple of months, not to mention gold and silver. I think there's definitely life yet!

While a lot of people are saying Pokemon is on its way out, I don't think it will happen quite so fast. Although at my school, kids are already focused on AFL (Australian Football League) stickers and Digimon.

This page isn't for that though, it's just for me to say how I lost interest. This will be hypocritical in association with two of my past editorials, but oh well.

It was largely, I must admit, influence from other people. The commercials on TV were SO kid-orientated. That 2.B.A Master ad was just embarassing. 5-10-year-olds were trading all over the school, constantly walking around with wads of cards in their hands.

This did not do much to endorse that Pokemon is good for all ages. People thought I was weird. I don't like being laughed at. My mother disapproved of it too.

After a while, I associated Pokemon with being embarassed. This is not really a healthy sentiment.

I guess I've done it to death, really. All of my fandoms fade out after a while. I bought the merchandise, played the games, seen the eps, read the comics, surfed the webpages, wrote the fanfics, made the sites, and now it's time to call it a day.

Another element to it was continual doubt placed in my mind by those "Pokemon-is-evil" people. It might sound strange from the person who wrote an article contradicting all that, but I guess the article was for my own peace of mind. It didn't really work...

Why? Well, it's hard for me to like something with psychic monsters and ghosts and demons. I know they're not the main aspect of it or anything, but they're there. And Pokemon seems to have been such a bad influence. Stabbings, bullying, kids fighting (I never saw kids getting much enjoyment out of the cards, just arguing or ripping each other off, or being jealous)...

Don't get me wrong, I think Pokemon's overall message is okay. But the hype got out of hand, and I liked it a lot better when hardly anyone knew about the show! I used to complain how there was no merchandise or acknowledgement that Pokemon even existed over here. Now I'd love to go back to that.

Anyway, I guess it's time for me to call it a day. I'm not completely giving up; I still like playing Pokemon Pinball, I still hang out at some Pokeforums, and I still have links to a number of sites.

But I will cut back. Gotta say, goodbye to Pokemon.

It's been fun though!