Notes on Transnational Animation and the Pokémon Culture in South Park’s Chinpokomon

Adult animated series are one of the most rising genres in the contemporary animation landscape. Since The Simpson's (1984-), these products have reshaped the canons of the animation genre, shifting from childhood entertainment to more complex forms and contents aimed at an over-14 audience. Integrating the production and distribution models of "complex television", at the turn of the new millennium several adult series became internationally popular (Mittell 2015). Using both satire and metalanguage, they created their own reference market and emerged as a genre. An exemplary case is the American series South Park (1997-) created by Matt Stone and Tray Parker and distributed by Comedy Central. The series follows the adventures of four kids who live in the fictional city of South Park and throughout the years, has offered a radical and controversial satire of American society. In addition to dealing with political, racial, religious and gender issues (Weinstock 2008), one of the areas in which Stone and Parker's series has addressed its critical action also concerns animation itself. If in its very beginning South Park was made using the "cut-out" animation technique (which also “cuts” production and time costs), the series has aired several episodes that parodied other animation series and media franchises with particular attention to Japanese animation and media cosmos. In particular, the episode Chinpokomon (s03e11, 1999) presents a story about the effects of the massive distribution and reception of Japanese animation products which “shocked” the Western market at the turn of the millennium (Pellitteri 2002, Allison 2006). The episode thus offers a critical reading of the global interbreeding of animation techniques, narratives and fantasies which characterizes today's transnational animation and media mix (Steinberg 2012). By analysing Chinpokomon both as episode and imaginary media, the paper aims to enucleate a first sketch on the forms of transnational storytelling and consumption typical of serial animation in the new millennium.