Who would have guessed that a funny bunch of digital creatures with names like Pikachu, Charmander, Squirtle and Jiggly Puff would hypnotize our kids, empty our pocketbooks and create the biggest game sensation in memory? With more than $5 billion in international sales, Pokémon is the best-selling video game in the U.S. More than 4.2 million Game Boy and Nintendo 64 cartridges have been sold since last September. Factor in the 1 million trading-card packs sold, a top animated TV series and the 100 or so a Pokémon license offering everything from backpacks to lollipops, and it's clear that we're a nation obsessed. Some smart features have helped hold kids' fascination. As any Pokémon player knows, the goal of the game is to collect and tame all 150 characters. But to do so, kids must link their Game Boys up with those of friends and make trades. Some of the printed cards were issued in limited quantities, spawning frenzied trading clubs for obsessed kids and causing the card!
             In Japan, where the Pokemon were born, Ash is called Satoshi; and Satoshi was made in the image of his creator, Satoshi Tajiri, a young outcast who, as a boy living just outside Tokyo, collected insects and other tiny creatures of field, pond and forest. In a nation of ultra conformists, he was a misfit who didn't even dream of college. His father tried to get him a job as an electrical-utility repairman. He refused. No one expected him to go very far, even when he came up with the game after six trying years. But it is Tajiri's obsessions, more dysfunctional than Disney like, that are at the core of the Pokemon phenomenon. As a boy, Tajiri accumulated insects, especially beetles. Even now he is proud of the way he captured beetles, looking under rocks to find them sleeping. In Pokemon the pocket monsters--many in the shape of caterpillars, moths and crabs--can be found anywhere: tall grass, caves, forests, rivers. Rolled together...