ENOUGH IS ENOUGH AND TOO MUCH IS … BAD

I’ll tell you a secret … a lot of parents really hated Pokémon. Okay, maybe it’s not a secret. But do you know why they hated it?

They hated it because it was too much. Kids talked about it too much. They played the game too much. And there were too many arguments about stupid things like trading the cards. A lot of schools around the country banned the cards, even at lunch and recess, because they were so much trouble.

In Japan, someone who is a really, really big fan of a manga or anime and who can’t talk about anything else is called a “Otaku” (Oh-Tac-Koo). It’s kind of an insulting thing to call someone. It means that they don’t have anything else to do but watch anime and read manga and do stuff related to anime and manga.

Too much of anything, even great TV shows, movies, trading cards and action figures, is bad. And when a hobby gets in the way of schoolwork or household chores, then that’s really bad.

There’s only about three things to remember when it comes to video games, anime and manga. They are:

A) Be considerate of others.

B) Don’t let it get in the way of really important stuff, like schoolwork.

C) Don’t let it get in the way of other fun things, like sports or family activities.

That school thing is really important to remember because in a few years it really won’t matter how many Pokémon cards you collected or how far you got in the game. However, whether or not you can do long division and find the noun in a sentence will matter a great deal. Trust me on this.