Notes

Description
This file focuses on the great OfficerTom and is not only a winning argument but a
way to resurrect a weekly trolls-day file. Cards are cut of the highest quality with
over 90% of this file being written by you the great members of cross-x. I have also
payed homage to WGLF through this file. While we did a fantastic job on the neg we
allowed the great Mowl to give us one card for the aff which is assured to win
rounds. I have also brought back the great Malthus and included the weekly update
to the on-going disadvantage. Lastly the bottom of the docket has been updated to
give you the new and improved Pokemon K.

Strategy
To win a debait you need to first establish that the aff wants the judge to sign the
judges name and not OfficerToms. Secondly you must win that UncleTom is a
credible source which should not be hard with some fantastic cards I have provided.
Third you should probably read add-ons they are actually not too troll filled but
they may actually help you win the round. Fourth and most importantly you must
make fun of Mowl at ever chance you can in the round; this will not help you at all
but it would be funny. Lastly you have to take a picture of the ballot for every round
you win with the Officer Tom signature on it and post it to (http://www.crossx.com/topic/56192-wheres-this-weeks-trollsday-file/) forum to get the file back. We
need 14 signatures do me proud trollz.

TrollsDay File #6 12/21/13

Politics - Neg

1NC Shell
The Trolls-Day has died Officer Tom and PJ have quit due to haters
Officer Tom 12/4 (Voted Official Cross-X Coperator, Loved by the people of debait culture,
Occupation - Cop Cop Cop Cop Cop, http://www.cross-x.com/topic/56185-rip-trollsday-file/?
hl=officertom#entry884315)
R.I.P. The Trolls-Day File 11/6/13 - 11/27/13 Cause of Death: The hate of Jacobstime, Chunkry,
ktg9616, and Mowl

Officer Tom will restart the Trolls-Day file if he gets 15 Officer Tom Signatures.
Officer Tom 12/5 (Voted Official Cross-X Coperator, Loved by the people of debait culture,
Occupation - Cop Cop Cop Cop Cop, http://www.cross-x.com/topic/56192-wheres-this-weekstrollsday-file/)
Mowl is the worst thing that has happened to the trolls-day file. Let's petition him! Please sign below:
OfficerTom Once we get 15 OfficerTom signatures, Mowl will be impeached from office, and Brian
D. Gonzaba, with the help of Jacobstime, will become the new authors of the Trolls-Day file . There
will also be a supervision board, run by ktg and Chunkry

There is currently only one officer tom signature we need you the judge to sign the
ballot Officer Tom to restart the Trolls-Day file.
The judges name doesnt work only Officer Toms will the aff says to sign your
name not his.
Officer Tom 12/5 (Voted Official Cross-X Coperator, Loved by the people of debait culture,
Occupation - Cop Cop Cop Cop Cop, http://www.cross-x.com/topic/56192-wheres-this-weekstrollsday-file/)
"Once we get 15 OfficerTom signatures" I don't see "OfficerTom" in any of your signatures.

Trolls-Day Files key to Current Events, best political needs, and most qualified
people. Without it people are stuck with the Thursday file YUCK!
Officer Tom 12/5 (Voted Official Cross-X Coperator, Loved by the people of debait culture,
Occupation - Cop Cop Cop Cop Cop, http://www.cross-x.com/topic/56060-the-official-trollsday-file-week-1/)
Want to stay informed on Current Events? Does the Thursday File not meet your politics update
needs? Do you want your weekly updates written by the most qualified people in the activity? Do
you want Officer Tom to cut it out with all this BS? Fine.

Capitalism Add-On
Thursday file cost money $10 each or 8 for $80
Ross G. 11/16(Username South-X, Cross-X admin, Kent Denver, http://www.crossx.com/topic/56122-subscription-to-thursday-files/?hl=%2Bthursday+%2Bfile#entry883488)
Yes if you sign up here http://www.cross-x.c...e-subscription/ You pay $80 which gets you 10 TF's
(which for most people is a whole season), by giving you access to a special discounted area. If
you want more you receive them at the discounted $8 but we don't want to make people pay up
front for that. Finally, if you won't use 10 TFs the $80 is just credit on your Evazon account you
can use on any file in the store at all. We think that this method provides the greatest flexibility

and lowest up front costs for everyone involved.

Thursday File files people rage and causes them to count wrong due to the monetary
instability and entrenches capitalism.
Archer 12/6 (Username: agl125, Champion Debaitor, http://www.cross-x.com/topic/56199anyone-else-have-trouble-buying-thursday-files/?hl=%2Bthursday+%2Bfile#entry884413)
ya...basically you need to try buying it 3-4 times, then rage quit and fill yourself with so much raw
emotion that on the 5th attempt, you accidentally leave one of the entry fields blank, which will
then redirect you to a different page. from this page, if you enter all your info right, then it lets you
actually buy the file.

Cross apply Officer Tom 12/5 here purchase is zero sum you either choose the
Trolls-Day file or the Thursday File and without the free Trolls-Day file people have
no choice left.
Capitalism doesnt need to cause death itself because it forces
the conditions that make the masses desire death. This turns
case. Aff impacts can only be solved through micro resolutions
like the alternative.
Deleuze and Guattari 1972
, Anti-Oedipus, 337-8

Things are very different in capitalism. Precisely because the flows of capital are decoded and deterritorialized flows;
precisely because the subjective essence of production is revealed in capitalism; precisely because the limit becomes internal to capitalism, which continually reproduces it, and also

the identity in nature must appear

for itself between social production and desiring-production. But in
its turn, this identity in nature, far from favoring an affinity in regime between the two modes of production,
increases the difference in regime in a catastrophic fashion, and
assembles an apparatus of repression the mere idea of which
neither savagery nor barbarism could provide us.
This is because, on the basis of a general collapse of the large objectities, the decoded and de territorialized flows of capitalism are not
recaptured or co-opted, but directly apprehended in a codeless
axiomatic that consigns them to the universe of subjective
representation. Now this universe has as its function the splitting of the subjective essence (the identity in nature) into two functions, that of abstract labor
continually occupies it as an internalized and displaced limit; precisely for these reasons,

alienated in private property that reproduces the ever wider interior limits, and that of abstract desire alienated in the privatized family that displaces the ever narrower internalized

The double alienation-s-labordesire- is constantly increasing and deepening

the difference in regime at the heart of the identity in nature. At the
limits.

same time that death is decoded, it loses its relationship with a

model and an experience, and becomes an instinct; that is, it
effuses in the immanent system where each act of production is
inextricably linked to the process of anti production as capital. There where the codes are
undone, the death instinct lays hold of the repressive apparatus and begins to direct the circulation of the libido. A mortuary axiomatic. One might then believe in liberated desires, but

Everything labors in
death, everything wishes for death. In truth, capitalism has nothing
to co-opt; or rather, its powers of co-option coexist more often than
not with what is to be co-opted, and even anticipate it. (How many revolutionary groups as
ones that, like cadavers, feed on images. Death is not desired, but what is desired is dead, already dead: images.

such are already in place for a co-option that will be carried out only in the future, and form an apparatus for the absorption of a surplus value not even produced yet-which gives them

In a world such as this, there is no living desire

that could not of itself cause the system to explode, or that would not make the system dissolve
precisely an apparent revolutionary position.)

at one end where everything would end up following behind and being swallowed up-a question of regime.

The alternative: Sign the ballot in favor of the negative with

the name Officer Tom to revive the Trolls-Day file.
Our advocacy creates a line of flight that allows a rearticulation towards capitalism. The line of flight escapes the
confinement of the capitalist apparatus and creates the space
for the revolutionary ethic.
DELEUZE AND GUATTARI 1972
, Anti-Oedipus, 340-342

all the oscillations from one formula to the

other are possible. How can this be? How can the schizophrenic escape, with its molecular
dispersion, form an investment that is as strong and determined as the
other? And why are there two types of social investment that correspond to the two poles? The answer is that everywhere
there exist the molecular and the molar: their disjunction is a relation of included disjunction, which varies only
From the viewpoint of the unconscious libidinal investment,

according to the two directions of subordination, according as the molecular phenomena are subordinated to the large aggregates, or on the contrary subordinate them to themselves. At

do not prevent the flight that carries

them along, and they oppose to it the paranoiac investment only as
an "escape in advance of the escape." But at the other pole, the
schizophrenic escape itself does not merely consist in withdrawing from the social, in living on the fringe: it causes the
social to take flight through the multiplicity of holes that eat away
at it and penetrate it, always coupled directly to it, everywhere setting the molecular charges that will explode what must explode, make fall what
one of the poles the large aggregates, the large forms of gregariousness,

must fall, make escape what must escape, at each point ensuring the conversion of schizophrenia as a process into an effectively revolutionary force. For what is the schizo, if not first of
all the one who can no longer bear "all that": money, the stock market, the death forces, Nijinsky said-values, morals, homelands, religions, and private ~artitudes? There is a whole

the difference between the one who escapes,

and the one who knows how to make what he is escaping escape,
collapsing a filthy drainage pipe, causing a deluge to break loose,
liberating a flow, resecting a schizo. The schizo is not revolutionary, but the
schizophrenic process-in terms of which the schizo is merely the
interruption, or the continuation in the void-is the potential for revolution. To those who say that escaping is not courageous, we answer: what is not escape and
world of difference between the schizo and the revolutionary:

social investment at the same time? The choice is between one of two poles, the paranoiac counterescape that motivates all the conformist, reactionary, and fascisizing investments,
and the schizophrenic escape convertible into a revolutionary investment. Maurice Blanchot speaks admirably of this revolutionary escape, this fall that must be thought and carried out
as the most positive of events: "What is this escape? The word is poorly chosen to please. Courage consists, however, in agreeing to flee rather than live tranquilly and hypocritically in
false refuges. Values, morals, homelands, religions, and these private certitudes that our vanity and our complacency bestow generously on us, have as many deceptive sojourns as the
world arranges for those who think they are standing straight and at ease, among stable things. They know nothing of this immense flight that transports them, ignorant of themselves,
in the monotonous buzzing of their ever quickening steps that lead them impersonally in a great immobile movement. An escape in advance of the escape. [Consider the example of one
of these men] who, having had the revelation of the mysterious drift, is no longer able to stand living in the false pretences of residence. First he tries to take this movement as his own.

In this
regard, the first thesis of schizoanalysis is this: every investment is
social, and in any case bears upon a sociohistorical field.
He would like to personally withdraw. He lives on the fringe .... [But] perhaps that is what the fall is, that it can no longer be a personal destiny, but the common 10t."

Files are Good

These files will win the National Debait Tournament they are spilling over to college
debait.
Adam 11/26 (Username: Atlas0Smirked, from [Insert School Here], A debait champion,
http://www.cross-x.com/topic/56156-special-edition-the-official-trolls-day-file-week-4/)
This file will take the final round of the NDT, mark my words.

Every Trolls-Day file is a valuable use of time and education.

Mitchell 11/24 (Parker, Username: Arturo, SME debaitor from the same school which started
these amazing files, Also a debait champion, http://www.cross-x.com/topic/56139-the-officialtrolls-day-file-week-3/)
I'm sure the rest of the SME squad just loves all the work yall are doing! Yeah, it's a really valuable
use of time

A Trolls-Day file should also be in the ToC finals

Allen 11/13 (Username: RainSilves, Clackamas High, Debait Champion, http://www.crossx.com/topic/56104-the-official-trolls-day-file-week-2/)
10/10 DA if this isn't run at TOC finals I'll be surprised.

Mowl Add-On
He really loves them here are his true intentions and SDA debait will stop existing if
the files dont restart.
Mowl 11/20 (Lucas Forster, San Dieguito Academy, Swaggy P is God, http://www.crossx.com/topic/56139-the-official-trolls-day-file-week-3/)
IGNORE THOSE WHO DON'T COMPREHEND HOW STRATEGIC TACOS IS GOING TO
BE. MY BROTHER IS GONNA BID AT LA COSTA RUNNING TACOS EVERY NEG ROUND.
I'M SURE SME WILL BE GETTING A COUPLE BIDS AS WELL. I MIGHT SHARE THE
AWESOME 200 PAGE BASED GOD PERFORMANCE I'VE BEEN WORKING ON FOR THE
PAST 3 YEARS IN EXCHANGE FOR TWO MORE PIECES OF TACOS EV. GAWD
JACOBSTIME I THOUGHT YOU WERE SMART UNTIL NOW..... OFFICER TOM, NEVER
EVER EVER STOP MAKING DA TROLLSDAY FILEZ. DA DAY DAT U DO IS DA DAY OUR
BELOVED SDA DEBATE PROGRAM FOLDS.

Officer Tom Good

Officer Tom is a great helpful person democratically elected by avid debaitors
David 11/6 (Admin of CrossX.com, http://www.cross-x.com/topic/56054-election-results/?
hl=officertom)
Next, I'd like to congratulate all of the new moderators. I think we ended up with a great group of
people who have shown themselves to be extremely helpful and active . However, we're not done
yet. In the critiques forum we have a 3 way tie for 3rd place, and the 2nd place finisher only
received 1 more vote. shreethebsmaster won outright receiving nearly 50% of the vote and will
receive one moderating spot. We will be holding a runoff election to determine the remaining 2
moderators for critiques. The ballot will be open for 1 week, and is available here or at the
Elections tab in the top navigation bar. Congratulations to everyone who won: shreethebsmaster,
liampirate, The X Factor, Brian D. Gonzaba, OriginalRawrcat, ARGogate, Deleuze, MrMarantz,
jacobstime, OfficerTom, Phantom707, dancon25, Snarf, ktg9616, The-Troll, Ganondorf901,
Asherred, MrEragonSaph, and twoAC.

A2: Cops are Capitalist

Not OfficerTom he is socialist
Officer Tom 11/6 (Voted Official Cross-X Coperator, Loved by the people of debait culture,
Occupation - Cop Cop Cop Cop Cop, http://www.cross-x.com/user/179993-officertom/)
I would give him his cut of the money minus the cost of a ticket.

A2: Just Sign Tom

This is Officer Toms About Me, the aff is only a prank call their silence is a
loaded president and they should be ashamed for making others suffer.
Officer Tom 12/8 (Accessed Dec. 8th, Voted Official Cross-X Coperator, Loved by the people
of debait culture, Occupation - Cop Cop Cop Cop Cop, http://www.cross-x.com/user/179993officertom/)
BALTIMORE (WJZ) Baltimore City Police say a prank caller is responsible for shutting down
Under Armour for hours as the SWAT team searched the building. The 911 call came in just
around 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon, leaving people unable to go home. Its a joke no one is laughing
about. Residents in South Baltimore are back in their homes after the citys SWAT team gives an
all clear for the Under Armour building after a threat to employees came in to 911. We took
that threat seriously, we came out. Our SWAT teams cleared the facility, we cleared the employees
inside, said Sgt. Eric Kowalczyk, Baltimore City Police. For five hours, streets just south of the

headquarters were shut down, leaving many people standing outside, cold and frustrated. An
officer came around and said we have to evacuate the area, we have a situation going on, said
Steven Adkins. After hours of searching and investigating, fear and anxiety turned to anger and
annoyance as police discovered the threat was a prank call. You had me come from Dundalk all
the way down here to South Baltimore to make sure my mothers OK? How many other people
have done it and just havent got here yet? a woman said. For Dorothy, who was without her
medication for several hours, she couldnt be more disgusted in the caller.I think they ought to
be ashamed of themselves, pulling something on people like that, making other people suffer for
nothing, she said.

A2: Other Actors Solve

Officer Tom thinks others make the worst files and they get arrested.
Officer Tom 12/7 (Voted Official Cross-X Coperator, Loved by the people of debait culture,
Occupation - Cop Cop Cop Cop Cop, http://www.cross-x.com/topic/56205-the-unofficial-trollsday-file-week-5/)
Worst file so far. I'll be contacting the authorities.

A2: Perm
Nope can only pick one.
Officer Tom 12/4 (Voted Official Cross-X Coperator, Loved by the people of debait culture,
Occupation - Cop Cop Cop Cop Cop, http://www.cross-x.com/topic/56104-the-official-trollsday-file-week-2/)
I mean a logical policy maker can only choose one.

A2: We Dont like Tom

They are criminals and Officer Tom needs the influence or they aff will burn down
police stations.
Officer Tom 10/6 (Voted Official Cross-X Coperator, Loved by the people of debait culture,
Occupation - Cop Cop Cop Cop Cop http://www.cross-x.com/topic/55915-things-i-dont-want-tohear-anymore/)
Well that's probably not a SOI DA then... sounds like relations at best. For example, we cops have
influence on the streets, but our relations with the criminals aren't too great . When we lose
influence, stuff stays the same, but we can't send them criminals to the slammer . When our
relations tank even more, that's when they get angry and burn down police stations .

Politics - Aff

Mowl
REJECT ANY PLAN ACTION THAT REQUIRES THE SIGNATURE OF
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA AS A REJECTION OF THE ANTICHRIST.
OBAMA IS THE ANTICHRIST, THE EVIDENCE IS UNDENIABLE AND
NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS RACIST. FINAL SHOWDOWN BETWEEN GOOD
AND EVIL IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW, WHICH SIDE DO YOU CHOOSE?
THE OAO in 10 (ObamaAntichrist.org, Obama Antichrist Evidence, September 9,
2010, http://www.obamaanti...hrist-evidence/)
Who is Barack Hussein Obama? What do we actually know about him? Is he merely just another politician or is there

Obama? Certainly its hard to think of someone in recent history who has been better able to capture the
hope and imagination of Americans all across the country. He ran his campaign on the ideas of hope
and change but is that really what hes offering? He hypnotized millions with his
oratory and convinced the rest with vague promises. He is universally loved and
admired. His followers refer to him as the one, the elect, and the savior but the
fact of the matter is President Barack Hussein Obama is a demon sent from hell to
extinguish the last remnants of virtue from the face of the earth. Barack Hussein
Obama is the Antichrist. People have claimed the existence of an Antichrist at different times in history
but never before has the evidence been so concrete, logical and undeniable as it is
with the case of Barack Obama. Obama rose through the ranks of American politics seemingly out of
more to

nowhere. He gained a passionate following all over the world. A following that clings to every vague promise and
political bromide he so eloquently spews from his demonic tongue .

The book of Revelation describes

this exactly. It says that the Antichrist will rise from obscurity, speak boastfully
and be worshiped by millions. The Obama Antichrist evidence is clear. Barack
Obama was raised by atheists and Muslims and gained his name in politics in the
city of Chicago, a city teeming with scum, villainy and corruption. He claims to have
discovered Christianity in his adult life but I would ask you to check that claim. He is a phony Christian
and is in fact an aggressive supporter of murdering unborn children. Obama speaks of
Christianity while openly rejecting the teachings of the Christ and the Bible. Beware of false prophets,
warns the bible, they come to you in sheeps clothing, but inwardly they are
ferocious as wolves. This quote has never been more relevant to humanity and perfectly
describes Obama.He seduced the people with his slick, polished speeches, wearing out the saints with his
eloquent blasphemy. Modern America faces a choicefreedom or enslavement, virtue or
evil, Jesus or Satan. America will be the battleground for the greatest
philosophical war ever waged: The final showdown between virtue and hedonism.
Which side will you choose?

Malthus DA Updates

A2: Econ checks

Only two uncomtestable truths, food and passion between sexes is nessasary
Malthus 98 (Thomas Malthus, greatest human ever alive, published 1798, An Essay on the
Principle of Population, http://www.esp.org/books/malthus/population/malthus.pdf) OT
I think I may fairly make two postulata. First, That food is necessary to the existence of man.
Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present
state. These two laws, ever since we have had any knowledge of mankind, appear to have been
fixed laws of our nature, and, as we have not hitherto seen any alteration in them, we have no right
to conclude that they will ever cease to be what they now are, without an immediate act of power in
that Being who first arranged the system of the universe, and for the advantage of his creatures,
still executes, according to fixed laws, all its various operations.

THE BOTTOM OF THE DOCKET

Pokemon K
Resolved: Individuals ought to train to become Pokemon masterss
Framework: the affirmative has chosen his point to prove and I have chosen mine. The duty of
the negative is to prove the affirmative wrong by whatever means. There are no rules against a
counter-resolution and there are no rules dictating how a negative case must be structured. My
counter-resolution will be based on a critique of the affirmative resolution.

Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life

Frankl 46 (Viktor Man's Search for Meaning)
This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does
it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. There are some authors who contend that
meanings and values are "nothing but defense mechanisms, reaction formations and sublimations." But as for myself, I would not be willing to
live merely for the sake of my "defense mechanisms," nor would I be ready to die merely for the sake of my "reaction formations."
however,

Man,

is able to live and even to die for the sake of his ideals and values !

Group mentality obscures our search for meaning

Frankl 46 (Viktor Man's Search for Meaning)
Man's will to meaning can also be frustrated, in which case logotherapy speaks of "existential frustration." The term
"existential" may be used in three ways: to refer to (1) existence itself, i.e., the specifically human mode of being; (2) the meaning of existence;
and (3) the striving to find a concrete meaning in personal existence, that is to say, the will to meaning.

Existential frustration can also result in neuroses. For this type of neuroses, logotherapy has coined the term [is
called] "nogenic neuroses" in contrast to neuroses in the traditional sense of the word, i.e., psychogenic neuroses. Nogenic
neuroses have their origin not in the psychological but rather in the "nological" (from the Greek noos meaning mind) dimension of human
existence. This is a nother logotherapeutic term which denotes anything pertaining to the specifically human dimension. Nogenic

neuroses do not emerge from conflicts between drives and instincts but rather from existential problems. Among such
problems, the frustration of the will to meaning plays a large role. The existential vacuum is a
widespread phenomenon of the twentieth century. This is understandable; it may be due to a twofold loss which man
has had to undergo since he became a truly human being. At the beginning of human history, man
lost some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal's behavior is imbedded and by which it is
secured. Such security, like Paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. In addition to this, however, man has
suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now
rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he
ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do
what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do (totalitarianism).

THE RESOLUTION'S USE OF THE UNITED STATES AS A MORAL ACTOR

IMPLIES A GROUP MENTALITY: THAT OF A NATIONALISTIC ONE WHICH
ENFORCES A CONFORMIST BEHAVIOR AMONG ITS GROUP MEMBERS,
CREATING A MASSIVE EXISTENTIAL VACCUUM. THE UNITED STATES
SPECIFICALLY CREATES A CULTURE OF COMMODITY FETISHISM
WHICH PERVADES ALL HUMAN INTERACTION AND SUBVERTS OUR
WILL TO MEANING
Marx 1867 (Karl, Das Kapital)

A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of mens labour
appears to them as an objective[;] character stamped upon the product of that labour[.]; because the relation of the
producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products
of their labour. This is the reason why the products of labour become commodities, social things whose qualities

are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses. In the same way the light from an object is perceived by us not
as the subjective excitation of our optic nerve, but as the objective form of something outside the eye itself. But, in the act of seeing, there is at all
events, an actual passage of light from one thing to another, from the external object to the eye. There is a physical relation

between physical things. But it is different with commodities. There, the existence of the things qu
commodities, and the value relation between the products of labour which stamps them as
commodities, have absolutely no connection with their physical properties and with the material
relations arising therefrom. There it is a definite social relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a
relation between things. In order, therefore, to find an analogy, we must have recourse to the mist-enveloped regions of the religious world. In
that world the productions of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with one another
and the human race. So it is in the world of commodities with the products of mens hands. This I call the Fetishism which

attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are produced as commodities, and which is
therefore inseparable from the production of commodities.

THEREFORE THE UNITED STATES SEES ITSELF NOT ONLY AS A SINGLE NATIONAL
GROUP WITH A COMMON IDEOLOGY, BUT IT DOES SO THROUGH COMMODITY
FETISHISM, CREATING FALSE ILLUSIONS ABOUT ONE-ANOTHER STEMMING FROM
OUR INABILITY TO PERCEIVE EACHOTHER WITHOUT COMMODITIES.

Pokemon Mastery Good

In the Pokemon universe, individuals are encouraged to find their calling in life. A common
motif in existentialist literature is the young artist whose controlling father-figure forbids him
from pursuing his dream. Take the case of the 2008 Japanese film Tokyo Sonata. A young boy
named Kenji Sasaki wishes to pursue playing the piano, but his white-collar father does not
allow him to do so. After much drama happens in the family, the boy and his father come into a
confrontation, and the father throws his son down the stairs, resulting in a concussion. What we
have to take away from this is not the character of the boy, but that of the father; the father is laid
off from his job, but having been conditioned by the conservative japanese culture, is too
ashamed to admit it to his family, so he goes to work as a janitor at a mall every day in a business
suit so his family does not become suspicious. My claim is that this is an indictment of the
conformism we see not just in japan, but in all capitalist hierarchical society. The father-figure,
having bought into the ideology of society, enforces this ideology on his son, and the story
reciprocates.
We can contrast this to Pokemon; in the opening of the pilot episode of the Anime, Ash, a 10year-old boy, is fantasizing about leaving home and becoming a Pokemon master. His mother
admonishes him to get to bed early because the next day he will be waking up to go see professor
Oak to get his first Pokemon. The next day, Ash leaves in a hurry, hardly saying any kind of
sentimental farewell to his mother before he leaves to treck the country looking to fulfill his will
to meaning. The mother does not try to stop him, but rather annoyedly pushes him to achieve his
dreams. Ash's case of a 10-year-old leaving home is not uncommon in the world of pokemon. He
meets a young girl named Misty, who, after having her bike stolen from Ash, vows to follow him
until his pays her back. She soon becomes obviously infatuated with him, expressing classical
Anime Tsundere. Her will to meaning is now a common one of a seemingly superficial desire
which is projected by repressed juvenile desires; that is, her will to meaning is an undefined one,
motivated by an attraction to the courageous yet nave protagonist. It is this structure of a society
of liberation that defines the Pokemon universe and the attraction to it by young people.
The Pokemon universe also exemplifies the solidarity of existentialists; though Brock, who
wishes to become a master pokemon breeder, Misty, whose desires are undefined and require
further introspection, and Ash, who wishes to become a Pokemon master, have different goals,
they are able to work together to mutually accomplish those goals through a common means of
adventure and freedom to choose.
It should be noted that there is no sort of commodity fetishism in the universe. Every character is
defined by their pursuits and specific will to meaning. Two side characters, Todd and Tracey, are
characterized by their love of photography and sketching Pokemon, respectively. This aspect of
the Pokemon world contrasts my 4th contention about commodity fetishism.