While it may be no pioneering feat to give a retrospective on the years of Pokémania, Daniel Dockery's Monster Kids: How Pokémon Taught A Generation to Catch Them All is one of the more complete attempts. Despite the extended title, it's not just a book about Pikachu and friends but rather one about their competitors as well. Throughout Monster Kids, Dockery flashes back and forth between the stories of the Pokémon, Digimon, and Yu-Gi-Oh!, with a few brief spotlights on Monster Rancher, Medabots, and more.

It covers, to put it simply, a whole lot of stuff. But with its breadth also comes a disappointing lack of intimacy. Many of these monster-taming success stories are told with a focus on the facts, but that can also end up making things feel a little tedious. As a result, you'll likely come out of it knowing a hundred facts about Pokémon, but not what it was actually like for the people involved. Monster Kids relies heavily on interviews with former 4Kids and Nintendo of America professionals, but it rarely has the narrative ability to draw you into the decision-making process that helped create these mega franchises. In fact, one of the most engrossing reads ended up being a short segment about the Pokémon Live theatrical performance, filled with anecdotes about trying to mimic Ash's hair or preventing an actor wearing a Pikachu costume from wandering into pyrotechnics.

It's also unfortunate (likely due to copyright) that the book features no relevant visuals. Dockery will go to great lengths to describe what a certain advertisement or scene in the anime looked like, when, in a better world, a photograph would suffice. In their place, however, are some absolutely bizarre illustrations. While Monster Kids' cover art is appealing enough, the book itself is filled with crude drawings of monsters that appear nothing like the monsters that captured so many kids' childhoods—there is one monster in particular that is just a buttplug with a face, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I can't help but wonder if it would have been too difficult to find a Pokémon- or Digimon-inspired artist to draw more believable yet legally distinct monsters.

The book's delivered in a casual yet authoritative voice that makes the information easy to parse. While the flow can often get interrupted, I never felt like I was missing anything. I truly felt like the author was taking me on a journey through those formative monster-filled years. In fact, I can't imagine that anyone could finish Monster Kids without learning at least something—Dockery discusses parts of the business that I doubt most fans would have even thought about before—but I also wonder what parts they'd actually consider to be memorable, since everything gets at least a mention. There's a bit on the infamously deadly Burger King toys, a bit about the Wonderswan handheld console—there's even a section of the book dedicated to Toonami, a programming block that Dockery himself admits has nothing to do with monster-taming. Several times while reading, I couldn't help but think, “Why are you telling me this?”

There are absolutely valuable stories in here. The battles between 4Kids and WB Kids are the strongest through line the book has. For those who only think of 4Kids as “those guys who changed the onigiri into jelly donuts,” you'll find yourself with a true appreciation for the licensor's dedication towards the brand. But not all stories have the same weight, and there's very little in the book to address viewer experiences outside of a middle-class American perspective. Of course, Dockery himself admits that that's where he's coming from (and that the book isn't about him specifically), but it's also strange for a book that feels so complete to not address how children from low-income families or developing nations were taught to “catch them all”.

Ultimately, while I wouldn't call it much of a page-turner, Monster Kids is a thorough retelling of the growth of monster-taming franchises within the United States. Even for Pokémon super-fans, there will be parts that make you go, “Wait, I never knew about that!” Its dedication to exploring the lesser-known monster franchises of the era matches Dockery's own passion, and he occasionally introduces an editorial voice to offer his take. Yet it's also difficult to overlook the book's disappointing lack of anecdotes or recounts—including those from other socio-economic backgrounds who experienced these franchises in different ways. Hey, maybe in Monster Kids 2?