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Many of our dear league followers have been following our writers and archivists hard at work in obtaining and updating information of their favourite star trainers. However, an increasing number have asked us to investigate how we got to the spectacular Pokemon League community we know and love today. To commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the Shoyoese League, we have decided to step back in time, and take stock of what we have been through...
Historical Origins
The Shoyoese Pokemon League could be traced back to its traditional Pokemon fighting known as Keiju-do (携獣道), which was extensively used by samurais for war and imposing order. Commoners also used Pokemon mainly for various farming, hunting, and gathering tasks, and they were also known to use them for self-defense and to wage revolts against tyrants. Since the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603, the ensuing Yamabuki Era saw the samurais devise a system for Pokemon duelling, which became some of the earliest iterations of Pokemon battles in the nation. While many of these were fought as serious affairs and as part of dispute resolution between samurais or their families, they were attended by commoners as a source of entertainment. Eventually, an entrepreneurial Pokemon scholar from Suruga Province, Okido Masaichiro in 1685 organized the first series of Pokemon battles that admitted anyone and their Pokemon. While the shogunate despised the event as rowdy and crass entertainment, some of the lower-class samurai joined in due to financial desperation, due to the monetary prizes available.
Genesis of League Rules
The Tokugawa Shogunate was forced to open the country by Saxceltian gunboats in 1826, and the subsequent Bunsei Restoration since 1839 saw Shoyoese trainers contact Western Pokemon trainers and zoologists. Bunsei (文政義塾大学) and Totsuka Universities (戸塚大学) had their first battle clubs that adopted the modern Pokemon battle, or Pokemon Jousts as they were known under the supervision of Galarian advisor and zoology Professor Elijah Laventon. As with many other sports they adopted, the Kosei matches (戸政戦) were immensely popular and were considered to be the pinnacle of Pokemon Joust-style battles until a modified form of the Joust-style battles were eventually adopted by the national and regional leagues after World War II.
The ownership of Pokemon has always been regulated through various laws and decrees under different government bodies, but the 1933 Pokemon Restrictions Act was when restrictions started to be more invasive. Amongst other things, the Act allowed confiscation of Pokemon by military personnel without cause, and also required all university Joust-format matches to be closely supervised by the military. While the ostensive reason was to preserve the health and safety of homes and public areas, post-WWII investigations by a government commission revealed that the Act’s main aim was censorship of front-line information the Second Sioan-Shoyoese War, and to inhibit communication between political dissenters, which only confirmed what many suspected. While many soldiers wrote proudly of their military exploits and their conquests over the ‘barbaric’ Sinoans, there were also many who wrote about their doubts about the war, the wanton death and destructions of the battles, the panic and sorrow of the civilians and Pokemon caught in the crossfire, and the veiled wishes of some of the soldiers to return to their families. A few even wrote veiled messages about their own Pokemon, or even themselves, being abused by their superiors.
In addition, the Jousting leagues under the various universities across Shoyo were facing increasing pressure to adopt more ”traditional Shoyoese” rules, and discard what the militarists saw as “corrupt Westernization”. A few braver souls used whatever connections they could to keep the games going, and some games were even held in secret. There were also a few incidents such as the “Kogane Jousting Incident” where the local police even restrained and arrested soldiers-on-watch when the latter started to club students unarmed without any prior provocation.
Despite this, the constant surveillance from the police, military, and esteemed members of the community such as veterans, and the strong focus on conformity with the community prevented any meaningful resistance until well into what is now known as the Pacific Theatre of World War Two. Only when the Imperial Shoyoese military suffered disastrous losses against the United States of Columbia (such as the Battle of Midway) and also failed to prevent the Doolittle Raids on Yamabuki and Kogane in early-to-mid 1942 that people started to more widely share their doubts.
Initially, the military police responded by a mandatory requisition of all non-essential Pokemon from all citizens. Hastily conducted, much of the implementation was met with anger and confusion from citizens. One such protest and scuffle occurred on 15 June 1943 in one of the civic halls in Kogane when an elderly couple was forcibly taken away their Chansey they needed for everyday help. Surprisingly, other citizens and even a number of police officers and locally-stationed soldiers sided with the elderly couple and pinned down the confiscating officers down. News of this spread across the city and Kogane became the epicentre of the Constitutionalist Revolt (護憲反乱) that eventually spread across Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh regions, evolving into a full-scale civil war against the Imperialists (帝国派) when the Constitutionalists and their resistance groups agreed on their alliance with Columbian and Commonwealth forces on 10 October later that year. Many of the resistance groups helped civilians reunite and train with their Pokemon to resist Imperial forces.
Birth of the Modern League
Totsuka University zoology student and Constitutionalist medic Seigo Kido was one such person who worked with some of the Pokemon trainers and help found the first Pokemon League in Yamabuki City. After Imperial Shoyo surrendered to the Constitutionalists and Allied Forces in August 1944, Kido worked with the reformed Ministries of Education [文部省], and Health [厚生省], and their cross-ministry Sports Agency [体育庁] to reestablish the Shoyoese Pokemon League as a semi-governmental organization. Aside from as physical exercise, citizens under the new democratic government was encouraged to take up Pokemon League sports as a way of reconnecting with Pokemon and as a way of organizing resistance against future insurrections and government overturning by neo-fascist extremists. The first regional tournaments were attended by both up-and-coming trainers and veterans of the pre-WWII leagues in 1951, in which the top five trainers of each division were recruited as representatives of the leagues, now known as the Elite Four and Champion. Since 1955, a National Champion is elected through a series of battles between each of the regional Champions.