Geology in Children's Media
Kids love rocks. But why? Why, whenever most children come across tumbled gems in a souvenir or gift shop, are they compelled to bury their hands in their depths and beg their caretakers for "just one?' Why do so many children collect rocks? Where does the interest come from?
There is a plethora of children's media, both past and present, that sneak geology into the minds of children.
An early example of this is the show Sailor Moon that aired on Cartoon Network's after school Toonami block from 1998 to 2001 1 While the original English Dic dub that aired on Toonami differs greatly from the modern Funimation dub in terms of faithfulness to Japanese culture and the manga source material (Many Japanese names have been changed to English, 2 changing the same sex relationship between Sailors Neptune and Uranus and making them cousins to explain their closeness,) the geology "easter eggs" exist in the English translation of the manga, the Dic dub, and the Funimation dub.
For those unfamiliar with the manga source material or the either of the English dubs, Sailor Moon takes place in Tokyo, Japan and features primarily on 5 girls, one of who is the titular Sailor Moon herself, and their quest to locate the Moon Princess (spoiler alert: it was Sailor Moon the whole time) and fight the Negaverse to stop them from getting their hands on the Legendary Silver Crystal.
The antagonist of the first arc, or season, is the wicked Queen Beryl of the Dark Kingdom who wears a dark purple dress and has ruby red hair. Beryl the gemstone comes in a variety of colors and goes by several names depending on the color. Is it a coincidence that Queen Beryl's red hair is very similar in color to red beryl?
Probably not. Pure beryl can be toxic and is also carcinogenic. In Sailor Moon Queen Beryl aims to steal human energy to feed the leader of the Negaverse, Queen Metaria. While it may be far cry to accuse Queen Beryl of causing 3 cancer, she certainly saps her victims of their energy in a manner not unlike cancer.
Queen Beryl has numerous minions to gather energy from the human population; the Four Heavenly Kings (Shitennou in the original Japanese) called Jadeite, Nephrite, Zoisite, and Kunzite (Malachite in the Dic dub.) These Kings are all named after precious stones.
1"ToonamiLineups(19972004),"ToonamiWiki,accessedMay5,2022, https://toonami.fandom.com/wiki/Toonami_Lineups_(1997-2004) 2.Naru Osaka becoming Molly Baker and developing a Brooklyn accent is the biggest example 3 All images in this paper are used under the fair use doctrine for educational purposes. I do not own Sailor Moon, Steven Universe, or Pok©mon
Sailor Moon is one of the most popular manga series of all time. It had sold 50 million copies of the manga by its 20-year anniversary in 2012. Today her franchise is worth 13 billion dollars.
Steven Universe was another Cartoon Network show with a plethora of geological references. It was nominated for a Nickelodeon Kid's Choice award in 2016 4. However, it was beaten out for the Favorite Cartoon blimp by the iconic SpongeBob SquarePants. The show was ultimately cancelled in 2019, but two movies were created that occur after the end of the series.
The show is about a little boy, Steven Universe, who is half human and half gem. His mother is Rose Quartz and his father is a human. Steven spends his time with the Crystal Gems, his human father, and his friend Connie, exploring his powers and helping the Gems save the world. Early episodes focus on Steven learning how to use his powers, and he eventually discovers that he can shapeshift, get a magic pink lion, and heal.
The number of characters with geological ties in Steven Universe is staggering. There are characters with names such as Ruby, Sapphire, Lapis Lazuli, Bismuth, Jasper, Smokey Quartz, Aquamarine, and various colored diamonds. All the characters (who all fit into the Crystal Gems, Homeworld Gems, Hybrid Gems, Uncorrupted Gems, or Unknown Gems category) look like their respective mineral in both color, size, and structure.
For example, Pink Diamond has bubblegum pink skin, deep pink eyes, and pale pink hair. Yellow Diamond, on the other hand, is absolutely massive, dwarfing almost all the other gems. She is almost completely yellow.
Perhaps the most famous of the shows listed here was also featured on Cartoon Network's Toonami. It started as two simple Gameboy games and snowballed into comic books, trading cards, movies, books, apps, and more video games under the Nintendo platform and the franchise is worth over $100 BILLION today. This franchise is, of course, none other than Pok©mon. The amount of geology centric Pok©mon is astounding, but for sanity's sake this paper will only focus on generation 1, or Pok©mon 1-150. To explore the geological references of 66 Steel Pok©mon, 69 rock Pok©mon, and 70 ground Pok©mon would simply be far too time consuming.
Pok©mon started as an idea of Satoshi Tajiri's in 1989 with the release of Nintendo's Game Boy consol. He created a character called Satoshi (based on himself) and gameplay around his childhood hobby of bug collecting. 5 Two games were released in Japan in 1996: Pocket Monsters Red and Pocket Monsters Green. 6 Play centered around the main character capturing and battling with Pok©mon trainers and wild Pok©mon. In the original games (gen 1) there are 15 different types of Pok©mon: Bug, Dragon, Electric, Fighting, Fire, Flying, Ghost, Grass, Ground, Ice, Normal, Poison, Psychic, Rock, and Water.
4 Wikipedia Contributors. 2024. "2016 Kids' Choice Awards." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. September 19, 2024. 5 "Pok©mon." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation,June1,2022.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon#History.
The first rock Pok©mon most trainers come across (in the Gameboy games) is Geodude. Geodude is simply a rock with eyes, a mouth, and two arms. Its gen 1 pokedex reads: "Found in fields and mountains. Mistaking them for boulders, people often step or trip on them." Brock, the Pewter City Gym Leader, has a Geodude and an Onix. Onix is a reference to the semiprecious stone onyx. In the 5th episode of the Pok©mon television series Ash 7 battles Brock for the Pewter City Gym Badge. Ash tries to use Pikachu, an electric type Pok©mon, against Brock's Rock types. This fails miserably because, as in nature; rock, ground, and steel all ground electricity. He wins on a technicality/cheap shot 8, gets his Boulder Badge, and goes on his merry way.
Rock, Ground, and some Steel Pok©mon are all devastatingly weak to Water type Pok©mon. This is a clear reference to how water can erode rock and the ground outside of the game in the real world. The Colorado River eroded enough rock over 5 or 6 million years to form the Grand Canyon. Water erosion can also severely damage the soil. According to the FAO Global Soil Partnership, 75 billion tons of soil is eroded from farmland worldwide every year, costing around $400 billion annually 9. To put this in a more palatable form, it is equivalent to a soccer field's worth of soil being eroded every five seconds for a year 10. Soil erosion is a global problem, and the process is obviously being alluded to in Nintendo's Pok©mon franchise.
Water can destroy steel through slow oxidation (rust) in our world. It has a similar effect in the world of Pok©mon, to some extent. Pure Steel Pok©mon are absolutely crushed by Water Pok©mon.
However, some Steel Pok©mon can withstand Water attacks if they have a secondary type that is resistant to water, such as Ferroseed and its evolution Ferrothorn, have Grass as a secondary type in addition to having Steel type. Water type Pok©mon are weak to Grass type Pok©mon, and there are even some Grass type Pok©mon that can absorb Water type attacks and use those attacks to restore their health in a Pok©mon battle. The Pok©mon franchise has been nominated for three and won one Nickelodeon Kids Choice awards. It won Favorite Video Game in 2000 (Red, Blue, and Yellow versions for the Gameboy Color system,)
6 Released in North America and Australia as Pok©mon Red and Pok©mon Blue in 1998 7 Satoshi in the original Japanese series 8 Using Pikachu's electric attacks to set off the emergency fire sprinklers 9 Borrelli, Pasquale, David A. Robinson, Larissa R. Fleischer, Emanuele Lugato, Cristiano Ballabio, Christine Alewell, Katrin Meusburger, et al. "An Assessment of the Global Impact of 21st Century Land Use Change on Soil Erosion." Nature News. Nature Publishing Group, December 8, 2017. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02142-7#:~:text=The%20FAO%20led%20Global%20Soil,US%24400%20billion%20per20year. 10 "Fao.org." Key messages | Global Symposium on Soil Erosion | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Accessed May 5, 2022. https://www.fao.org/about/meetings/soil-erosion-symposium/key-messages/en/.
In conclusion, perhaps the reason children are so obsessed with geology is because of the references in popular media. Cartoon Network is certainly interested in geology as they aired all 3 of these shows. The popularity of these 3 shows also definitely contributed to the popularity of geology. After all, what elementary school child doesn't have a favorite Pok©mon?