POKEMON IS HERE; JAPANESE GAME/TV/CD/EVERYTHING CRAZE SETS UP A BEACHHEAD IN U.S.

Byline: - David Bloom 

Brace yourself, America. Another one of those Japanese toy-craze tsunamis is about to wash over these shores, just in time for another flood of Christmastime gift-giving.

This particular toy tidal wave is called Pokemon, and Nintendo of America thinks it has caught a big one. So do the licensees for everything from a ``Pokemon'' television cartoon, which debuted Monday on KCOP (Channel 13), to plush toys.

Nintendo has been buzzing around Los Angeles and other big cities the past week with specially outfitted cars designed to look like the game's yellow, teddy-bearish Pikachu character, all part of a buildup the company believes will pay off handsomely in coming weeks and months.

And given the game's history in Japan, where Pokemon has moved beyond a smash hit into something of a cultural phenomenon, that expectation seems realistic.

Pokemon - sort of shorthand for Pocket Monsters - sold a whopping 8 million Game Boy units in Japan, seemingly enough to carpet all of Tokyo with cartridges.

There it spawned a hit cartoon series, movie, trading-card game, million-selling music CD and comic book. More than 1,000 Pokemon products are now being sold.

It's not hard to see why Nintendo thinks it will hit a jackpot with Pokemon in America, because the game itself ties together a series of elements that together may prove well nigh irresistible to youths.

To start with, a player must capture, care for, even help evolve 150 different kinds of Pokemon creatures, many of them odd, mythical hybrids with names such as Paras and Metapod.

The game initially is like a massive version of that previous Japanese craze, the Tamagotchi. But instead of raising just one relatively static creature, a player must figure out how to catch, then care for and improve as many as several dozen of widely varying type. And once captured, a Pokemon can be used to catch still more.

The game's combat is based on a complex version of the old rock-paper-scissors game, which makes choosing the right Pokemon in a conflict a key, said Shannon O'Neil, a Nintendo game counselor.

The 150 Pokemon ``species'' are divided into 15 different types - such as fire, water, ground and plant - that can beat some kinds of opponents more easily than others. Even a relatively weak water creature, for instance, can beat a strong ground Pokemon, O'Neil said.

But to collect all the Pokemon, a player needs to cut deals with other players. That's because the game comes in two slightly different versions, with different-colored cartridges - and a different collection of Pokemon.

So instead of just catching all the Pokemon, a player has to make deals to get some, using a connecting cable and hard bargaining, to swap spare Pokemon with someone who has the game's other version.

Once enough Pokemon of different types are amassed and improved, a player can win the game's first phase, defeating a computer-operated ``boss'' opponent.

Then, a player can take on human opponents, again using a connecting cable to another Game Boy. Each side chooses six champion Pokemon to fight in the battle.

The game itself won't hit stores until late in the month. In the meantime, the cartoon show, which runs at 7 a.m. weekdays, will be around to get kids excited. the show, according to O'Neil, closely follows the game in some ways, even providing clues for players about how to catch and fight with different types of Pokemon.

So now parents can be concerned about yet another toy-based cartoon series being used as a marketing device. But like most tidal waves, this one looks difficult to sidestep.

The show: ``Pokemon.''

Where: KCOP (Channel 13).

When: 7 a.m. weekdays.

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Photo: no caption (Pokemon)