Interview With Carlin West
Location: New York Comic Con 2022
Interview Date: 10/7/2022
Editor: Samantha Ferreira
Anime Herald: Let’s start with Neopets.
Carlin West: There’s a lot to tell. Neopets first came out in 1999. It was the first online game on the internet. It has continued since then. There are 150 million people around the world who have played Neopets. There are currently over one million users that still, from the time they were children, kept playing the game. Now, they’re between 25-35 years old. It really is an exciting brand.
Anime Herald: I thought Neopets died and then came back from the dead.
Carlin West: Nope. It never died. Sometimes if you don’t feed them, they might die. We aren’t too happy when that happens. You have to take care of your Neopet. But no, Neopets has been around since 1999. In 2024, we’ll celebrate our 25th anniversary.
Anime Herald: Is there anyone that you’re aware of who have kept their Neopet alive all 24 years?
Carlin West: There are about 1.5 million people that have done that.
Anime Herald: You track that?
Carlin West: Yes. It’s amazing.
Anime Herald: Do you know which the oldest living Neopet is?
Carlin West: We probably do, but here at [New York] Comic Con, I’m not sure off of the top of my head.
Anime Herald: That would be amazing to find out, which is the first one.
Carlin West: I bet it’s a Shoyru. People love Shoyru, and Kougra, and Kacheek. Those are some of the most popular ones.
Anime Herald: Do you personally have a Neopet?
Carlin West: Yes I do. I have a Shoyru.
Anime Herald: I saw the tarot deck. That was the most interesting thing, or the most unusual. How did that come about?
Carlin West: It came about, what my job is with Neopets, I’m in charge of licensing. So, I look for really good partnerships to make products the fans will love. So, as an example, we have WYP (What’s Your Passion) doing a whole collection of jewelry, which is wonderful.
Geekify came to us. They wanted to do a tarot card deck. They did it with all-new original art for the characters.
Anime Herald: So that’s going to be a full tarot deck.
Carlin West: Yes. It’s not just sample cards. My prediction is that it’s going to be very successful.
Anime Herald: Very cool.
Carlin West: We also have a Neopets cookbook, from Andrews McMeel. It is all of the recipes from the Neo[ets games. You can make a giant omelet. You can make money tree cupcakes. You can make tacos.
Anime Herald: There were recipes in the original?
Carlin West: Yes. It’s a very robust brand.
Anime Herald: Got it. Is this the only brand you’re here with for Comic Con?
Carlin West: I also represent Hatsune Miku. She’s a world-renowned singer and songwriter, but she’s a hologram.
Anime Herald: I’m familiar with Hatsune Miku.
Carlin West: She’s opened for Lady Gaga. She’s been in Vogue magazine. She tours all over the world, but she’s not real.
Anime Herald: How did you first get involved with Hatsune Miku?
Carlin West: My background is, I’ve been in the anime pop culture business for the past 25 years. I was part of the team that launched Pokémon back in 1998. I launched Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Cabbage Patch Kids relaunch, Winx Club, among others. I have an eye for what is special and different and what will excite fans. I read about Hatsune Miku and contacted the company. I told them we would like to represent her in North America. They saw our background and said “Absolutely.”
Anime Herald: With that kind of resume, certainly. Pokémon is a big game.
Carlin West: Yes. Yes it is.
Anime Herald: Sorry for the pun. Back to Neopets. What’s the most popular Neopet these days?
Carlin West: I would say the fan favorites are still Shoyru and Kacheek. Those two are up at the top.
Anime Herald: Looking at the pins, without invoking the mouse, these do seem familiar.
Carlin West: This is a dragon named Draik. This is one of my favorites, a Royal Meepit.
Anime Herald: Do you want to talk about 1998 when you first saw Pokémon?
Carlin West: Sure.
Anime Herald: What was that like?
Carlin West: We were working with Nintendo. I was with a company called 4Kids Entertainment. Nintendo had told us about this brand in Japan called Pocket Monsters. We leveraged the farm as a company to get the rights to Pocket Monsters. And in 1997, we could not give it away. Everyone said that it wouldn’t work. That American children would never understand a Japanese game. And not only that, the trademark was not available. Someone had taken the Pocket Monsters trademark.
What we ended up doing was take the Poke from Pocket, and the Mon from Monsters, and put the two together, and came up with the name Pokémon. We had to do our own marketing. We went to Topeka, Kansas and had them change the name of the town to “ToPikachu”. The mayor of ToPikachu gave the key to the city of ToPikachu, and that’s how we launched the brand at the very beginning. We had ten Volkswagen Beetles outfitted as Pikachu.
(Editor’s note: This was August 27th, 1998.)
Anime Herald: Has there ever been any cross-pollination between Neopets and Pokémon?
Carlin West: No, but that’s not to say it won’t. The future is bright and you never know what will happen.
Andrews McMeel will publish Neopets: The Official Tarot Deck in February, 2024.
