I stumbled across this research projects which I found appealing: POKÉMON: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Children’s Global Media Culture.

The Pokémon project examined the rise and fall of one of Japan’s most profitable and popular exports. (...) In 1999, Professor Joseph Tobin of the University of Hawaii, an internationally renowned scholar in the field of Japanese/American educational and cultural studies, gathered a multi-national research team to investigate the Pokémon phenomenon.

The conference they held about it was called ‘Pikachu’s Global Adventure’, it is available now as a book. The methodology they used is pretty interesting, especially the last point:

An overview of the Pokémon phenomenon, considering the production context (of the Nintendo Corporation), the characteristics of Pokémon texts, and debates about audiences. These findings were set in the context of broader debates about the relations between ‘structure’ and ‘agency’ in Cultural Studies.

An analysis of children’s creative writing using Pokémon themes and characters. Four stories written by 8-9-year-olds were analysed in detail, in order to explore the creative nature of children’s engagements with Pokémon, and the ways in which their writing functions as a form of identity construction.

Research with reception class children (aged 4-5), exploring the nature of children’s play using Pokémon toys and artefacts. This study explored how play can give status to officially ‘disapproved’ forms of knowledge, and thereby empower children whose position in the classroom would otherwise be marginal.

A case study of one child learning to play the Pokémon computer game. The analysis considered the use of knowledge and skill in game playing; the social negotiations that surround it; the interaction between the game and other media forms; and the nature of ‘interactivity’ in games of this kind.