Next stop, Poland!

Pokémon GO may have captured the hearts and minds of millions of players all over the globe, but like so many elements of popular culture - and the Pokémon craze in general, it should be remembered - it hasn't made fans of everyone.

Agence France-Presse reports that Antonio Stagliano, bishop of Noto in Sicily, has branded the game "diabolical" and says that it has "alienated thousands and thousands of young people" by turning them into the "walking dead".

You might say this is fair comment - especially after the recent horror stories of people crashing cars or losing their kids while playing the game - but Stagliano even went as far as to claim that the title represents "a totalitarian system close to Nazism."

This isn't the first time a connection has been made between Pocket Monsters and the Third Reich - back in the '90s there was controversy when Nazi symbols (in reality Buddhist "manji" icons) were found in the card game - but Stagliano's words strike us as a little extreme.

Even the worst history student in the world can tell that an addictive mobile phone app isn't in the same ballpark as an organisation which was responsible for triggering bloody global conflict and killing countless innocent people, but perhaps that's just us.

[source cnet.com]