Tuesday night at a table inside the Burger King on Innes Street, Ryan thumbed through a notebook of 125 of the cards he has assembled. He consulted a book on their values and compared the strengths of each character the cards portray.

But ask Ryan, who lives in Cleveland with his parents, Robert and Doreen, why he and millions of other American children idolize Pokemon characters, and he just shrugs his shoulders and smiles without a sound.

Doreen Penry hopes the investment pays off someday.

“He spends all his allowance on them, I know that,” she said. “He keeps telling me they’re going to be worth something.”

For the past two months, Ryan and clusters of other children have gathered Tuesday nights in Burger Kings in Salisbury, Kannapolis and other cities throughout the country. They trade cards, watch Pokemon videos and collect Pokemon figures with their kids’ meal.

The Miami-based burger chain is not the only company riding the Pokemon wave.

Starting Jan. 8, the Salisbury Mall will open an hour earlier on Saturday mornings — at 9, rather than 10 — so children can play and trade cards. Children can join a league there for $1.

Bookland, a mall tenant, organized its second league of players for the event.

“The kids love it. It really draws them out,” employee Melba Houston said.

Short for “pocket monsters,” Pokemon originated from a cartoon video that migrated from Japan late last year.

Pokemon merchandise, licensed by Nintendo of America, includes plastic action figures, watches, CDs, coloring books, a Monopoly board game, video games and Pokedex, a hand-held electronic index with information about each character. “Pokemon” the movie has grossed $80 million since its release last month.

In the card game, each player builds a deck of 60 cards, deals seven cards and goes into “battle,” pitting the characters on the cards against one another. Cards depicting characters with better characteristics are generally fewer and worth more.

Pikachu, the most popular character, is yellow and shoots electric bolts from his pink cheeks. There’s Squirtle, a water-spitting animal that favors a turtle, and other hard-to-pronounce ones such as Bulbasaur, Psyduck, Omnyte, Rapidash, Nidoking and Zapdos.

Ryan’s favorite character, Charizard, is also one of the most valuable. It gets $50 easily, he says. One of the holographic cards that he doesn’t yet have, the Ancient Mew, can bring $70.

Monday, Burger King announced it will no longer include the balls that contain the 57 figures that come with some kids’ meals. The company said it is recalling the plastic shells because a 13-month California girl suffocated when half of one became stuck on her face.