They may be small and cute, but in one Winnipeg school, they're banned. Pokemon, the latest merchandising craze to target kids. The little animated characters from Japan, are showing up in everything from video games to trading cards.

And it's causing problems for educators in at least one Winnipeg school, so they won't be seen anymore at Hastings school in St. Vital.

Principal Dennis Nord has banned Pokemon trading cards from the premises.

He says the cards are at the root of some problems between students.

"It became kind of a real frenzy. To the point that what we faced by the end of it was cards were going missing, older kids were kind of hustling younger kids for cards. We just had to say to folks, you know 'please leave these at home'."

Nord says while there was no violence, his staff was spending too much time dealing with problems caused by the trading cards. He says things have improved since the cards were banned.

"We've gone a couple of days since then and we haven't had any problems. We haven't aprehended any kids or cards or anything. They've taken the advice well." Hastings isn't alone in outlawing Pokemon, last month the trading cards were banned from a number of Vancouver area schools for similar reasons.