The History of Pokémon

Pokémon was invented by Satoshi Tajiri with help from his illustrator friend, Ken Sugimori. After Satoshi started a gaming magazine called Game Freak, he was inspired to create his own video games. In the early 1990s, Satoshi came up with an idea for a game called Pocket Monsters that was inspired by his childhood habit of exploring forests to find bugs and tadpoles. He pitched the idea to Nintendo and spent the next six years working with legendary creator Shigeru Miyamoto to design the new game. On February 27, 1966, Pocket Monsters for Game Boy was released in Japan; there were two versions — Red and Green. The name was shortened from Pocket Monsters to Pokémon shortly after. In 1998, the game was released in the United States, and then in the UK the following year. The international release also featured two versions: Red and Blue. Since then, several generations of Pokémon games have been released and each one has brought new Pokémon species. (There are now around 900 of them!) Following the success of the first Pokémon games, Media Factory created the Pokémon Trading Card Game. The first cards were released on October 20, 1996 and featured drawings by Ken Sugimori, Mitsuhiro Arita, and Keiji Kinebuchi. In 1999, Wizards of the Coast introduced Pokémon trading cards in the United States and they soon became a worldwide phenomenon. Over 30 billion cards have been printed and some are now extremely valuable. The first Pokémon television show debuted in Japan in 1997 and followed a boy named Satoshi (named after Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri), as he set off on a journey to become a Pokémon master with his companion, Pikachu. The series was later released worldwide and the protagonist's name was changed to Ash Ketchum. Since then, there have been over 20 series of animated Pokémon shows. The first Pokémon movie debuted in Japan in 1998 and was called Pocket Monsters the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back; it was released worldwide a year later. There is even a live-action Pokémon movie called Detective Pikachu, which was released in 2019. The franchise has also famously been made into a mobile game. In 2016, Pokémon GO debuted and quickly became a craze due to the immersive experience it provided. Many stuffed animals, t-shirts, and other Pokémon-themed items have also been released over the years. Today, Pokémon remains a vibrant make-believe world that is beloved by children and adults alike.