Pokémon is a global phenomenon. With merchandise in the forms of trading cards, clothing, and plushies, as well as mobile apps, anime, manga, and food (yes, even food), the franchise is virtually everywhere these days. Sitting comfortably at the top of the list of highest-grossing media franchises of all time and at second place (behind Mario, of course) on the list of best-selling video games of all time, it’s become apparent that these cute pocket monsters are here to stay. Hell, Pikachu’s ears and cheeks have become just as recognizable as Disney’s Mickey Mouse ears, so yeah—Pokémon is that iconic. But, what is now considered a pop culture mainstay wasn’t always the case.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Pocket Monsters: Red & Green, Game Freak and Nintendo have released New Pokémon Snap and Pokémon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl (a remake of the 2006’s Pokémon Diamond and Pearl)for the Nintendo Switch. So, to celebrate their celebration, we’re taking it back to the ’90s—the beginning of our Pokémon adventure—as we run down the history of the making of Pocket Monsters: Red and Green, and how it all began just 25 years ago.
Game Freak Presents…
Long before the company had evolved into an unstoppable Pokémon-churning behemoth, Game Freak started as a humble fanmade gaming magazine. Satoshi Tajiri founded, crafted, hand-wrote, and edited the fanzine during the early 80s. From about 1981 to 1986, the fanzine simultaneously served as Tajiri’s love letter to video games out around that time and a strategy guide to accompany those games.
As faith would have it, Ken Sugimori, best known as the character and art designer for the Pokémon franchise, would find a copy of the fanzine in a local dojinshi shop and contact Tajiri with an interest in becoming an illustrator for the fanzine. The last piece of the Game Freak puzzle was Junichi Masuda. Masuda was approached by Tajiri in 1989, who asked if he wanted to join Game Freak as a composer. Around the same time, Masuda worked in a corporate office job and was looking to get away from that type of work. Masuda agreed to Tajiri’s offer and became one of the three founding members of the gaming company. The three men would turn Game Freak (the fanzine) into Game Freak (the company) in 1989. “Our conclusion was,” Tajiri said to TIME magazine in a 1999 interview, “there weren’t too many good-quality games, so let’s make our own.” The inception of Pokémon came shortly after that.
Choose Your Starter
Tajiri first came up with the idea of Pokémon towards the beginning of 1990. Back then, though, it wasn’t called Pokémon; it was referred to as Capsule Monsters. Tajiri came up with the original name to pay homage to gashapon machines, a variety of Japanese vending machine-dispensed capsule toys. He couldn’t get the name trademarked, so he changed it to CapuMon for a brief time and finally landed on Pocket Monsters—known in the west as Pokémon, of course! Inspired by his childhood love of insect and fish collecting in his hometown of Machida, Tokyo, Tajiri wanted to capture the magic he felt as a bug-obsessed youth and replicate that feeling in a video game. He also found inspiration in the GameBoy’s ability to communicate with other GameBoys via link cable; it reminded him of his bug trading and collecting days harkening back to his youth.
As envisioned by Tajiri, Pocket Monsters: Red and Green was meant to draw from that nostalgia, preserving the wonders of exploring the countryside and instilling it in a new generation of kids, who were growing up in an increasingly urban Japan. The game’s premise was simple: you play as a young boy tasked with collecting all 150 Pokémon in hopes of completing your Pokédex. Along the way, you would also be tasked with battling, trading, and catching new creatures in the hopes of becoming a Pokémon Master. In a quirky, romantic kind of way, Pocket Monsters: Red and Green was ultimately a love letter to Tajiri’s childhood.
But Tajiri wasn’t the only one drawing inspiration from childhood to aid in the creative process. Sugimori designed most of the Pokémon during the early days of development, and he was inspired by his love for Godzilla and Ultraman. Because of this, a lot of the early designs for the Pokémon are relatively large, hulking, brute monsters that look as if they could go toe to toe with MechaGodzilla. Sugimori also found inspiration in everyday life.
“Rhydon, Clefairy, Lapras, etc. [were some of the first Pokémon we created]. Our original idea was for Pokémon to live alongside humans and assist them in useful ways,” Sugimori said to Nintendo Online Magazine in July 2000. “So the earliest Pokémon had well-defined functions—like ferrying people across the sea or carrying things. I also created Pokémon like Clefairy, who were basically cute pets. It started with designs of dinosaurs and monsters. Then we started adding cute Pokémon as the game’s development progressed.”
Noticing that most of the inspiration for the game’s monsters early on were too ferocious, Tajiri and Sugimori brought in Atsuko Nishida to cutify these beasts and give the newer creations a softer touch. Inspired by her childhood, Nishida would go on to create the starters of Red and Green: Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle. In addition, she designed the first pseudo-legendary, Dratini; one of the first monsters to evolve by a Firestone, Vulpix; and the mascot itself, Pikachu! During this process, Nishida, Sugimori, and two other Game Freak artists ended up creating about 300 different Pokémon for the game, with only 150 making the final cut in the end.
By infusing the foundation of this passion project with his childhood memories, hobbies and outlook on life and the lived experiences of his colleagues, Tajiri sought out to make a game that could be appreciated and loved universally, regardless of where you were located in the world. It was this kind of thinking that would ultimately lead to Pokémon’s domination in the marketplace: a franchise built off of the idea of collecting and trading creatures through handheld systems. This idea would play a direct role in making certain Pokémon exclusive to Pocket Monsters: Red and others exclusive to Pocket Monsters: Green, encouraging players to trade their collections of monsters with hopes of completing their Pokédex.
Tajiri also made sure to make the protagonist the same age he was when he began exploring his surroundings in Japan. He argued that making the main character a kid instead of an adult would prove to be more influential in how kids view themselves with regard to the game. Giving kids a character that they could identify with, age-wise, would allow them to become immersed in the world of Pocket Monsters.
“Pokémon will always be about my childhood. I think adults and children see the world differently, so I wanted that to be reflected in the game. That’s why in Pokémon, you never see things from the adults’ perspective. When I was a kid, I really hated being called ‘squirt’ or ‘little boy.’ Maybe that’s how adults saw me, but I felt like I was more than just a kid,” Tajiri said to Nintendo Online Magazine. “That’s also a theme in Pokémon. That’s why the protagonists in the games are on the same level as adults, even though they look down on them. But when you can defeat them in a battle, they start to view you differently. That happens a lot in the game as you gain recognition and continue to grow.”
And continue to grow, Game Freak did. In the years leading up to the release of Pokémon, Game Freak’s staff would increase to a little under 30 employees in total. And as time went on, Tajiri and Sugimori began to realize that, if they were going to make their dream of releasing the most optimal and polished version of their passion project come true, they would need a bit more cash. So, while they were hard at work on Pokémon, Tsunekazu Ishihara, then an employee of Ape Inc., suggested that Game Freak take on more projects, like Yoshi and Mario & Wario, to name a few. So Satoshi Tajiri put his passion project on hold and began working on these Nintendo projects. While this decision was highly influenced by the company’s need for extra cash, committing to working on both Yoshi and Mario & Wario would prove to be creatively beneficial for the company. “Even though developing games like Yoshi were completely different, in my mind, it was necessary to the eventual development of Pokémon. Making Yoshi ended up really helping us out a lot as a company. I was extremely grateful it was released worldwide, instead of only in Japan,” said Tajiri. “We accepted the project for financial reasons, and making money from outside Japan really saved us. Back then, most home console games were made in Japan, but it was obvious they’d eventually be sold in the international market. So I was really happy to see the game recognized as a true fundamental in gaming history all around the world.”
From the time they initially began working on the Pokémon project in 1990 to the release date in 1996, Game Freak worked on and released several other games, including Mendel Palace, Magical Taruruto-kun, and Pulseman. The employees that were hired to work on the previous games ended up becoming a part of the Game Freak team that helped make Pocket Monsters: Red and Green a reality. These legendary talents included: Shigeki Morimoto, one of four programmers; Koji Nishino, map and parametric designer; and Shigeru Miyamoto, who was a producer at the time. The Pokémon journey had officially begun.
PKMN Trainer Gary Wants to Fight!
With the foundation of the company and the creative team established, Game Freak came up with a rough draft for the premise and concept of Pokémon and how it would be played on the Game Boy system. Satoshi Tajiri, overjoyed to finally accomplish his dream, took the project to Nintendo and pitched the idea to the suits. And, well, they didn’t like it. They weren’t sold on Tajiri’s overall idea and were actually confused at the premise of the game. “At first, Pokémon was just an idea,” said Shigeru Miyamoto in a 1999 TIME interview, “and nothing happened.”
Miyamoto is best known as the mastermind behind Nintendo’s beloved mascot, Mario. He saw promise in Tajiri and decided that he would take him under his wing and mentor him. Miyamoto helped to sell the idea of Pokémon to Nintendo, citing Game Freak’s previous contributions as examples of what Pokémon could eventually evolve into. The iconic gaming company almost gave up on Pokémon entirely but, having been blown away with Game Freak’s streak of previous successes, they gave Pokémon a chance. Nintendo still wasn’t too sure what Pokémon was about, but they took Tajiri and Miyamoto’s word for it and gave the project the green light. Tajiri signed the contract and began brainstorming.
“The first game we started planning together [as Game Freak] was Pokémon. Pokémon was originally planned as a smaller, more compact game,” Tajiri told Nintendo Online Magazine. “When we saw Final Fantasy Legend made by Square, we realized we could make a non-action game on Game Boy. We figured we could probably make a Game Boy game in about six months. But our goals for Pokémon just grew and grew, so we eventually realized it’d be difficult to develop that quickly. Of course, ultimately, our six-month plan didn’t work out.”
Game Freak would take six years to complete the game and, in the process, almost went utterly broke. It was reported that Tajiri barely had enough money to pay all of his employees, which resulted in five of them quitting altogether. It was a rough experience, but that didn’t keep the team down for too long, as their luck would eventually turn around. Creatures Inc. saved the day, investing in the company to get them to the finish line. In exchange, Creatures would receive one-third of the rights to Pokémon. Nonetheless, Pokémon was finally here.
Welcome to the World of Pokémon
1996 brought us to the beginning of the revolution—the Pokémon revolution, that is. But, at first, the revolution was definitely not televised. Pocket Monsters: Red and Green was finally released in Japan on February 27th, 1996, on a console that was already past its prime. Because of this, little to no press was done around the game; the media just wasn’t interested in covering a game that was exclusive to an archaic console. Nintendo saw the blood in the water and wasn’t expecting much of this little game. They planned to collect whatever minuscule amount of money they could from the newly released project and then move on from it. “No magazine or TV show was interested. They thought GameBoy was finished,” said Masakazu Kubo, the executive producer of the publishing company Shogakukan Inc. “No toymakers were interested [in Pokémon] either.” The final straw for the game came when the biggest tech companies in Japan began to make the move to CD-ROMs, which provided cleaner graphics and smoother fidelity. Corporate Japan was looking towards the future of gaming, a future that seemingly had no place for a time-displaced RPG called Pocket Monsters. Except, that’s where they were wrong.
There was a faction of Japan’s population that the corporate suits forgot to consider when dealing with Pokémon: the youth. The young boys and girls in Japan were immediately attracted to Pocket Monsters: Red and Green when they first appeared on store shelves. Unlike CD-ROMs and the computers required to play them, Game Boy tech and games were much more affordable. Shogakukan Inc. saw the spell that Pokémon seemed to have cast on children, and decided that they were interested in backing the product after all. With that last hurdle out of the way, Pocket Monsters: Red and Green began to take off. Slowly but surely, the game was selling out all across Japan. That’s when Nintendo truly began to understand the vision of what Tajiri and Game Freak were trying to create. And they had finally succeeded. “That’s why it was originally conceived as a game that would be developed for this new hardware. Then there were substantial delays in completing the title,” said Ishihara during an interview with Satoru Iwata for Iwata Asks. “Still, as the producer, when I saw the content of Pocket Monsters: Red and Green, my personal feeling was that of all the titles I had experience of, that I had played or worked on as a producer, this was of the very highest caliber. That is to say, I was confident that this was streets ahead of the crowd in terms of sheer enjoyment.”
As the game gradually crept up the list of best-selling games, the attitude towards the game had shifted. Word of mouth and the curiosity of children had prevented Pocket Monsters from failing, and the hype was only getting started. Final Fantasy was the top game around that time, but that all came to an end when players discovered the mysterious feature that Tajiri and Shigeki Morimoto snuck into Red and Green. Officially, there were thought to be 150 Pokémon in the game’s Pokédex overall. But, unknown to Nintendo and the general media, Tajiri and Morimoto had managed to sneak in a creature named Mew, the 151st Pokémon who would also happen to play a significant role in the first-ever Pokémon movie. Mew was a Pokémon that Morimoto created for the sole purpose of playing a prank on the other members of Game Freak towards the end of development. Because of this, the only people who were aware of the mythical Pokémon’s existence was, well, Game Freak. As time went on, though, players had managed to exploit a glitch in Red and Green and encountered the legendary Pokémon. Tajiri decided he would conduct an official announcement for the Pokémon, looking to capitalize off of the hype.
Tajiri went to CoroCoro Comic, a famous Japanese manga journal, and conducted an experimental showcase of the legendary Pokémon, stating that Game Freak and Nintendo would be giving away Mew Pokémon cards for free, in partnership with the magazine. The promotion proved to be a success. Game Freak planned to take the hype a step further by announcing they would be giving away 151 Mews to 151 winners of a contest they were looking to hold. The contest and announcement of Mew proved to be even more successful than the last effort, and resulted in more games flying off the shelves. “I think one reason is the power of word of mouth. In 1996, people weren’t writing their own Internet blogs, but word steadily spread about how much fun Pokémon was,” Ishihara said. “In addition, I strongly felt that the power of the media, centered around the CoroCoro Comic, served to accelerate the growth in Pokémon’s popularity. Finally, there was also the small matter of Mew, the Pokémon that Morimoto-san contrived as a kind of prank.” Well, the prank worked, and Nintendo was pleased with the outcome. In fact, Nintendo was so pleased with the performance of Pocket Monsters: Red and Green that they immediately greenlit an anime based on the property.
Pocket Monsters: Red and Green had cemented itself as a dominating force in Japan. But Game Freak wouldn’t stop there, eventually setting their eyes on a global release, and eyeing America as their first stop on their tour of world domination. And the rest, as they say, is history. Pocket Monsters: Red and Green, and the eventual third version, Blue, would sell a whopping 10.23 million copies in Japan, marking the start of the world’s 25-year-long obsession with Pokémon.
Pokémon Master
Whether you know it as Pocket Monsters or Pokémon, one fact remains: the brand was undeniably strong in the ’90s, and it has only gotten stronger over time, like Rollout. As we look to the future of Pokémon, may we never forget the turbulent beginnings of a franchise that all began with the dream of one young man—a dream that sought to preserve his childhood in a time capsule. Red and Green, as a finished project, was an RPG based on friendship, collecting, exploring and curiosity—all the ingredients that make for a beautiful childhood, if you ask Satoshi Tajiri. As Pokémon TCG, Pokémon Go, and the Pokémon core games continue to grow in popularity, it’s clear that Game Freak is still determined to spread the excitement of new adventures.Here’s to another 25 years of catching them all.
