Satoshi Tajiri was born on August 28th, 1965. He spent his childhood playing in his backyard, collecting insects, and finding salamanders under rocks. 25 years later, Tajiri began developing a video game based on his love for small creatures.
Pokémon (meaning, “Pocket Monsters”) began as a pair of video games released in Japan in early 1996. Originally for the Nintendo Game Boy, it was a top-down view role-playing game. It featured 151 Pokémon to catch, which could be used to battle trainers and gym leaders. The game was notably slower-paced than the typical fighting games of the time, and its unique style gained popularity quickly.
Two versions of the game were released: Pokémon Fire Red and Pokémon Leaf Green (Green was replaced by blue in the international release). They only had slight differences, such as dialogue changes and types of Pokémon that could be caught. This was done to encourage interaction between players, as Pokémon could be traded between players using a Game Link Cable. Pokémon exclusive to the Red version include Ekans, Arbok, Mankey, Primeape, Growlith, Arcanine, Scyther, Electabuzz, Oddish, Gloom, and Vileplume. On the other hand, the Green version was needed to catch Vulpix, Ninetales, Bellsprout, Weepinbell, Victreebell, Meowth, Persian, Magmar, Pinsir, Sandshrew, and Sandslash. Later games kept the multi-version theme, eventually bringing fans together from all over the world.
The original two games were notoriously glitchy, allowing players to exploit several code bugs to cheat in the game. Some well-known glitches include walking through walls, ghost-type immunity, and MissingNo. As the most well-known glitch, MissingNo has gained huge popularity over the years. While some people believe that it is an unfinished Pokémon that was never meant to be released, it is actually just a gap in the programming. When the game was first made, there were data slots for 256 Pokémon. Because only 151 slots were used, the rest were labeled “Missing Number” so that the program would skip over them. Instead of skipping them, however, the game tried to load a Pokémon that was not there. This resulted in MissingNo’s famous L-shaped appearance. Because the code did not have a sprite to load for MissingNo, it instead displayed random memory data.
As the games became more and more popular, the franchise continued to grow quickly. On October 20th, 1996, the first Pokémon cards were released in Japan. An instant success, the cards flew off store shelves. By 1999, there were global card shortages, as suppliers could not keep up with demand. Schools were forced to ban card trading and battling as they became a major distraction for students. While initially targeted towards children aged 5-12, the cards were a hit among all ages. Even today, collectors use Pokémon cards as a sort of investment market; they buy, trade, and sell cards in an attempt to turn a profit.
In addition to trading cards, a Pokémon TV series was released in Japan on April 1st, 1997. The English version was released in the United States on September 8th, 1998. After its release, it quickly became the highest-rated children’s show, which further pushed sales of other merchandise. The show stars Ash, a young Pokémon trainer determined to “Catch ‘em all,” which soon became the slogan of the company.
This craze in the 90s was known as “Pokémania.” This phenomenon is still alive and well today. There are 40 main games, over 500 spin-offs, 27 anime seasons, 23 movies, and over 20,000 unique Pokémon cards. Pokémon is currently the world’s highest-grossing media company, making over $150 billion as of early 2026. Pokémania is still alive and well, and continues to grow with each new release.
Sources:
https://pokemon.fandom.com/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Red_Version_and_Pok%C3%A9mon_Green_Version
