Pokémon: The Story of Japan's Greatest Pop Phenomenon

In the suburbs of Machida (町田), west of Tokyo, in the early 1970s, a solitary boy crosses the fields that separate his home from nearby rice paddies. He is ten years old, his name is Satoshi Tajiri (田尻 智), and he has only one passion in the world: hunting insects. With his small net, he catches beetles, dragonflies, cicadas. He sorts them, compares them, counts them. Every species carries its Japanese name, each lives in a specific habitat, each fears the same predators. Satoshi draws maps of the grounds where he has observed this or that creature. He dreams of showing them to his friends, of offering them a rare beetle, of telling them that along a certain ditch lives a species no one knows. Some thirty years later, that same boy, now grown, will see opening on televisions worldwide a theme that begins with the famous "Pokémon!" sung in an electric voice. Along the way, he will have turned his beetle-collecting memories into the highest-grossing franchise in history, surpassing Mickey Mouse, Star Wars, Marvel and Hello Kitty in the ranking of global commercial empires. Pokémon (ポケットモンスター, Poketto Monsutā, short for Pocket Monsters) is not just a video game series. It is a planetary cultural phenomenon, a living encyclopedia of 1,025 creatures, a machine for generating emotion, nostalgia, friendship and rivalry across three successive generations.

The Genesis: Satoshi Tajiri, Ken Sugimori and Game Freak

A Child Obsessed with Insects

Born on August 28, 1965 in Machida, a rapidly urbanizing Tokyo suburb, Satoshi Tajiri grew up in a house surrounded by fields, ponds and forests that were steadily disappearing under concrete. His childhood nickname, Mushi Hakase (虫博士, "Doctor Bug"), says much about his devouring passion. Satoshi collected, documented, traded. He dreamed of becoming an entomologist, until unchecked urbanization wiped out, in just a few years, the playgrounds of his childhood. That early grief, the sudden erasure of the suburban ecosystems he knew by heart, would remain at the root of Pokémon.

As a teenager, Satoshi turned from insects to another passion: arcades. In the 1970s and 1980s, Machida, like every Japanese suburb, was covered with gēsen (ゲーセン, game centers), noisy smoke-filled halls where teenagers poured 100-yen coins into Space Invaders, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong cabinets. Satoshi spent entire afternoons there and, at seventeen, founded with a few friends a fanzine called Game Freak, devoted to arcade tips and reviews. The zine, typed and photocopied in neighborhood shops, sold a few dozen copies per issue. But through it, Satoshi met his future closest collaborator: Ken Sugimori (杉森 建, born 1966), an admiring reader and passionate illustrator, who wrote in to offer his help.

From Game Freak to Their First Game

In 1989, the fanzine became a real company, Game Freak Inc., founded by Tajiri, Sugimori and a few others. Their first ambition was to create the games they wanted to play. Their first success, Quinty (1989, released in the West as Mendel Palace), published by Namco, gave them the means to work on a more ambitious project.

The Pokémon idea took shape in Tajiri's mind around 1989 to 1990, when he discovered the Game Boy released by Nintendo in 1989 and, above all, its Game Link Cable, which let two consoles connect for multiplayer. That possibility of electronic exchange immediately evoked his childhood insect trades: what if you made a game where you caught creatures and could exchange them between players via the cable? The concept was strikingly simple, but no one had yet thought of it.

Development of the first game, initially titled Capsule Monsters and then Pocket Monsters, took six long years, far more than planned. Game Freak, a tiny studio of about ten people, came close to bankruptcy several times. Nintendo hesitated, doubted, threatened to pull the plug. It was largely thanks to Shigeru Miyamoto (宮本 茂, born 1952), legendary creator of Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda, who believed in the project and defended Tajiri internally, that Pokémon finally saw the light. Miyamoto became executive producer and offered advice, notably the idea of releasing the game in two versions, Red and Green, each with exclusive creatures to push kids to trade with classmates.

The Creative Team and the Birth of the First Monsters

The team that designed the original 151 creatures fit in a small Game Freak room in Setagaya, Tokyo. Ken Sugimori drew the vast majority, with key contributions from Atsuko Nishida (西田 敦子), credited with the design of Pikachu (ピカチュウ), and a few other artists. Junichi Masuda (増田 順一, born 1968) composed the music and took on a growing role in directing the series across generations.

The design of the original 151 creatures, the Kanto Pokédex, was built with deliberate biological coherence. Each Pokémon has a type (fire, water, grass, electric, psychic), an ecological niche, evolutions that echo insect metamorphosis cycles, weaknesses and resistances that construct a miniature ecosystem. This "scientific" rigor is what sets Pokémon apart from its rivals: you are not collecting random cards or toys, you are exploring a world that seems to follow its own laws.

Red and Green, 1996: A Thunderclap on the Game Boy

Pocket Monsters Red (ポケットモンスター赤) and Pocket Monsters Green (ポケットモンスター緑) launched in Japan on February 27, 1996 on the Game Boy. What no one had foreseen is that these two cartridges would single-handedly revive a console deemed near the end of its life, and set off the biggest Japanese cultural phenomenon since Dragon Ball.

The Concept That Changed Everything

The pitch is simple: in the Kanto region (関東), inspired by the real area around Tokyo, the player takes on the role of an eleven-year-old boy who leaves his house in Pallet Town (マサラタウン, Masara Town) to fulfill a universal dream of Japanese children: becoming a Pokémon Master. He must catch the 151 creatures listed in the Pokédex (ポケモン図鑑), defeat the eight regional gym leaders, face off against the scheming Team Rocket (ロケット団) and finally beat the four Elite Four of the Pokémon League.

What made the game unique in 1996 is the trading mechanic. Thirteen Pokémon, including the famous starters Bulbasaur (フシギダネ, Fushigidane), Charmander (ヒトカゲ, Hitokage) and Squirtle (ゼニガメ, Zenigame), along with certain legendary Pokémon and evolutions like Alakazam or Dragonite, can only be obtained by trading with another player. It is impossible to complete your Pokédex without meeting friends, without heading to the schoolyard, cable in hand. Pokémon was, long before anyone else, a social game designed to spark real conversation and real connection between children.

A Slow Start, Then an Explosion

The first weeks were disappointing. No one grasped the concept, ads were timid, sales were modest. But something happened in Japanese schoolyards in spring 1996: kids discovered the game, talked to their friends, traded their creatures. Word spread like wildfire. Sales took off. Within months, Pokémon became the sensation of the year. By the end of 1996, the Game Boy, which Nintendo had been ready to abandon, found a second life. In 1998, a third version, Pokémon Blue (青, Ao), launched in Japan, followed by Pokémon Yellow (ピカチュウ, Pikachu), which starred the little electric mouse that had already become a global mascot.

The numbers are dizzying. Red and Green sold 10 million copies in Japan in two years. When Pokémon Red and Blue arrived in North America in September 1998 and in Europe in 1999, they quickly surpassed those figures, reaching 31 million copies worldwide, one of the best-selling video games of all time for its console.

The Mysterious 151st Creature: Mew

Hidden in the original game's code was a secret that became legendary. Mew (ミュウ), the 151st Pokémon, had not been planned in the official Pokédex by Nintendo's management. A Game Freak developer, Shigeki Morimoto (森本 茂樹), slipped it into the source code a few weeks before release, in a tiny leftover memory slot. Mew was meant to be an internal Easter egg, never accessible to players. But the rumor of its existence spread, Nintendo eventually turned it into a 1996 promotional event, distributed to winners of a contest in CoroCoro magazine. Mew became the prototype of all mythical Pokémon and crystallized the mystical dimension that would run through the franchise.

The Anime, the Cards, the Plushies: Media Explosion

The key to Pokémon's lasting success is not only the video games. It is the media mix strategy (メディアミックス), Japanese-style, that turns a game license into a cultural galaxy.

The Pokémon Anime: Ash, Pikachu and the Eternal Journey

On April 1, 1997, TV Tokyo aired the first episode of Pocket Monsters, an animated series produced by OLM Inc. and Shōgakukan Pro. It follows Satoshi (サトシ, renamed Ash Ketchum in the West, directly inspired by creator Satoshi Tajiri), a ten-year-old boy who leaves Pallet Town to become a Pokémon Master. His travel partner? Pikachu, a stubborn electric Pokémon who refuses to enter his Poké Ball.

Success was immediate and massive. The anime became one of Japan's most-watched cartoons. Pikachu, with his cute face and his "Pika Pika!" cries, became the undisputed icon of the franchise, to the point of eclipsing Ash himself in popular memory. The first season ran more than 80 episodes, and the series continued in one form or another for over 25 years, until the retirement of Ash and Pikachu announced in 2023 after more than 1,200 episodes, with the introduction of new protagonists, Liko and Roy, in Pokémon Horizons.

The Porygon Incident and Media Responsibility

On December 16, 1997, an anime episode titled Dennō Senshi Porygon (でんのうせんしポリゴン, "Electric Soldier Porygon") aired a scene with rapid red and blue light flashes. Within minutes, 685 Japanese children were hospitalized for photosensitive epilepsy seizures, headaches, vomiting. The incident, the most serious ever caused by a TV broadcast in Japan, suspended the anime for four months and pushed global networks to adopt stricter standards for fast visual sequences. The episode was never re-aired. Porygon, though innocent of the incident (it was actually Pikachu who triggered the flashes), has almost never reappeared in the series, unfairly banished by association.

The Trading Card Game

The Pokémon Trading Card Game, created in 1996 by Media Factory in Japan under designer Tsunekazu Ishihara (石原 恒和, today president of the Pokémon Company), quickly became a phenomenon as powerful as the video games. Children around the world trade, collect and resell cards of their favorite Pokémon. Certain rare cards, like the 1998 Pikachu Illustrator (printed in only 39 copies for a contest), today reach millions of dollars at auction (one was sold for 5.275 million dollars to Logan Paul in 2022).

The Pokémon TCG, distributed since 1998 in the West by Wizards of the Coast, then directly by the Pokémon Company since 2003, has shipped more than 64 billion cards in 93 countries and 14 languages, making it the best-selling collectible card game in history, far ahead of Magic: The Gathering.

Plushies, Merchandise, Collaborations

From 1996, Nintendo of Japan and soon the Pokémon Company (founded in 1998, restructured in 2000) orchestrated a commercial exploitation unmatched in scale. Pikachu plushies, keychains, stationery, clothing, kitchenware, the Pokémon Jet of All Nippon Airways (the first decorated as early as 1998), themed Pokémon Cafés in Tokyo and Osaka, Pokémon Centers in major Japanese cities since 1998 (then in New York, Toronto, London, Paris, Seoul, Singapore): Pokémon's merchant empire invaded every corner of daily life.

Pokémon in the West: Global Poké Mania

Arrival in the United States, 1998

When Pokémon Red and Blue launched in the United States on September 28, 1998, no one at Nintendo of America bet big on it. The marketing campaign, led by Gail Tilden and Pokémon Company International, was nevertheless massive. The slogan Gotta Catch 'Em All! became a mantra. In the six months that followed, Poké Mania exploded. The anime, aired on WB Kids, hit record audiences. American schools soon banned cards in schoolyards due to fights. Lines stretched outside stores receiving new stocks of rare cards.

Time magazine put Pikachu on the cover on November 22, 1999, with the headline "Beware of the Poké Mania." The phenomenon exceeded everything Japanese publishers had imagined. For the first time, a Japanese cultural product, neither reduced nor adapted to local tastes, massively won over American children. That shift opened the way for the J-pop and anime wave that would follow in the 2000s.

Movies in Theaters: Mewtwo Strikes Back

The first Pokémon animated feature film, Pokémon: The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back (ミュウツーの逆襲), released in Japan on July 18, 1998 and in the US on November 10, 1999. The film, surprisingly dark and philosophical for a kids' animation (it raises questions of identity through the artificial clone Mewtwo), became the biggest global success for a Japanese animated film at the time. It grossed $163 million in the US and generated hysteria in theaters: massive lines, Mewtwo cards handed out to viewers, sold-out screens for weeks.

Since then, the franchise has produced more than 25 Pokémon animated films, released theatrically in Japan and on DVD/streaming abroad. In 2019, the hybrid film Detective Pikachu, mixing live action and animation with Ryan Reynolds voicing Pikachu, marked Pokémon's entry into live-action Hollywood and grossed $433 million worldwide.

Pokémon in France and Europe

The French release, in 1999 for the anime (aired on TF1 then Canal J) and in October 1999 for the games, triggered the same wave. The French theme song, composed by Yves Hasselmann and performed by Jean-Marc Anthony, became an intergenerational hit. Schoolyards filled with cards, toy stores ran out of stock. Merchandising flooded Hachette Collections, Auchan and European supermarkets. In Spain, the UK, Germany, Italy, the pattern repeated: a massive, intergenerational, lasting craze.

The Successive Generations: Evolution of a Formula

Since 1996, the Pokémon franchise has been structured around generations of games, each introducing a new region inspired by a real part of Japan or the world, a new bestiary and new mechanics.

Generation II: Gold and Silver (1999 to 2000)

Pokémon Gold (金) and Silver (銀) launched in Japan on November 21, 1999 on Game Boy Color, in the Johto region inspired by Kansai (Kyoto, Osaka, Nara). One hundred new Pokémon were introduced, bringing the total to 251. The game added a day-night cycle, Pokémon eggs, breeding, Shiny Pokémon (extremely rare alternate-color variants), two new types (Dark and Steel) and the ability to return to Kanto after the Pokémon League. These games are often cited by fans as the franchise's peak.

Generations III to V: Ruby-Sapphire, Diamond-Pearl, Black-White (2002 to 2010)

Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (2002, Hoenn region inspired by Kyushu) introduced double battles, abilities, held items. Pokémon Diamond and Pearl (2006, Sinnoh region inspired by Hokkaido) brought the franchise to Nintendo DS with Wi-Fi battles and the Global Pokémon Network. Pokémon Black and White (2010, Unova region inspired by New York) introduced 156 new Pokémon at once, the biggest generational leap, and a more mature narrative around the antagonist group Team Plasma.

Generations VI to VIII: X/Y, Sun/Moon, Sword/Shield (2013 to 2019)

Pokémon X and Y (2013, Kalos region inspired by France, with a Prism Tower echoing the Eiffel Tower) marked the move to 3D on Nintendo 3DS and introduced Mega Evolutions. Pokémon Sun and Moon (2016, Alola region inspired by Hawaii) offered a system of island trials instead of traditional gyms. Pokémon Sword and Shield (2019, Galar region inspired by the United Kingdom) arrived on Nintendo Switch and introduced Dynamax, a phenomenon that grew Pokémon to giant size during battle.

Generation IX: Scarlet and Violet (2022)

Pokémon Scarlet and Violet (2022, Paldea region inspired by the Iberian Peninsula, Spain and Portugal) offered for the first time a true open world, in which the player chooses their own order of progression between three narrative arcs (the Victory Road, the Path of Legends, the Starfall Street). Sales exceeded 10 million copies in three days, making these games Nintendo's fastest launch ever.

By the end of 2025, the franchise counts 1,025 official Pokémon, spread across nine generations and several spin-offs (Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, Pokémon Ranger, Pokémon Colosseum, New Pokémon Snap, Pokémon Legends: Arceus).

Pokémon GO and the New Mobile Era

On July 6, 2016, the app Pokémon GO, developed by Niantic (an American studio spun off from Google, led by John Hanke) in partnership with the Pokémon Company and Nintendo, launched in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. The mobile game uses augmented reality and GPS geolocation to turn the real world into a Pokémon hunting ground. Players must walk, explore their city, visit PokéStops (located at monuments, churches, artworks) to collect items and catch creatures that appear on their map.

A Planetary Summer Frenzy

Within two weeks, Pokémon GO became the phenomenon of summer 2016. Millions of people went out into parks, streets, cemeteries, to catch Pokémon. Videos of crowds gathering in New York's Central Park for a wild Vaporeon, drivers braking suddenly on highways, minor accidents and oddball incidents, made the rounds of the media. In one month, the app hit 500 million downloads. Nintendo's market cap doubled in days.

The scale was unprecedented in mobile gaming history. Pokémon GO became the first game to massively get its players out of the house, to turn exercise into entertainment, to create spontaneous gatherings in public space. Cities latched on: Paris hosted official Pokémon GO events, Kyoto's city hall added PokéStops to its temples, some Japanese cities used the app to revitalize deserted shopping centers.

Surprising Longevity

Contrary to what many predicted, Pokémon GO did not collapse after summer 2016. The app continues to generate considerable revenue (over $8 billion to date), with an active community estimated at more than 60 million monthly players in 2025. Community Days, yearly GO Fests in Chicago, London and Tokyo continue to draw tens of thousands of participants. The game has helped many players rediscover their cities, make new friends, even meet their partners at collective raids.

Cultural Legacy: Why Pokémon Is the Highest-Grossing Franchise in History

According to multiple studies, including TitleMax in 2018 and Pokémon Company updates in 2023, Pokémon is the highest-grossing media franchise of all time. Its cumulative revenue exceeds $110 billion, ahead of Hello Kitty (about $84 billion), Mickey Mouse (about $80 billion), Winnie the Pooh ($75 billion) and Star Wars ($70 billion).

Balanced Revenue Mix

What makes Pokémon unique is the diversification of its revenue sources. Unlike Star Wars (dominated by films and toys) or Marvel (dominated by films), Pokémon earns relatively balanced revenue from:

• Merchandise and spin-off products (clothing, plushies, utensils): about 40 percent
• Trading cards: about 15 percent
• Video games: about 15 percent
• Anime, films and video: about 10 percent
• Events, parks and tourism: about 10 percent
• Mobile apps (including Pokémon GO): about 10 percent

This diversification protects the franchise from fashion cycles that can break other licenses. When games cool down, cards surge. When cards plateau, the anime rekindles interest.

Three Generations of Fans

Pokémon has achieved a rare feat: reaching three successive generations while keeping each one in the fold. Children of 1996 to 1999, now adults aged 30 to 40, still buy new games, collect cards, pass the passion to their own children. Children of 2006 to 2010, now young adults, live Pokémon through social media, speedruns, Pokémon e-sports. Children of 2016 to today discover the franchise through Pokémon GO, YouTube card openings, theatrical films. This cross-generational transmission, rare in pop culture, is one of the secrets of Pokémon's exceptional longevity.

Japanese Soft Power

Pokémon has become, over the decades, one of the main vectors of Japanese soft power, alongside manga, anime, Japanese cuisine and matcha. The Japanese government officially named Pikachu Goodwill Ambassador during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (held in 2021 due to the pandemic). Japanese tourism offices use the franchise to draw millions of foreign visitors. The Pokémon Wonders park in Yokohama (opened in 2023) and the future Pokémon Park announced in Dubai reflect its now major tourism dimension.

Pokémon and Esports

The Pokémon World Championships, held yearly since 2004 by the Pokémon Company (Honolulu in 2024, Anaheim in 2025), gather thousands of competitive players across the Video Game Championship (VGC), the TCG and Pokémon GO. The Pokémon esports scene, while less publicized than League of Legends or Counter-Strike, is one of the oldest and most enduring, with champions like Wolfe Glick, Paul Ruiz and Japanese player Shohei Kimura.

引

Pokémon is not a video game, nor an anime, nor a card game. It is a parallel universe that has grown up alongside three generations of children, teaching them, without ever saying so, to love observing, collecting, trading and persevering.

Back to the Roots: Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Tajiri's Spirit

In January 2022, Pokémon Legends: Arceus launched on Nintendo Switch. The game unfolds in Hisui (ancient Sinnoh, inspired by a pre-industrial Japan close to the Meiji era), several centuries before the other games. For the first time, the player must study Pokémon scientifically: observe them in the wild, approach them stealthily, photograph them, document their behaviors. The Pokédex is a true scientific database, noting feeding habits, ecological preferences, combat styles of each creature.

Legends: Arceus was seen by critics and part of the community as a return to roots, to Satoshi Tajiri's original idea: Pokémon as a modern entomologist's game, where capture is not an end in itself but a gateway to knowledge of the living world. The game sold more than 15 million copies and inspired a sequel, Pokémon Legends: Z-A (announced for 2025, set in Kalos), which continues this narrative exploration.

This more contemplative, more scientific orientation is a quiet tribute to Tajiri's Machida childhood. The circle closes: thirty years after turning his insect passion into a video game, Satoshi Tajiri sees the video game become again a contemporary form of the passion for the living.

Pokémon, in the end, is the story of a solitary child who wanted to share his passion with the world. Satoshi Tajiri, who has since disclosed being on the autism spectrum and remains notoriously private (he gives only one or two interviews a year), has achieved something no other video game creator has matched: building a universe that hundreds of millions of children, across the world and across generations, consider a core part of their childhood. A universe where catching creatures does not mean dominating them but discovering them, where battles happen between friends rather than strangers, where each region is a coherent ecosystem, where the journey matters more than the destination. From the 1996 Game Boy to the 2025 Nintendo Switch 2, from collectible cards to a smartphone geolocating a Charizard in a park, Pokémon has crossed thirty years of technological revolutions without losing its soul. Perhaps because that soul comes down to a few words: Gotta Catch 'Em All!, the playful translation of a desire every child has had, turning over a stone to search for an insect: the desire to understand the living world, one being at a time.

Photo credits: images used in this article come from Pexels and Unsplash and are royalty-free.