"Prepare yourself for trouble, My advice, make it double. Pokémon united people across nations.
But it’s newest version isn’t protecting the world from devastation (don’t play it while driving!!).
To remember the feels of red, blue, silver and gold- To realise Pokémon is 20 years old!
New games launch soon, there’s no end in sight. This is the Pokémon story, so prepare to fight! "
Believe it or not Pokémon has been around since 1996! Love it, hate it, remember it fondly, or curse the creators of Pokémon GO for not launching it in your area NOW! Well, here are 20 things you may or may not know about Pokémon:
1. Pokémon is the second most successful and second highest grossing game franchise of all time, second only to Mario, worth an estimated ¥4.8 trillion (about $46.2 billion)1 as of May 2016.
2. Pokémon’s creator Satoshi Tajiri’s inspiration for Pokémon was his childhood hobby of collecting insects. He first came up with the Pokémon concept in 1990.
3. Pokémon’s main character, Ash Ketchum (Satoshi in the Japanese version), is named after Pokémon’s creator and based on what he was like as a child.
4. In 2001 the island nation of Niue, a dependency of New Zealand, issued $1 coins with Pikachu, Charmander, Bulbasaur, Meowth or Squirtle on their reverse sides.
5. The spirals on the stomach’s of Poliwag, Poliwhirl and Poliwrath are based on the fact that tadpoles’ intestines can be seen through their skin!
6. Each region of the Pokémon world is based on parts of the real world.2, 3
7. One banned episode of the Pokémon anime series earned it the undesirable Guinness World Record of, “Most photosensitive epileptic seizures caused by a TV show.” When Pokémon’s 38th episode, entitled “Electric Soldier Porygon,” aired on December 16th 1997 685 children were hospitalized for epileptic symptoms and seizures caused by a scene with a virtual explosion, featuring rapid flashes of blue and red light.4
8. Besides “Electric Soldier Porygon,” 7 more episodes of Pokémon have been banned or withheld from broadcast. 4 episodes have never been aired owing to their depiction of earthquakes or sinking ships and their originally scheduled air dates being close to earthquake and tsunami disasters in Japan, the sinking of the Korean MV Sewol in 2014, and 3 episodes were removed from broadcast in the US owing to the use of firearms, the appearance of a male character dressing as a woman and using inflatable breasts, and the inexcusable fact that the Pokémon Jinx’s black skin looks strikingly similar to the politically incorrect “blackface” minstrel shows of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
9. The word “Pokémon” isn’t Japanese. It’s a contraction of the English words, “pocket” and “monster.”
10. The English names of many Pokémon contain numbers in other languages. The legendary birds of the first generation games, ArticUNO, ZapDOS, and MolTRES, are perfect examples.
11. Development of Pokémon Gold and Silver took 3 and a half years to complete due to the number of features it included and because of the fact that its development team was made up of just 4 people!
12. Pokemon Gold and Silver were intended to be the last Pokémon games. Nintendo President Satoru Ishihara once said in an interview, “I didn’t intend to make any more Pokémon titles. I even thought that once we entered the twenty-first century, it would be time for me to do something else entirely."5
13. The rarest Pokémon card in the world is the “Pokémon Illustrator” card. They were awarded winners of the Pokémon Card Game Illustration Contest, and there are only 6 in the entire world. One Pokémon Illustrator card sold for $100,000 US on eBay in 2013.6
14. The voice of Ash (Satoshi in Japan), the Pokémon anime series’ main character, has always been performed by a female voice actor. Rica Matsumoto has always been his Japanese voice and Veronica Taylor, Sarah Natochenny, and Kayzie Rogers are Ash’s English voice.
15. Voice actor and Pokémon’s voice director Eric Stuart voiced a total of 32 roles in Pokémon’s English anime series including Brock, the voice of the Pokedex, James, and several of the Pokémon.
16. Voice actress Rachael Lillis voiced 21 roles in Pokémon’s English series including Misty, Jesse, and the voices of several of the Pokémon.
17. Despite being number 112 in the Pokedex, Rhydon was the first Pokémon to be created.
18. “Pokémon: The First Movie” held the record for the highest grossing US opening of an animated film, outside of summer, for two weeks before the record was captured by Toy Story 2.
19. Pikachu is a combination of two Japanese onomatopoeias, “pikapika” which describes sparking or the cracking of electricity, and “chuchu” which describes the squeaks of a mouse.
20. Pikachu is the most well-known of all the Pokémon and the mascot for the whole series but Pokémon’s developers originally had the Pokémon “Clefairy” in mind for that role.
Satoshi Tajiri
Works cited:
1. "Pokémon in Figures - The Pokémon Company” http://www.pokemon.co.jp/corporate/en/data/
2. http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/10/8339935/pokemon-new-york-tokyo-paris
3. http://www.gamefreak.co.jp/blog/dir_english/?p=242
4. http://web.archive.org/web/20020125093204/http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-05/pokemon.html
5. "Iwata Asks – Pokémon HeartGold Version & SoulSilver Version". Nintendo.com. Retrieved 7-20-2016 http://www.nintendo.co.uk/Iwata-Asks/Iwata-Asks-Pokemon-HeartGold-Version-SoulSilver-Version/Iwata-Asks-Pokemon-HeartGold-Version-SoulSilver-Version/1-Just-Making-The-Last-Train/1-Just-Making-The-Last-Train-225842.html
6. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415853/Pokemon-collectible-card-rare-Illustrator-card-goes-Ebay-100-000.html
Works consulted:
Boyes, Emma (January 10, 2007). "UK paper names top game franchises". GameSpot. GameSpot UK. Archived from the original on January 12, 2007. Retrieved July 19, 2016
"Pokémon in Figures - The Pokémon Company” http://www.pokemon.co.jp/corporate/en/data/
"The Ultimate Game Freak". Time. November 22, 1999. Retrieved July 19, 2016. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2040095,00.html
"Pokeani Data". Archived from the original on March 21, 2008. Retrieved July 19, 2016.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jemimaskelley/pikachu-dolla-dolla-coinz?utm_term=.ujElJKdL#.npYXD58Q
http://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces55541.html
http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/10/8339935/pokemon-new-york-tokyo-paris
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/nom/0311/soft/interv01.html (Japanese)
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokémon_world_in_relation_to_the_real_world
Plunkett, Luke (February 11, 2011). "The Banned Pokémon Episode That Gave Children Seizures". Retrieved July 20, 2016 http://kotaku.com/5757570/the-banned-pokemon-episode-that-gave-children-seizures
"Veronica Taylor interview". Animerica (Viz Media) 8 (6). August 2000. Archived from the original on November 24, 2009. Retrieved July 20, 2016 http://web.archive.org/web/20091124054857/http://www.veronicataylor.net/faqs.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokémon_episodes_removed_from_rotation#Episodes_removed_by_4Kids_Entertainment
http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/tv-shows/Pokemon/side-by-side/
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/nom/0007/gfreak/page02.html
http://screenrant.com/best-pokemon-facts-trivia/?view=all
Pikachu's Global Adventure: the Rise and Fall of Pokémon. By Joseph Jay Tobin. Page 63.
Lucard, Alex. "Beckett's Ultimate Guide to Pikachu!" Beckett Pokémon Unofficial Collector July-Aug. 2010: 17.
Picture Credits:
Translucent Tadpole, melvynyeo, http://melvynyeo.deviantart.com/art/Transparent-Tadpole-324826500
Niue-KM137_Dollar_2001.jpg, chiefacoins.com, http://www.chiefacoins.com/Database/Countries/
Close up of Ash’s face, YouTube user F3rni, https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hdCfJohgn-w/maxresdefault.jpg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdCfJohgn-w
Speed painted Pikachu, YouTube user Juan Delgado, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HfZ-NASNPI
Poliwhirl screenshot, YouTube user Battle League, https://www.youtube.com/attribution?v=dm3HVI_ryyE
Rhydon “Too Tough!” (https://i.ytimg.com/vi/2rNwg4INenI/maxresdefault.jpg) image by Casadorperfect, video link and creative commons license mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rNwg4INenI, attribution videos link https://www.youtube.com/attribution?v=2rNwg4INenI YouTube https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797468