History Of Pokemon

The history of the Pokémon media franchise spans over two decades from when work began officially on the first game to now, and has roots even older. It started simply enough as a hobby of Satoshi Tajiri, who as a child had a fondness for catching insects andtadpoles near his home in suburban Tokyo. Over time, Tajiri decided to put his idea of catching creatures into practice, to give children the same thrills he had as a child. 
Generation ITaking over Japan
Pokémon Green box art
The first Pokémon games, Pokémon Red and Green Versions, came to the NintendoGame Boy system in Japan on February 27th, 1996, which was the fulfillment of Satoshi Tajiri's dream and allowed people of all ages to catch, train and trade151 creaturesand become a Pokémon Master.
Initially, the Pokémon games had modest sales. However, after players discovered Mew in the games, the magazine CoroCoroannounced a "Legendary Pokémon Offer" to distribute Mew to twenty entrants. The contest received 78,000 entrants, and the sales of the Pokémon games quickly increased.[4] Due to high sales, Pokémon Red and Green were swiftly followed up with Pokémon Blue, which had improved graphics and sounds.
After the games, a Pokémon Trading Card Game was developed by Media Factory with its own set of rules. The first set of cards was released on October 20th, 1996, containing 102 cards, and became very popular.
The franchise also won many manga interpretations, the first being Pokémon Pocket Monsters by Kosaku Anakubo, which was first collected and published in November 1996 by Shōgakukan. This was chiefly a gag manga, using crude humor and slapstick, starring a Trainer named Red and his rude Clefairy.
The popularity of the franchise also led to an anime series based on the games, premiering in Japan on April 1st, 1997. The main character was a young Pokémon Trainer named Satoshi (after Satoshi Tajiri, later dubbed in English to Ash Ketchum), based onRed. Another character introduced in the first episode was Satoshi's rival, Shigeru (after Shigeru Miyamoto, later dubbed in English to Gary Oak), based on Blue.
The anime quickly became very popular, and soon a manga series based on it named The Electric Tale of Pikachu was written by Toshihiro Ono. The first volume of the series was first published on October 28th, 1997. The more famous manga in the western world, however, is Pokémon Adventures, the first volume of which was first published in Japan on August 8th, 1997. This is the longest running manga in Pokémon history, as it is still ongoing today, over fourteen years later. Several other manga series were published in that era, including Pokémon Zensho and Miho Asada's Pokémon Get da ze!.
In addition to these manga series, Shogakukan also published the first volume of Pokémon Wonderland, a magazine with the latest information on the franchise, on August 23rd, 1997. They also released a new manga series named Pokémon ★ Adventures (later translated to Magical Pokémon Journey), authored by Yumi Tsukirino, on March 28th, 1998. The main difference in this series was that is was aimed mainly towards girls.
On April 25th, 1998, the first Pokémon Center store was opened in Tokyo, specializing in Pokémon merchandise. Along the way, The Pokémon Company began its operations. Many such stores were opened in later years, and today there are six different stores across Japan, as well as a subsection in the Nintendo World Store in New York.
Conquering the world
Ash Ketchum in the original series of the anime
Due to Pokémon's success in Japan, the series was released overseas. Before the games were released in North America, the localization team attempted to change the Pokémon designs, fearing that the cute designs would not appeal to western gamers; however, the proposal was refused. [5][6] North America received Red and Blue Versions, as well as the anime, in September 1998 (the anime on the 7th and the games on the 30th), and soon everywhere else began to play the games on the Game Boy under the slogan Gotta Catch 'em All!. The Trading Card Game was also introduced to North America on January 9th, 1999 by Wizards of the Coast. The Electric Tale of Pikachu became the first Pokémon manga to be translated to English when Viz Media started publishing it on September 28th, 1999.
Meanwhile in Japan in 1998, a new spin-off game, Pokémon Stadium, was released for Nintendo 64. This game featured only 42 Pokémon of the full 151. This game proved to be commercially and critically unsuccessful, though its sequel, originally planned for the Nintendo 64DD, received an international release.
The anime, on the other hand, pushed the franchise to new heights. On July 18th, 1998, Mewtwo Strikes Back debuted in Japanese theaters, featuring the rare Mew and Mewtwo. In the United States, where it was released on November 10th, 1999, the movie even briefly held the record for highest-grossing opening for an animated film.
Plans soon started for a game based on the popular anime and Yellow Version was released September 12th, 1998 in Japan, October 25th, 1999 in North America and Europe. Pokémon Yellow allowed Trainers to take on the role of Ash and travel throughKanto with anime-style graphics for each Pokémon and a Pikachu by their side, following the anime's course of events.
Expanding to spin-offs
On December 18th, 1998 a Game Boy game based on the TCG was released, later arriving in North America on April 10th, 2000. It was followed, only in Japan, a year later by a sequel titled Pokémon Card GB2: Here Comes Team GR!.
The anime, as well as Pokémon Yellow, marked Pikachu as the most popular and recognized creatures in Pokémon history, turning it into the franchise's mascot. This led to a small spin-off game called Hey You, Pikachu!, which was released in Japan on December 12th, 1998, and in North America on November 6th, 2000. This was a virtual-pet game, utilizing the Nintendo 64's Voice Recognition Unit to let the players interact verbally with Pikachu.
When the anime finished following the games' story with Ash's defeat in the Pokémon League in January 1999, it started a filler season in a new region called theOrange Archipelago, introducing the new main character of Tracey Sketchit. During this season's time, a second movie, The Power of One, was produced. It was first in Japanese theaters on July 17th, 1999, and in North American theaters on July 21st, 2000.
A non-traditional spin-off game for Nintendo 64, Pokémon Snap, was released in Japan on March 21st, 1999, inviting the player (in the role of Todd) to a Pokémon photographing mission in a place called Pokémon Island. This game made its way to North America on July 27th, 1999.
On April 14th, 1999, a spin-off pinball game for the Game Boy Color was released, called Pokémon Pinball. This game took all the mechanics of regular pinball, with some Pokémon aspects added in. Its North American release was on June 28th, 1999.
Pokémon Live! CD cover art
A sequel to Pokémon Stadium was also eventually released in Japan on April 30th, 1999, and became a success. This game reached North America on February 29th, 2000, and became known there as the original Pokémon Stadium. The twist in theStadium series from the main series was that it featured the Pokémon in 3D.
In September 2000, the anime-based puzzle game Pokémon Puzzle League was released for Nintendo 64. This game was the only Pokémon game to be made specifically for western audiences and not be released in Japan.
However, this was not the only American-made original Pokémon material. From 2000 to 2002, an anime-based musical calledPokémon Live! was shown on stages around the world. The most memorable plot point in the musical was the revelation that Ash's mother, Delia, used to be a friend of Giovanni when they were younger. The musical isn't considered canon, but it sparked endless theories among fans regarding the identity of Ash's father.