The history of Pokémon began with a single Japanese man named Satoshi Tajiri. It was his hobby. Over time he decided to put his idea of catching critters into practice, to give children the same excitement he had as a child of catching bugs and tadpoles. Tajiri and his friends worked long hours on the designs and Tajiri even worked unpaid hours to make his dreams for the game come true. He nearly bankrupted the partners and several employees quit due to financial conditions. The first Pokémon games, Pokémon Red and Green, arrived in Japan on February 27, 1996, fulfilling Tajiri’s dreams. Due to the success rate in Japan with the Pokemon games, they released it overseas.
The anime, as well as Pokémon Yellow, marked Pikachu as the most popular and recognized creature in Pokémon history, making it the mascot of the franchise. This led to a small spin-off game called Hey You, Pikachu!, which was released in Japan on December 12, 1998 and in North America on November 6, 2000. This was a virtual pet game using the Nintendo 64 Voice. recognition to allow players to verbally interact with Pikachu. When the anime finished following the games story with Ash’s defeat in the Pokémon League in January 1999, a new season began in a new region called the Orange Archipelago.
A major overhaul of the main game series occurred when Pokémon came to the Game Boy Advance on November 21, 2002, when the Ruby and Sapphire versions were released in Japan. The trainers met in the southern land called Hoenn, where 135 new Pokémon were waiting to be discovered. The games arrived in North America on March 18, 2003, and had many new features, the most prominent being Pokémon contests, double battles, Pokémon abilities, and the natures of each Pokémon. Also introduced in these versions were more weather types and two new villain teams, Team Magma and Team Aqua.
The anime started a new series, the Advanced Generation series, which began in Japan on the same day as the games’ release and came to North America nearly a year later. Much was changed in this series, including the introduction of a new main character, May, based on her game counterpart.
There are several generations of Pokémon, and there are still future generations to come. When the world changes, so does the world of Pokémon. 2016 marks the 20th anniversary of Pokémon and will be celebrated with the re-release of the original games from the main Generation I series on Nintendo 3DS. There are currently six generations of Pokémon, and during this time period, there are many games, including spin-offs, along with anime, movies, manga, a trading card game, music, and a musical.