Pokémon celebrates its 30 year anniversary
Pokémon has been a very big franchise for a very long time. 2026 is the 30th year that Pokémon has been a franchise that people around the world know and love. Pokémon has had a very long history that started in 1996 with its creator, Satoshi Tajiri.
Pokémon originally was named Pocket Monsters; Tajiri and his game company named “Game Freak” created 2 RPG games named “Pocket Monsters Red” and “Pocket Monsters Green”. The idea of Pokémon sprouted from Tajiri's fascination with capturing and discovering insects and small creatures as a child. Tajiri was introduced to videogames through an arcade hall that had opened in his home town during his junior year in high school. Tajiri's early fascinations would later become key to what Tajiri would later make with his company “Game Freak”. Tajiri, with the help of his experiences at the Tokyo College Of Technology and the help of multiple people such as Ken Sugimori, Tsunekazu Ishihara, and multiple others; Tajiri eventually was able to create the Game Freak company. With the help of Nintendo and inspiration from multiple things such as Gashapon, Collectable cards, and even Final Fantasy; Tajiri and Game Freak would go on to create the first games of Pokémon.
Tajiri and Game Freak had ups and downs with Pokémon; Eventually, Pokémon found massive success in Japan. Tajiri and Game Freak worked with multiple companies such as CoroCoro Comic and Shogakukan Productions after this success to create manga, an anime adaptation, plushies, more games, and even a trading card game. Pokémon having all this success eventually led Tajiri and Game Freak to collaborate with the company Creatures and Nintendo to create “The Pokémon Company”; the Pokemon Company also has other companies a part of it such as TV Tokyo and ShoPro. The goal of The Pokémon Company was to expand Pokémon out to other countries. The Pokémon Company succeeded, resulting in Pokémon being one of the highest grossing franchises ever.
Pokémon since the beginning has created new projects and worked together with multiple companies. Pokémon is still working on things such as Pokémon GO and a new official game called “Pokémon: Wind and Waves”. Pokémon has influenced many generations through multiple pieces of media and hopefully they will continue to influence others for the better. Happy anniversary Pokémon, hopefully the franchise continues for years to come.
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