Why Pokémon Became A Global Obsession

Bright Side

Let's journey back to the epic origins of Pokémon – the phenomenon that turned the world into one big Pokéball-chasing adventure. A bunch of Japanese geniuses created these adorable pocket monsters that you could catch, train, and pit against each other in epic battles. But here's the secret sauce – they didn't just stop at video games. Nope, they launched a card game that had kids and grown-ups alike trading, battling, and collecting like there was no tomorrow. It was like a mix of gaming, strategy, and plain old fun. And then, bam – TV shows, movies, toys, and a tsunami of merchandise flooded the scene. But what's the true secret of its crazy success?  Credit: Fair use: Baku manga: By Hakase Mizuki / Shinshokan, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... Pokemonseason2: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... Pokemonseason1: By OLM, Inc., https://ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... Pokemonseason3: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... Pokemonseason4: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... Pokemonseason5: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... Pokemonseason6: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... Pokemonseason7: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... Pokemonseason8: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... Pokémon Battle Frontier: By Viz Media, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... Pokémon S23: By Bulbapedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... Pokémon S24: By Bulbapedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... Pokémon S25: By Bulbapedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?... Pokémon Gold и Silver: By Game Freak, Nintendo, https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%...  Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD...   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.... TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.of...   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me

Transcript

00:00 Do you know the story of how Pokemon took over the world?

00:03 Well, grab the popcorn and make yourself comfortable.

00:06 I'll tell you.

00:07 First, Pokemon isn't as old as you might think.

00:11 Your grandparents and even your parents were growing up without knowing it.

00:16 This is the man we should thank for it,

00:18 a Japanese inventor of the game, Satoshi Tajiri.

00:21 In 1990, Satoshi came up with the idea of pocket monsters.

00:26 And no, I'm not talking about the Tamagotchi.

00:29 Pocket monsters are Pokemons.

00:32 He was inspired by his early memories of exploring his garden

00:36 and collecting different bugs.

00:38 Satoshi was being called Dr. Bug

00:40 and even wanted to become an entomologist,

00:43 which is a fancy word for a bug scientist.

00:46 So, he came up with the game idea and pitched it for Nintendo.

00:50 At first, the company wasn't sure about it,

00:52 having doubts about the idea and its implementation.

00:56 You see, Satoshi was excited to make it possible to connect two players

01:00 and the company was confused by the idea of it

01:03 and couldn't imagine how to make it possible.

01:06 Still, after a bit of thinking,

01:08 they accepted the idea and gave it a green light.

01:11 Satoshi worked on the game for six years

01:13 along with a legendary game maker, Shigeru Miyamoto,

01:17 the guy who created Mario and The Legend of Zelda.

01:21 On February 27th, 1996,

01:24 Nintendo released two game versions of Pokemon in Japan,

01:28 Pokemon Red and Pokemon Green.

01:31 Back then, Game Boy wasn't available in colors,

01:34 so the first Pokemon editions were black and white, despite the name.

01:38 The games were on a cartridge

01:40 and players could trade with each other

01:42 by connecting to each other's Game Boy using a cable.

01:45 The games were a raging success from the very beginning.

01:48 Millions of copies were sold.

01:51 A year later, the games went overseas.

01:54 Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue were released in the United States.

01:58 A couple of years later, they reached Europe, too.

02:01 One year after the Japanese release,

02:03 the company released the first 102 Pokemon trading game cards.

02:08 By today, more than 30 billion cards have been printed.

02:12 There's a Pokemon card world championship tournament

02:15 and some people pay thousands of dollars for the rarest of cards.

02:20 The most expensive Pokemon cards sold so far

02:23 cost its owner $369,000.

02:27 Originally, there were 151 Pokemons

02:30 that were introduced in the first two editions of the game

02:33 and they are called Generation 1.

02:36 Now, there are over 1,000 Pokemons and nine generations of them.

02:41 (CHILDREN CHEERING)

02:43 Some of the characters are actually based on creatures

02:46 from the Japanese mythology.

02:48 For example, Ninetales is inspired by the nine-tailed fox

02:52 of East Asian myth.

02:54 Foxes are quite famous Asian spirits

02:57 that are depicted as mischievous shapeshifters

02:59 who are believed to have magic powers

03:01 and grow more powerful as they get older.

03:04 The ninetailed fox is the most powerful and wise fox spirit.

03:08 It has huge powers and lives a very long life.

03:12 Whoever grabs any one of the ninetales without permission

03:16 will be cursed for 1,000 years.

03:19 There's also Drowsy, a psychic Pokemon

03:22 whose appearance is based on the dream-eating tapir, Baku.

03:26 Baku are Japanese mythological creatures that devour nightmares.

03:31 There's a legend that Baku were created out of the spare pieces

03:34 that were left after creating all other animals.

03:38 These creatures often appear in Japanese art and folklore

03:42 and apparently now also in anime and manga.

03:46 If your nose is itchy when you wake up,

03:48 it means that Drowsy ate your dreams through your nose.

03:52 The franchise has its own legends.

03:55 There's even a group of so-called legendary Pokemons.

03:59 They're very rare and incredibly powerful

04:02 and they're featured in the Legends of Pokemon world.

04:05 New legendary Pokemons appear in every generation,

04:09 but there are four original ones from the first generation.

04:12 First, the three Kantonian legendary birds.

04:16 There's a trio of birds representing each season, except for Fall.

04:20 There's an ice one called Articuno.

04:23 When flapping its wings, it can cause snowfalls.

04:26 Pokemon world legends say that Articuno

04:29 appears before travelers are lost in icy regions.

04:32 There's also Zapdos, an electric Pokemon

04:35 that releases electricity that can cause thunderstorms,

04:39 and it only appears during them.

04:42 The last bird is Moltres,

04:44 a fire type that can create flames and heal itself

04:47 by dipping itself into the magma of a volcano.

04:50 The legend says that it migrates to the south when spring is coming

04:54 and brings the warmth to the cold lands.

04:57 The fourth original legendary Pokemon is Mewtwo.

05:01 It's a cat-like Pokemon with psychic powers

05:04 that was created by scientists via genetic manipulation.

05:08 It's one of the most powerful Pokemons in the franchise.

05:11 The names of the legendary Pokemons are very well thought through.

05:15 The creators wanted them all to have the same name in all languages,

05:19 so they do careful research to make sure that a chosen name

05:22 will work in every country

05:25 and won't have to be changed to something else.

05:28 There are also a couple of really weird Pokemons.

05:32 There's a Girafarig.

05:34 That's a cross between a giraffe and a zebra.

05:37 The weird part is that instead of a tail, there's a zebra face.

05:41 There's a Dugtrio, three heads poking out from the ground.

05:45 Garbodor is a pile of garbage and waste

05:48 that produces gas to poison its opponents.

05:51 There's also this one, Mimikayu.

05:54 It looks like Pikachu on a very, very bad hair day,

05:58 but actually it's an original Pokemon

06:00 that hides its true appearance by mimicking others.

06:03 When Pikachu became popular,

06:05 Mimikayu adopted his appearance trying to get trainers' attention.

06:10 So, we all know Pikachu, one of the most famous Pokemons.

06:14 Do you know where its name comes from?

06:17 It comes from the Japanese sound "Pika",

06:19 the noise an electric spark makes,

06:22 and "Chu", the sound a mouse makes.

06:25 So, his name means something like "sparkle mouse noise".

06:29 Also, fun fact,

06:31 do you know what Pokeball's design was inspired by?

06:35 Campbell's soup cans, for real!

06:37 No one knows why soup, but we can all see the resemblance.

06:41 In 1997, just one year after the first release of the games,

06:47 Pokemon hit the screens with an animated TV series.

06:51 In Japan, the main character and his rival

06:54 are called Satoshi and Shigeru,

06:56 paying tribute to the franchise's inventors.

06:59 In the worldwide version of the cartoon,

07:01 Satoshi's name is changed to Ash Ketchum.

07:04 The last name is not a weird tribute to ketchup, though.

07:07 It's meant to sound close to "catch 'em",

07:10 as in the iconic phrase "catch them all".

07:13 We all know that Ash's Pokemon is Pikachu,

07:16 but originally it was supposed to be this cutie Clefairy.

07:20 The anime was also meant to have one season only,

07:23 but fans refused to accept that.

07:25 Today, there are 25 seasons of Pokemon released,

07:29 which is over 1,000 episodes!

07:32 The show is still running,

07:34 being one of the longest-running anime series.

07:37 A year later, an animated Pokemon movie hit the screens

07:40 and became another success.

07:42 Today, there are 23 of those,

07:45 and also one live-action movie starring Ryan Reynolds.

07:49 But here's the thing.

07:50 Pokemon was supposed to come to an end in 1999.

07:54 Pokemon Gold and Pokemon Silver

07:56 were supposed to be the last games of the franchise,

07:59 but fans wanted more,

08:01 and they made developers make more,

08:03 and so they kept producing games.

08:05 We all remember 2016,

08:07 that Pokemon Go craze

08:09 which made thousands of people getting out of their houses

08:11 to catch Pokemons on the streets of their cities.

08:14 The game was released 20 years after the release of the franchise.

08:18 Just to put into perspective how big it is,

08:21 the game has been downloaded over a billion times,

08:24 and over 88 billion Pokemons were caught.

08:27 Were you one of the players?

08:29 How much did you catch?

08:31 In 2018, Nintendo released a remake

08:33 of the first original Pokemon games

08:35 and broke all records in the first week.

08:38 Now, there are 122 Pokemon-related games released,

08:42 grouped into nine generations.

08:44 And that's not the end of it.

08:46 It's been around for about 27 years,

08:49 and Pokemons still own people's hearts all over the planet.

08:53 Niue, an island in the South Pacific,

08:56 even put Pikachu on a special edition of a coin.

09:00 Maybe they're the biggest Pokemon fans in the world.

09:03 That's it for today.

09:05 So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity,

09:07 then give the video a like and share it with your friends.

09:10 Or if you want more, just click on these videos

09:12 and stay on the Bright Side.

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