After years of development, Pokémon Red & Green was released in 1996 to the happiness of Japanese people everywhere. The reason? Besides mass marketing, a catchy slogan(Get Pokemon…Very subtle), and GAMEBOY YEAH, the game had 150 Pokemon to catch, and INFINITEalmost Possibilites!!! The games turn based style also helped.
The game achevied much popularity, sales skyrocket., and in 1997 was made into an anime(that’s fancy talk for east asian animation) and featured much fanfare. The intro was very different from the well known American version, however. It stared Satoshi and Kasumi traveling Kanto, and collecting badges. The also took off, and a Toy series and TCG(Trading Card game) came out….. After the imfamous “Pokemon Shock Syndrome” caused many seizures, caused by bright flashing lights.
Paused for your health ;)
the anime was put on hold, a manga and trading card game was made, a new and improved Blue version was realized, and future games began production.
By the time the anime came back, pokemon was out in Canmerica.
That’s when things got crazy.
“Pokemon was already huge before it came out, at least among the hardcore gaming crowd. We didn't have the internet (well, we did, but it wasn't ubiquitous and not everyone had access to it every day) but we did have a ton of magazines, and every magazine that had a section on Japan was going Bananas for this "pocket monster" craze that had taken Japan by storm. It took a year (maybe two?) for the games to get localised and released in the West (and slightly longer again for us in Australia IIRC, so we had a longer hype build-up before getting the game than other places so take that in to consideration) but when it did the hardcore knew it would be big. And when I say hardcore, I mean the annoying kids that had Sega VS Nintendo arguments in primary (elementary/middle) school, and later Sony VS Nintendo in high school.” Quote by Arjayjea.
This time, the Pokémon Anime came first.
Pokémania
How a pair of two games completely swept the whole world in a few years.
By Brody Gilbert
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