This article takes you through a brief history of the inspiration for Pokémon Red, Blue, and Green, and provides translations for concept art.
Index
| Page # | Category | Title |
| Page 01 | Intro | Life Before Pokémon |
| Page 02 | Design Doc | Tajiri’s Pokémon Vision |
| Page 03 | Concept Art | Adventuring With Pokémon |
| Page 04 | Concept Art | A Battle Between Trainers |
| Page 05 | Concept Art | A Day in the Life |
| Page 06 | Concept Art | A Battle Between Pokémon |
| Page 07 | Concept Art | Trading Pokémon |
| Page 08 | Concept Art | At the Pokémon Hotel |
| Page 09 | Concept Art | Catching Pokémon |
| Page 10 | Concept Art | At the Pokémart |
| Page 11 | Concept Art | Status Screen |
| Page 12 | Concept Art | Battle Screen |
| Page 13 | Concept Art | Opening Sequence |
| Page 14 | Concept Art | The Overworld |
| Page 15 | Sprite Art | Sprites |
| Page 16 | Outro | A Brief Conclusion |
Life Before Pokémon
In 1989, two events happened that were important for the development of Pokémon. First off, Nintendo released the Game Boy. 5 days later, future Pokémon developers Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori turned Game Freak, their self-published gaming fanzine, into a video game company.
The Game Boy was originally seen as a system geared towards puzzle and action games. Indeed, the handheld saw many releases that fell into these categories. Then came the release of a Square RPG known in English as The Final Fantasy Legend. When Tajiri saw how successful it was, he realized that even non-action games were possible on a portable system.
What Tajiri really had his eye on, however, was the Game Boy’s linking functionality. This data transfer system inspired the developer to dream up a game in which players would be able to trade with each other. Tajiri was also a fan of Ultra Seven, a TV fantasy series that was a followup to Ultraman, from which he got the idea of capsule monsters. He adopted the name Capsule Monsters for the RPG he set out to plan. The game, he imagined, would have monsters in containers similar to capsule toys travelling back and forth via the Game Link Cable. In the fall of 1990, Tajiri brought the project proposal he’d created to Nintendo, who decided to fund its development.
Tajiri was unable to trademark the name Capsule Monsters due to copyright issues, and the shortened version of the game’s name, Capumon, just didn’t sound very nice. Accordingly, he revised the title to Pocket Monsters, which was then shortened to “Pokémon”.
Capsule Monsters
So, just what did that original project proposal for Pokémon look like? In 2009, a book was released in Japan that provided us with a glimpse. Known as Satoshi Tajiri: The Man who Created Pokémon (ISBN: 4840127751), it covered the development history of a number of Game Freak games, including the early Pokémon titles.
I initially found a cache of images from this book on an alternative gaming news site called Tikisaurus. I searched around the web to find a couple more, and combined it with previously-translated developer interviews to bring you a look at Pokémon’s early history!
Index
| Page # | Category | Title |
| Page 01 | Intro | Life Before Pokémon |
| Page 02 | Design Doc | Tajiri’s Pokémon Vision |
| Page 03 | Concept Art | Adventuring With Pokémon |
| Page 04 | Concept Art | A Battle Between Trainers |
| Page 05 | Concept Art | A Day in the Life |
| Page 06 | Concept Art | A Battle Between Pokémon |
| Page 07 | Concept Art | Trading Pokémon |
| Page 08 | Concept Art | At the Pokémon Hotel |
| Page 09 | Concept Art | Catching Pokémon |
| Page 10 | Concept Art | At the Pokémart |
| Page 11 | Concept Art | Status Screen |
| Page 12 | Concept Art | Battle Screen |
| Page 13 | Concept Art | Opening Sequence |
| Page 14 | Concept Art | Overworld |
| Page 15 | Sprite Art | Sprites |
| Page 16 | Outro | A Brief Conclusion |
“The Celadon Hotel and the player’s house are also the only buildings in the game, aside from Pokémon Centers, to have PCs” Nitpick: That’s not exactly true. There’s also a PC on the top floor of Silph Co.
Should mention that Gojirante is a portmanteau of “Gojira” (the japanese name for Godzilla) and “Biollante” (one of his enemies from 1989).
On Page 14 on the map, there is squares in 8 towns. I’d say these are where the gyms were located, showing that the gyms stayed pretty much the same apart from the removed city gym was moved to Cinnibar/Seafoam.
C looks like the entralink in how it isn’t connected to anything else and the fact it was in the dead center of the map, maybe a precursor to the dream world?
The term “illusory monsters” is interesting because it is an actual term in the Pokémon series. In Japan, “illusory Pokémon” is a term, distinct from “legendary Pokémon”, that refers to the Pokémon that you can only get from an event. (Mew, Celebi, etc.) This was just translated as “Legendary” until recently. For the past few years, you’ll notice that Pokémon no longer officially calls these Pokémon “Legendary”. Now they use the term “Mythical”, which is equivalent to the Japanese “illusory Pokémon”.
Just wondering if anyone else caught the teenage mutant ninja turtles reference with blastocyst being called ‘caravaggio’
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Pinky, I noticed that too. The creators must’ve been TMNT fans.
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