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Early Concept Art

A Day in the Life

Caption: Pokémon are seen toting baggage, walking alongside humans, and sitting in a cage. This illustration was penned so viewers could get a sense of Pokémon’s relationship with humans at a glance.

Translator’s Notes

As can be evidenced by the pictures we’ve seen so far, Pokémon were originally quite reptilian in nature. Indeed, Sugimori has confirmed this in an interview:

Sugimori: At first, Pokémon were more dinosaur-like than the ones you see today.

In Red & Blue, all Pokémon have an unseen index number used to identify them in the game’s ROM that differs from their number in the Pokédex. This numbering system seems to have some connection to the order that the Pokémon were created in. However, the list does have some irregularities, such as spaces where Pokémon were removed from the list, which now result in Missingno. Mew, the last Pokémon added to the game, is number #21, because it was fit into one of these empty spaces.

Rhydon, Clefairy, and Lapras, who Sugimori previously mentioned were the first Pokémon to be created, are #1, #4, and #19, respectively. Other Pokémon whose early conception is evidenced by their appearance in this planning document are Nidoran ♂ (#3), Slowbro (#8), Gengar (#14), Gastly (#25), Staryu (#27), and Blastoise (#28). While only some of these Pokémon could be said to be similar to dinosaurs, many other early-numbered creatures such as Kangaskhan (#2), Nidoking (#7), Ivysaur (#9), Nidoqueen (#16), and Gyarados (#22) seem to adhere to this principle.

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
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

This Post Has 14 Comments

  1. Freezair May 29, 2013

    “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.

  2. Gojiguy May 30, 2013

    Should mention that Gojirante is a portmanteau of “Gojira” (the japanese name for Godzilla) and “Biollante” (one of his enemies from 1989).

  3. samm May 30, 2013

    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.

  4. maggiedroid May 30, 2013

    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?

  5. TB May 30, 2013

    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”.

  6. Pinky June 1, 2013

    Just wondering if anyone else caught the teenage mutant ninja turtles reference with blastocyst being called ‘caravaggio’

  10. Tenko November 19, 2013

    Pinky, I noticed that too. The creators must’ve been TMNT fans.

  11. wonderful alligator January 4, 2014

    hey ya’ll

    where be all da updates on games n shizz

    i dont see anythin’ new for almost a dang year yo

    diggity dog dig

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