Early Concept Art

Catching Pokémon

Caption: An item used to capture Pokémon, retrieved from the Pokéball design documents. Even the tiniest details have been planned out, including its product number.

The capsule is opened and closed by a button on the back.
Twist the capsule to lock it.

Monster Capsule™
Portable Monster Capsule
PCM-55R
$198.00

Capsule Capture Animation Storyboard (1)
A storyboard depicting the sequence of animations covering a Pokémon encounter, using a Pokéball, and capturing a Pokémon. The illustration goes into detail about how Pokémon are caught using Pokéballs.

Capsule Capture Animation Storyboard (2)
This document really expresses the effort put into the Pokémon capture animations, including how the Pokéball tips over when you catch one, as well as the variations in the animation when the capture fails.

Translator’s Notes

Yes, that really does say $198.00 for a Pokéball.

In the English Pokémon games, prices are listed with in front of the number, indicating Pokédollars. In the Japanese versions, prices are listed with 円 in front of the number, indicating yen. 1 yen or Pokédollar is equivalent to about 1 cent in American currency. An easy way to convert yen and/or Pokédollars to American money is to move the decimal two places to the left. Therefore, a 500.00 Pokéball costs about $5.00 American.

Kabiin’s name is reminiscent of Snorlax’s Japanese name, Kabigon. They say that Kabigon is modeled on a Pokémon developer named Koji Nishino, who appears in the picture above. It seems like Snorlax’s Japanese name stems from the fact that it will eat anything, including things with mold (黴 “kabi”) growing on them. Thus, it may be that this joke Pokémon is a caricature of Nishino as well. What its battle commands mean, however, I haven’t the faintest idea.

As you can see from the storyboards, the animations and sound-effects here are pretty much identical to those of the released game.

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

This Post Has 14 Comments

  1. Freezair

    “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

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

  3. samm

    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

    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

    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

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

  7. Tenko

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

  8. wonderful alligator

    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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