Pokémon (media franchise)
Pokémon is a globally recognized media franchise that originated in the mid-1990s as a video game for Nintendo's Game Boy. Created by Satoshi Tajiri, it features a world where players, known as trainers, capture and train fictional creatures called Pokémon to compete in battles. Over the years, Pokémon has expanded beyond video games to include anime series, movies, trading cards, toys, and various forms of merchandise, making it the highest-grossing media franchise of all time, with estimated gross earnings exceeding $147 billion by 2023.
The franchise primarily targets children aged four to fourteen and aims to foster imagination, strategic thinking, and respect for others. Pokémon's success has led to cultural phenomena, including the widespread popularity of the trading cards, which have sometimes caused disruptions in schools. While Pokémon enjoys a dedicated fanbase, it has also faced criticism, with some groups labeling it as controversial for various reasons. Notable milestones include the introduction of Pokémon GO in 2016, which utilized augmented reality and became immensely popular, and the continued release of new games, including titles for the Nintendo Switch. Overall, Pokémon has become a significant aspect of contemporary pop culture, influencing generations of fans across the globe.
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Pokémon (media franchise)
The Pokémon media franchise—the highest-grossing media franchise of all time—began as a video game created for Nintendo’s handheld Game Boy system in the mid-1990s. Over time, the Game Boy lost its popularity, but various versions of Pokémon games were subsequently released for Nintendo’s 3DS handheld system and the Nintendo Wii and Wii U game consoles. In the twenty-first century, Pokémon is considered a global phenomenon and has expanded into a wide range of merchandising areas, including ever-evolving games, anime, manga, movies, toys, costumes, household items, collectible trading cards, and smartphone apps. At times, schools have banned the trading cards because of their tendency to create disturbances that have occasionally turned violent. More often, Pokémon cards have taken children’s minds off their lessons. Not buying into the "adorableness factor" that has helped to explain Pokémon’s phenomenal success, some religious conservatives have been threatened by the franchise, labeling it "satanic" in nature. The Pokémon games are all designed to nurture the imagination of players, particularly those of children, and the target audience is children between the ages of four and fourteen. Nintendo promotes Pokémon games as enhancing such skills as strategic thinking and basic reading and math and promoting respect for others and their rights.
Background
The company that became known as Nintendo was established in 1889 in Kyoto, Japan, by Fusajiro Yamauchi. Known as Nintendo Koppai, the company initially sold handcrafted cards for a game called Hanafuda, "flower cards." The company started making Western-style playing cards in 1907, and expanded into other enterprises in the 1960s. The company introduced the Game Boy, a handheld electronic gaming device, in 1989.
The 1990s saw an explosion in children’s media imported from Japan, and they opened up new marketing opportunities for Japanese media in North America and other markets around the world. In 1991, at a time when developers were creating computer games that allowed players to own virtual pets, game developer Satoshi Tajiri began working on Pokémon.It took Tajiri several years to perfect Pokémon, released in Japan in 1996 as Pocket Monsters. The game was mainly a single-player role-playing game in which the player was tasked with catching various Pokémon and training them to battle against in-game enemies, although they also had a multiplayer aspect, allowing two players to pit their Pokémon against one another by connecting two Nintendo Game Boy systems with a cable that had been introduced by Nintendo in 1991. The first installments of the game included 151 different Pokémon, though one could only be obtained through time-limited special events, a tradition which future installments in the series continued. The game was so successful that it is credited with reviving the Game Boy and boosting Nintendo’s declining profits.
Nintendo introduced a new Pokémon television series for children in Japan in 1997. The series featured a young boy named Satoshi (Ash in English) who had various adventures while training his Pokémon, Pikachu. Pikachu continues to be the best known of the hundreds of Pokémon that became available. In order to enhance the attraction for young girls, the series also featured a female character named Kasumi (Misty in English). In the midst of its phenomenal success, tragedy struck the series during the Japanese airing of the December 16, 1997, episode in which Pikachu shoots out a lightning bolt in response to a bomb being thrown at him. The explosion produced a dazzling display of colors and motions that caused epileptic seizures in almost 700 children. The show was taken off the air for nearly four months.
American children were introduced to the Pokémon television series in 1998 through the efforts of Warner Brothers Studios. That same year, three companies—Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures Inc.—established Pokemon Center Company (later renamed the Pokémon Company) to oversee the franchise.
Overview
In November 1999, Pokémon: The First Movie was released in the United States, causing such a stir among young fans that it led to an outbreak of "Pokémon flu" because children stayed out of school to attend the afternoon premier. Over the following three years, the Pokémon franchise raked in some $8 billion, and children all over the world began begging for more Pokémon merchandise. By the time the second movie was released in North America in 2000, computer technologies had improved significantly, and children were even more entranced with Pokémon. In addition to the original series—which was still releasing new episodes into 2024—many spin-off series and animated films were also released. In 2019, the live action Pokémon film, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, was released.
The Pokémon universe is made up of individual players or trainers and more than 700 Pokémon who come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and patterns. Each Pokémon’s vocabulary consists only of its own name. The goal of each trainer is to prepare themselves and their Pokémon to compete in the Pokémon League Championships. The first Pokémon games, Pocket Monsters Green and Pocket Monsters Red, were originally released only in Japan in 1996. These were then released in North America under the titles of Pokémon Blueand Pokémon Red in 1998. Nintendo has continued to release new games and updated versions of older games, and the games have become increasingly complex and visually stimulating.
Nintendo followed up its initial success with a second generation of games, Pokémon Gold and Pokémon Silver in 1999 and Pokémon Crystal in 2000. The third generation includes Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire (2003) and Pokémon Emerald (2004). The fourth generation, for the Nintendo DS, includes Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl (2006) and Pokémon Platinum (2008), among other titles. The fifth generation, which was released for the Nintendo 3DS, consisted of Pokémon Black and Pokémon White (2010). The sixth generation includes Pokémon X and Pokémon Y (2013).
In February 2016, Nintendo announced that Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon for the 3DS would be released in Japan in November 2016 and would be available in North America in time for the 2016 holiday season. By that time, the Pokémon media franchise included more than twenty feature films, a number of television series and manga volumes, and over one hundred versions of various Pokémon games. Pokémon merchandise had come to include stuffed animals, pillows, throws, T-shirts, hats, belts, posable figures, mugs, tumblers, notebooks, pens, posters, journals, stationery, and framed artwork featuring various Pokémon characters.
On July 6, 2016, the Pokémon franchise expanded with the release of Pokémon GO, a free, real-world adventure game played on smartphones. The game was developed and released by Niantic, which created the immersive gaming platform for iPhones and Google Android phones on which the game is built. The platform uses global positioning system (GPS) maps and augmented reality (AR) to allow game characters and features to appear as a virtual overlay to the real world when viewed through a smartphone lens, giving players the sense that they are searching for Pokémon in real-world locations. In less than a month after its initial release, Pokémon GO was downloaded an estimated 75 million times.
In November 2018, Nintendo released two new Pokémon games for the Nintendo Switch console: Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let's Go, Eevee! The two games contained the same game play but featured different Pokémon that could later be traded between the different versions. Two more games designed for the Switch, Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield, followed in 2019. More Switch games followed: Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl in 2021, and Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Pokémon Scarlet, and Pokémon Violet in 2022.
Nintendo’s website brings the various aspects of Pokémon culture together and offers new avenues of game play. The Pokémon Company regularly sponsors gaming tournaments and has opened a number of Pokémon Centers around the world. Merchandising for the company is handled by Pokémon Company International, which is based in Bellevue, Washington, and is headed by Kenjo Kubo. By 2023, the Pokémon media franchise had grossed over an estimated $147 billion, making it the highest-grossing media franchise of all time.
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