a lazy person’s guide to
understanding POKéMON

Ira explains Pokemon to ABC Anchor JuJu Chang

Parents don’t understand it, neither do most adults or critics , but the youngsters of America do, and ABC WORLD NEWS NOW TOYMON Ira Gallen has, in fact, figured out what every adult has not been able to understand--why it’s so POPULAR

There is a method to the madness of all the toys, videos, T-shirts, caps, backpacks and electronic games, and especially those trading cards.

THE BIRTH OF POKEMON

The Pokemon phenomenon began in Japan in 1996, with Nintendo inciting a national craze when it introduced software for its Game Boy portable video game system called “Pocket Monsters” aka Pokemon.

Show me your Pokemon collection contest

The game was created by 34-year-old Satoshi Tajiri, who had spent six years creating this world. Even when he sold Nintendo on the idea, they weren’t sure what the whole concept was.

But there was enough faith from SHIGERU MIYAMOTO, the wizard behind the creation of Super Mario Brothers, the previous best seller for Nintendo, for Tajiri to develop his idea.

If the adult world can have their Jurassic Park movies of large-size prehistoric monsters behind barbed wire and concrete walls, why can’t the youngsters world be filled with little monsters roaming free, and only little kids can collect, raise and trade?

click to visit pokemon.com

In Japan, were Tajiri grew up and created his Pocket Monster world, no one expected him to amount to anything--he never even had any aspirations to go to college. Tajiri’s world was going to arcades in the early days of the Space Invaders craze, and instead of going to a university, he chose studying electronics at a two-year technical school.

In a Times magazine report Tajiri said his parents cried because he became a delinquent spending so much time in arcades playing Space Invaders. He was so crazy over the game that an Arcade gave him a machine to take home.

In 1982, he started a magazine called GAME FREAK with another Arcade junkie named KEN SUGIMORI, who would eventually draw the Pokemon characters. The magazine was devoted to reviewing games, plus tips and codes on how to cheat the games.

POKEMON USA- redubbed from Japanese version

Free Pokemon DVD with purchase of Pioneer DV-525 DVD players

They knew there wasn’t much in good games out there and they thought of creating there own, Tajiri even took an Nintendo system apart just to figure out how it works. But it wasn’t until he discovered Nintendo’s GAMEBOY, and the added feature of a cable that links two games together.

That’s when Tajiri started imagining what it would be like if insects could move back and forth across the cable. Ever since he was kid he was a bug collector of sorts, especially beetles, and took pride in the many ways you could find them.

Understanding TV & Movie Violence

So from just collecting bugs to trading them from one GameBoy to another, this started working in the young inventor’s mind. During the six years he worked on the Pocket Monster idea he almost went broke, some of his magazine staff quit, and his father helped him out.

NO ONE CARES ABOUT GAME BOY

The Americanization of Pokemon

By the time Tajiri finished his Pokemon game the Gameboy technology was old news--with flashier CD-Rom computer games dominating the market, who wants that little gameboard screen?

But while the major electronic companies were giving up on Gameboy technology, Nintendo released the Pokemon Game in Japan anyway, not expecting any major returns. But with pricey new CD Roms games being out of the reach of young Japanese children, a cult following grew around the Pokemon game.

Even unknown to Nintendo, Tajiri had added an extra character called “Mew” in the system, and where there was supposed to be just 150 monsters, there was a secret addition, and when word got out amongst the Pokemon fans,, games were sold. Of course to get the character you have to interact with one GameBoy to another by trading.

visit BurgerKing.com

Now with a hit Gameboy product , Nintendo goes ahead with comics and give away trading cards, then an Animated series becomes the highest rated show in Japan.

But in December of 1997, a very strange thing happened during one specific episode of the Pokemon show, when almost 700 children had sudden and simultaneous seizures while watching the program.

What happened was that during one episode involving a bomb attack on Pickachu and his friends, the combination of the flash of Pickachu’s lighting bolts crossed the screen with the type of flashing colors it created, in just that microsecond, and caused that reaction in some children.

click to visit nintendo.com

The RED & BLUE versions of Pokemon games for GAMEBOY sold more then 4.2 million units, and Pokemon fever was beginning. More Pokeman Gameboys have been sold then all the Nintendo64 and Playstation hardware sold this year.

Nintendo has over a hundred companies licensing more then a thousand Pokemon products, and estimates over 5 billion dollars in sales. Hasbro would pay 350 million for the Market rights. When Hasbro bought Wizard Trading card company last year, they happened to be the holders of the Pokemon game license with over 225 million in sales

Burger King has tied into the release of the Pokemon the first Movie by spending 22 million dollars in advertising and promotion that will feature 57 Pokemon characters, a new set of 150 cards, and costumed series gold cards in Pokeballs over fifty six days.

Because Pioneer electronics had the insight to buy the US distribution rights to the Pokemon TV shows while it was still a hit in Japan, is reporting great sales with their DVD players and the free Pokemon episode you get with each purchase. The series of Pokemon television shows is also available in VHS by Pioneer as well.

The show aired in syndication until the WB Network picked up the TV rights, and re-debuted the show on February 13, 1999.

End of Part 1