The Story Behind The Pokémon TCG

From its humble beginnings in Japan in the early 1990’s, Pokémon has become a household name across the world. The Pokémon world contains countless video games, anime series, films and the Trading Card Game and you don’t have to love all of them equally to still be a huge fan! The history of Pokémon is long and interesting with so many records broken in the process. We are going to take a look at how Pokémon has evolved throughout the years and how it has reached its modern day status.

Where It Began For Pokémon

Pokémon was invented in Japan by a man named Satoshi Tajiri and his friend Ken Sugimori. Ken’s name will likely be familiar to a lot of you as he designed and illustrated many of the original Base Set Pokémon cards and continues to be Pokémon's lead designer to this day. Satoshi created a gaming magazine in 1982 called Game Freak and eventually began to create his own video games after being inspired by those he was writing about.

In 1989 he decided to turn Game Freak into a gaming company and released games such as Pulseman, Yoshi and Mario & Wario, all characters that have gone on to become very popular. The idea for Pokémon didn’t come along until the early 1990’s and was originally pitched as Pocket Monsters, which was shortened to Pokémon. Satoshi is quoted as being inspired by his childhood of exploring forests and catching bugs and tadpoles as the inspiration for Pokémon. His game idea was pitched to Nintendo and the rest, as they say, is history!

The Early Days of Pokémon

After sharing his ideas with Nintendo, Satoshi spent six years working with Japanese game maker Shigeru Miyamoto. Shigeru has gone on to become a legend in his own right as the man behind Mario and The Legend of Zelda. Combining these two great minds could only have one outcome and on 27th February 1996 in Japan, Pocket Monsters was released for the Gameboy. It had a red version and a green version and the games sold unbelievably well. The success led to them being released in the US in 1998 and the UK the following year but as a red version and a blue version. This was also the time when the name was shortened to Pokémon from Pocket Monsters.

Pokémon Trading Cards Begin

The video games were an instant hit and so a company called Media Factory decided that they would create the Pokémon Trading Card Game. The original set was released in Japan on 20th October 1996 and featured some of the best and most iconic artwork from legendary illustrators, Ken Sugimori, Mitsuhiro Arita and Keiji Kinebuchi. It was a relatively small set by today's standards, containing only 102 cards but it was 102 of the very best! Their success was monitored for a few years in Japan and the TCG was eventually released in North America in 1999 by Wizards of the Coast. From here the TCG made its way across the rest of the world.

The Pokémon Trading Card Game is now hugely popular all across the world with lots of tournaments every year, culminating in the World Championships, which, for the first time ever, will be held in Japan in 2023 and this has got people very excited! Of course the TCG is not just for players, it also has a huge collectors fanbase and some of the cards have become extremely rare and valuable.

The Pokémon TV Series is Launched

The Pokémon animated TV show hit screens in Japan in 1997 and was a little different to what we know today. The lead character was originally called Satoshi, after Pokémon's creator Satoshi Tajiri. The name was changed to Ash Ketchum when it was released worldwide and everyone has grown to love Ash over the last 20 plus years!
The Pokémon series followed Satoshi (or Ash depending where you are) as he attempted to become a Pokémon master with his trusty companion, Pikachu. Since it began, Ash has travelled to all manner of different places and caught countless Pokémon, all the while kept company by Pikachu and his friends.
Since it was first released, we are closing in on 25 series of the anime and have seen well over 1000 episodes. There are big changes coming for the Pokémon series though as Ash is finally leaving the show and being replaced by new main characters.

Pokémon Hits The Big Screen

It didn’t take long for people to recognise the success of the TV show and it was only a year after their release that the first Pokémon movie hit the big screens in Japan. The film was called Pocket Monsters The Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back and followed Ash and his friends as they travelled to an island where they encountered the powerful Pokémon Mewtwo. Despite its mouthful of a title, the film was a huge hit and was released worldwide the following year.

There have currently been 23 animated films and one live action film created. The live action movie was a step away from their usual type of film but, as with everything Pokémon does, it was a huge success and featured Ryan Reynolds as the lead star.

Pokémon GO is Released

There was still a part of the world that Pokémon had not conquered and that was mobile gaming. But that all changed in 2016 with the release of Pokémon GO. Pokémon GO is a mobile game which uses augmented reality to allow trainers to walk around and catch Pokémon in the wild, just like Ash in the TV series. Pokémon GO beat all sorts of download records on its release and has since been downloaded over a billion times, which is pretty hard to comprehend!
Pokémon GO was credited with getting people more active and helping people to socialise more, as they explored their neighbourhoods with friends and fellow Pokémon trainers. GO has become very popular and now features at Pokémon tournaments worldwide alongside TCG and the video game series. It even has its own World Championships now.

Remakes and The Future of Pokémon

Let’s Go Eevee and Let’s Go Pikachu were video games released for the Nintendo Switch in 2018 and were remakes of the Red, Blue and Yellow games. They introduced new mechanics and technology to enhance the gaming experience, while still staying true to the original story. But these were not the first remakes we have seen over the years. HeartGold and SoulSilver were remakes of Gold and Silver, and Black II and White II were popular remakes of the Black and White series games. Since then we have had the very popular Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl games which were remakes of the 2006 releases, Diamond and Pearl.
Pokémon understands the success of their remakes and the nostalgia created by them, so we can fully expect to see more of these in the future.

We’ve reached the modern day and therefore the end of our brief history of Pokémon. It is safe to say that Pokémon is one of the largest and most popular franchises in the world and has grown to become a name that everyone knows. Its diversity and ability to reach fans of all different media has helped it to grow and will continue to help Pokémon reach people worldwide. Whether you are a fan of the TCG, video games, anime or films, you should be very excited for the future of Pokémon.