Pokémon, one of the long running anime and a successful franchise. Pokémon now has almost been around for 25 years and ongoing franchise with a loyal fanbase. You might already know what Pokémon stands for, but for those you dont know, it is abbreviated from the Japanese title of Pocket Monsters. It is a Japanese anime, which was released in February 1996 but was premiered in Japan on April 1 1997 in TV Tokyo, started by Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori. Junichi Masuda as the director. Owned by: Game Freak, Creatures, Nintendo.
The 25 years long franchise is so successful and popular, literally in every form of media including movies, TV shows, video games and trading cards.
Pokémon is one of the highest-selling series in the entire world. It is worth over $100 billion overall, with the video games, anime, trading gard game, and merchandise being worth billions on their own. Tajiri came up with Pokémon idea during his childhood as he enjoyed playing with bugs and video games, which inspired him to write more about it.
History of Pokémon
So lets explore our childhood and talk about Pokémon since the beginning. Initially, Pokémon was introduced as a video game on the Game boy, in which players would go on a quest to conquer and catch the Pocket Monster using a Pocket balls(Poké balls). Here Poké balls is used to catch Pokémon, shrink them in size, so that they are stored in it and are utilised and trained by the trainer/gym leaders. Some Pokémon are also won by battle between trainers. In which one trainer chooses his Pokémon to battle the another trainer’s Pokémon. Pokémon Red, Pokémon Blue, Pokémon Yellow and Pokémon Green were different versions, each had a few Pokémon exclusive to it. The game then got an anime adoption and thus began the popularity of Pokémon.
In 1996 Pokémon got an anime adoption but was first aired in 1997. Pokémon as over 23 season and 1100+ episodes, with over a million Pokémon design. Ash Ketchum aka Satoshi is the main protagonist a trainer from Pallet Town from Kanto region, whose dream was to become the Pokémon master. It would be unfair if we are talking on Pokémon and dont mention Pikachu. Pikachu as to be the cutest character and the most loved character in Pokémon series. Ash in his journey makes lots of friends and rivals as well in order to fullfill his dream.
Pokémon is an adventure where Ash travels different Pokémon gym and battle the gym leaders to win badges and then compete in various Pokémon battling tournaments called known as the Pokémon League. So to witness the Journey of Ash Ketchum, you can watch it on Netflix or Telegram.
Pokémon Success Path and Unique Game Culture
Pokémon was not only known for anime and films but it also leaded in trading card games. Nostalgia memories, collecting the cards of Pokemon then trading and battling it with another Pokémon was one fun game.
It was in 2016, Pokémon was on another level. It was the year which made Pokémon reach more heights. You should have guessed it by now. Pokémon Go was released in June 2016. Pokémon Go was the Augmented reality (AR) moblie game application developed using Unity and published by Niantic in collaboration with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for iOS and Android devices.
Pokémon without any doubt was one of the best moblie game ever made. With the latest technology of AR, players could visualize the Pokémon around them and catch them using Poké ball. Thanks to Pokémon Go creators we were able to go on adventure like Ash in search of Pokémons using mobile devices with GPS to locate. Pokémon Go made us go out for a walk in streets, parks, malls, colleges and many more places just in search of Pokémons and bulid a solid profile with good number of them.
Pokémon Go was able to achieve 50 million downloads within no time. Now Pokémon Go as over 1 billion downloads and was named “Best Mobile Game” by the Game Developers Choice Awards and “Best App of the Year” by TechCrunch.
Pokémon had already made lots of name but this wasnt it. Pokémon got a movie adoption named Detective Pikachu in 2019. A film which was directed by Rob letterman. Thanks to Ryan Reynolds for his masterpiece work as a voice actor.
Pokémon Craze in India
Though Indian channels doesn’t support Anime, yet there are millions of Indian anime fans out there. Luckly Pokémon was premiered in Cartoon Network. As mentioned Pokémon was released in 1996 but was released on 2003 in India. In India Pokémon is available in different languages including English, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu. Pokemon is also broadcast by Disney India, Hungama TV and Marvel HQ. Click here to check out Indian Pokémon website where you find different apps, event, game, quest and many more.
To talk about Pokemon craze in India, we cant deny the fact that Pokemon Go was played by most Indians. Pokémon Go was officially released in June 2016, but it wasn’t released in India. This news made Indian fans mad. Since Pokémon go was not released in India initially, many players downloaded pirated version of Pokémon Go. It was in December 2016, Pokémon Go was finally released in India. This began the journey in which creative Indians used creative ways in order to catch Pokémons. Many accident incidents occurred due to this, as the player concentrated in Mobile screen rather than vehicles. Some players used to play Pokémon Go in theatres while watching movie, in hope to find a Pokémon, we Indians literally did spare even a single place, be it Hospital, malls or Colleges. Many colleges banned usage of smartphone inside the premises as well.
Special mention here to Reliance Jio, who were in partnership with Niantic to bring access of Pokémon Go in India. Reliance Jio’s partnership allowed better network availability that was much needed at the time to play Pokémon Go. Not just the Pokémon Go but also trading cards game, grew in numbers in India. The game crossed more than $6 billion in revenue as of 2020. There were even some cases in which trading card was also banned.
Conclusion and Future
Since Pokémon is in the run from 25 years, its not possible to cover everything in a single article, there might be some major points missed out in this. Pokémon as now over 1100+ episodes and still ongoing which is one of the one of the best things ever. It all started from Indigo league, adventures of orange island, Johto league championship to Sun moon and Pokémon journeys(season 23), the season 24 might be released in coming months. There are many loyal fans who still wants Pokémon to never end, because Pokémon is not just an anime its an adventure. Pokémon have many video games adoption as well which have been quite a success.
Major credits to animators, creators and voice actors as well who did a fantastic job in this amazing journey. Thank you Pokémon team for entertaining us from past 25 years, its been a wonderful journey so far. We loved Pokémon then, and the love will remain forever.
To know more about Pokémon here.
You can check all the video games by Pokémon here.
For more Pokémon game details (Nintendo). Click here.
You can also watch Pokémon on Netflix.
Credits: Pokémon
