Pokémon was created in 1996 and itdid not take long to become a worldwide sensation. Satoshi Tajiri wasinfluenced by other Japanese cultural components of the time including theNintendo Gameboy and Ultra Seven (a Japanese television show). After pitchingthe game to Nintendo, a Japanese video game company, Pokémon Red and Green werecreated.
The original games featured a total of 151 monsters that could becaught, trained, and traded in a virtual world. After the original game’ssuccess, Pokémon Blue was created and was an improved version of the original games.Later that year, a card game including 102 of the characters was introduced andbecame extremely popular. Asthe popularity of Pokémon continued to spread throughout Japan, the Pokémonfranchise expanded onto different platforms. In 1997 an anime was created,which was based off of the popular video games. Magazines, merchandise, books,and many televisions spin offs would soon be released due to Pokémon’s rapidlygrowing popularity. Also, new Pokémon were created and today there are 802 (withmore consistently being added to the universe).
Also, the original anime isstill running and video games are consistently created every few years. To datethere are 122 Pokémon video games that have been created. Pokémon is nowpopular on a global level and has recently moved into the smart phone gamingspace with the release of Pokémon Go.
Theconcept of monsters being collected, trained, and battled greatly influenced JapanesePop Culture tremendously. Popular trading card games and anime such as Digimonand Yu-Gi-Oh were greatly influenced from Pokémon. Also, the video game isconsidered revolutionary for gaming because it set an extremely high standardfor role playing games (RPGs). Also, Pokémon assisted Nintendo in becoming theglobal gaming powerhouse it is today.