Pokémon
Entry updated 7 September 2026. Tagged: Game.
Videogame series and multimedia franchise (1996-current). Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. Designed by Satoshi Tajiri under Game Freak. Platforms: Game Boy; Game Boy Advance; Nintendo DS; Nintendo 3DS; Nintendo Switch; others.
Pokémon is a series of Japanese Computer Role Playing Games for handheld consoles, beginning with Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green (1996 Game Boy) designed by Satoshi Tajiri. The games revolve around the titular "Pocket Monsters", wild Supernatural Creatures which can be caught, traded, and trained to battle. The Pokémon themselves typically resemble animals, but with fantastical elements or supernatural Superpowers. They include giant insects and birds, creatures with constant flames burning on their body, wandering flowers, dragons, and metal creatures that float by way of Magnetism. Most Pokémon seem naturalistic; some appear to be man-made lifeforms. One set of Pokémon is a digital construct (see AI), and others supposedly originate from outer space or different Dimensions (see Aliens). The mascot Pokémon Pikachu is a large yellow mouse that can generate electricity.
The Pokémon series is a children's entertainment franchise comprising dozens of videogames, spin-off games, an Anime series, a Manga series, and a trading card game. The main recurring narrative is that of a preteen leaving their small home town alongside a single starting Pokémon, with the goal of becoming a master Pokémon trainer. To this end, they must explore their local region and earn badges by defeating eight Gym leaders in battle. In the process, the protagonist inevitably faces off against a large villainous organization that aims to subjugate a godlike legendary Pokémon. In the original games and anime, the villainous Team Rocket is merely a crime syndicate that steals Pokémon for profit, but in contrast Team Galactic of Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl aims to reshape the universe by harnessing the powers of space and time. Stories conclude with the protagonist taking part in the regional Pokémon Championships.
Pokémon can be caught and stored in Pokéballs, small mechanical devices that appear to digitize the creatures in a flash of light. Tajiri was partly inspired by the miniaturized Kaiju in Ultraseven (1967-1968) (see Ultraman), which were released from capsules. The inspiration for Pokémon's trade mechanics came when he saw two Game Boys linked together with a cable and imagined bugs crawling back and forth along the wire. Both in-universe and in general, Pokémon are presented as a virtual pets that can be stored in a pocket and taken out for trading or battling in any situation. Pokémon can be uploaded into a computer terminal to transfer them for long-term storage. While the nominal goal of the series is to collect all Pokémon species, individual Pokémon are presented as living creatures with vibrant personalities deserving love and care, and characters in the fiction treat them accordingly.
The Pokémon universe is largely presented as a rural environment with some larger cities. The intersection between tradition and modernity (represented by Technology) is a common theme throughout the franchise. The setting generally comes across as a post-scarcity Utopia in which people can spend all their time in leisure activities. In exploring the Pokémon world, protagonists carry a Pokédex, a handheld computing device that records information about Pokémon species. The captured creatures can be quickly healed for free at Pokémon Centres and can learn new attacks through "Technical Machines", shown as compact discs. Most Pokémon "evolve" into new forms as they level up, which constitutes a metamorphosis. The animated series frequently shows characters making video calls, a technology not yet in common use in the late 1990s. Team Rocket in the animated series is mainly represented by a small comic-relief group that continually employs large flashy Mecha in an attempt to steal the protagonist's beloved Pikachu.
Main series Pokémon games are released in pairs, such as Pokémon Gold (1999) and Pokémon Silver (1999) or Pokémon Ruby (2002) and Pokémon Sapphire (2002). Each paired release introduces between 70 and 170 new Pokémon species; a few are always exclusive to a specific title, encouraging trade between games. Spin-off titles include the photography game Pokémon Snap (1999), the Pokémon Ranger series, the Pokémon Rumble series, the Detective Pikachu series, and various puzzle games. Spike Chunsoft's dungeon-crawling RPG series Pokémon Mystery Dungeon has its players take on the role of a human magically transformed into a Pokémon. Niantic's mobile game Pokémon Go (2016) uses the phone's GPS to place Pokémon and Gyms in specific real-world locations, emphasizing the appeal of virtual creatures through augmented reality. The primary artist of the series is Ken Sugimori, who co-founded Gamefreak with Tajiri and designed a vast quantity of characters and creatures. The music of the games is composed by Junichi Masuda. Other figures who contributed to the success of Pokémon included Tsunekazu Ishihara, Satoru Iwata, and Shigeru Miyamoto.
"Pokémania" in 1999 made Nintendo one of Japan's most profitable corporations. There are yearly releases of new videogames, animated films, and trading card sets. The anime series reached over 1000 episodes in 2018 and is still ongoing. A competitive scene has sprung up around both the videogames and the trading card game. Pokémon continues to have a massive community of fans producing fan art and fan games. The franchise as a whole was added to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2025. [MS]
links
- Pokémon (official website)
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