Origins
Satoshi Tajiri turns a childhood spent collecting bugs into Pocket Monsters Red & Green, six years in the making at tiny Game Freak. Within two years Japan has a trading card game, a TV anime — and the Porygon broadcast incident that made world news.
Part of Pokémon
17 moments in this segment.
- — Pokémon Red & Green — original Japanese TV commercial. The original Japanese TV spot for Pokémon Red & Green, digitized from a home VHS recording, fronted by a live-action hostess. The Game Boy games launched February 27, 1996 after roughly six years of development at Game Freak.
- — Pokémon Blue Version CM (1996). Japanese TV commercial for Pokémon Blue, released October 15, 1996. Blue was initially a mail-order exclusive offered through CoroCoro Comic before its general retail release.
- — Pokémon Card Game — Japanese launch commercial. Japanese TV commercial for the original Pokémon Card Game, which Media Factory launched in Japan on October 20, 1996. This is the trading card game that would later conquer the world as the Pokémon TCG.
- — Pocket Monsters anime — broadcast-start promo (1997). Japanese on-air promo announcing the start of the Pocket Monsters TV anime. The series debuted on TV Tokyo on April 1, 1997 with Satoshi (Ash) and a disobedient Pikachu.
- — Mezase Pokémon Master — original 1997 opening. The raw first opening of the Japanese anime, 'Mezase Pokémon Master' by Rica Matsumoto, as used from episode 1 in April 1997. Its opening cry 'Pokémon getto da ze!' became a national catchphrase.
- — Pokémon stamps commercial (1997). Japanese TV commercial for Pokémon toy stamps from around April 1997, part of the first merchandising wave that followed the anime's debut that month.
- — Pokémon Card Game Japanese commercial (1997). One of the early Japanese commercials for the Pokémon Card Game from 1997, when the card game was riding the anime's breakout popularity in Japan.
- — Mezase Pokémon Master — full song. The full-length 'Mezase Pokémon Master' by Rica Matsumoto, released as a single in June 1997. It sold over a million copies, a rare feat for an anime theme.
- — Pokémon Gold & Silver — Spaceworld 1997 demo footage. All known period footage of the Pokémon Gold & Silver demo shown at Nintendo Space World in November 1997, including Japanese TV coverage. The demo's wildly different beta Pokémon stayed lost until the ROM leaked in 2018.
- — Pokémon panic — Japanese news, night of December 16, 1997. Japanese news coverage from the evening of December 16, 1997, as reports poured in of children collapsing during the Porygon episode of Pocket Monsters. Around 700 viewers were taken to hospitals nationwide.
- — Fuji TV News Japan on the Pokémon Shock (Dec 16, 1997). Fuji TV's 'News Japan' bulletin from the night of the Porygon incident, subtitled in English. The strobing 'Pikachu's attack' scene triggered photosensitive seizures in viewers across Japan.
- — Special breaking news on the Porygon episode (1997). Japanese special breaking-news coverage on the danger posed by the Porygon episode. The incident put a children's cartoon at the top of national news for days.
- — CNN reports on the Pokémon seizure incident (Dec 17, 1997). CNN and other US outlets report on the seizure-inducing Pokémon episode on December 17, 1997 — many Americans' first-ever exposure to the word 'Pokémon', months before the franchise launched in the West.
- — BBC News on the banned Pokémon episode (Dec 17, 1997). BBC News report from December 17, 1997 on the Pokémon episode that caused seizures in almost 700 Japanese children, taken from a period VHS tape.
- — News Station — full Pokémon Shock report (Dec 17, 1997). The full-length December 17, 1997 'News Station' segment on the Pokémon Shock, with interviews and analysis of how the episode's red-blue flashing triggered photosensitive epilepsy.
- — Oha Suta addresses the Pokémon Shock (Dec 18, 1997). TV Tokyo's kids' morning show 'Oha Suta' opens with an uncharacteristically somber statement about the Porygon incident on December 18, 1997, subtitled in English.
- — Fuji TV morning show devotes 45 minutes to the Pokémon Shock. Fuji TV's morning show 'Good Morning! Nice Day' spent nearly 45 minutes of its December 18, 1997 broadcast on the Pokémon Shock, with studio experts and hospital reports — subtitled in English.
