While Digimon and Robopon were in its mist of saddle-riding
the Pokémon Ponyta, the franchise was entering its
second generation. Plans for a second generation have been around as soon
as Generation I proved to be a success. I mean, it would
have been a waste of time designing 100-odd new creatures if the kids didn't
take the original 151 critters into their hearts...
But actually, due to the rush to complete the first games back in 1996,
a second generation was kind of inedible. If you have an
original Pokémon Red, Green,
or Blue cartridge and
examined its code, you'll discover that the "Pokémon
index" inside these games had 190 entries. These 39 extra
"blank" entries (each containing a Missingno.) have
statistics entered in them. the only things missing were their actual names and
their sprites. What is interesting is that the stats are a perfect match of a
number of second gen species (except for the fact that they were all labelled bird and normal types). This suggests that
the designs of much of these "new" Pokémon were in fact
near completion when the first games were in the finishing stages. This can
also explain how it was possible for Togepi (a second gen Pokémon) to appear this early in the anime and
the fact Ho-oh (another second gen Pokémon) was seen by Ash in the very first episode!
Since then the appearance of next gen Pokémon have been delayed to much later
episodes in a generation story arc (or a movie).
Meanwhile, the news of existence of new
species of Pokémon was reaching fans outside Japan
through the internet. In 2016 we are use to the most recent news
from Japan reaching the West as fast as you can say "Gary
MotherF&*%in' Oak" ... and you can be guaranteed that someone had
translated it accurately and verified the facts (unlike some news sources). But
back in the late-1990s the internet was very different place (and I'm not
talking about just the slow connection
speeds). The was no YouTube. No Wikipedia (let). In fact it wasn't as
invasive as it is in the 2010s. In December 1999 (just a month after Gold
and Silver's release in Japan) only 248 million people in the world had
internet access (a far cry of the 3 billion we have at the time of
publication). And they weren't that many official websites as they are now.
Most information on Gen 2 available to fans at this time was (until Nintendo
announced it on their official channels) from fan-made websites - and they
aren't exactly the most accurate of sources (80-90% probably, if you want a
figure). And its form this situation that something kind of unique happened in
the fandom. With little to go on, fans outside Japan speculated about the names
and appearances of the new species, ending up inventing new names and facts in
the process. TheJWittz made a video about this unique time of internet myth
creation, which you can see here....
The Legend of
Pikablu - TheJWittz (2015)
Fakemon (as
these creations have become known) are still been made to this day.
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