Wednesday, 31 August 2016

20 Years and we are still trying to catch'em all! - Part 1 Pikachu's Wild Adventure (1996-2002)


WARNING
The following post was written for an audience in the 15-above category.
Anyone younger or sensitive to stuff like swearing, blood and the other usual "offensive" stuff, or both who does read this....... don't say I didn't warn you.

Also the final version of this proved so big that I had to off-set some of its contents to other posts, so please click the hyperlinks as you read this
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"when Red and Green were released, it was such a quiet, understated start that it was impossible to imagine the way they would go on to explode in popularity." - the late Satoru Iwata, President and CEO of Nintendo
Its 1995, Game Freak and Creatures, Inc were adding the finishing touches and testing the games that would be christened Pokémon Red and Green. Satoshi's vision was about to (finally) become a reality. He was so proud of it that he leaked out details of the upcoming games in this book he wrote about the state of the video game industry - Satoshi Tajiri: New Game Design. According to this flyer, the games were planned to be released on 21st December 1995. We can assume that many kids with Game Boys wanting a new game(s) for there device begged their parents for them as soon as they saw this flyer.... and then.... 
Nothing. 

For some reason that has never been stated and can only be speculated (a last-minute addition to the code?) the release of the first Pokémon games were delayed for two months, only finally shipping to stores on 26th February 1996 to be sold the next day. 27th February 1996 is seen universally as the birthday of Pokémon. This is true in the sense that this was the day people outside of Game Freak, Creatures, Inc and Nintendo (plus shop assistants unboxing the shipments) finally got hold of those first cartridges. But the earlier advertised release data has caused an annoying discretionary - on every piece of official Pokémon merchandise the copyright notice says "(c) 1995, 1996.... Nintendo, CREATURES, GAME FREAK....". I know this sounds trivial, but this sort of thing can cause havoc with historians. Historians are like that.

Back to 1996. Stores expected huge sales of these games and ordered lots of them. Been an highly anticipated Nintendo products (remember those kids who wanted the games for Christmas?), record-breaking sales seemed possible.
However, they were doubts the games would succeed due to one crucial component - the console. The Game Boy had been around since 1989 and by 1996 its monochrome screen graphics and bulky design looked dated. "Why would kids still want to play with such old equipment?" these people asked. Kids want to play games in colour and in 3D, like on the latest consoles of the day, like the Sega Saturn and Nomad, the Sony PlayStation or Nintendo's Virtual Boy (its early folly into VR).
"No magazine or TV show was interested. They thought Game Boy was finished," - Masakazu Kubo, executive producer of Shogakukan Inc. 
They were right in saying the kids wanted to play more advanced games on devices with better graphics, but they forgot to factor one thing... the price. The new games and devices in question were a bit pricey for most kids to buy, so a lot of kids in 1996 bought (now cheaper, thanks to age) Game Boys instead, and in doing so looked at the new crop of games that were made for it. Some of them (with no knowledge of that flyer) noticed the red and green boxes with the dragon and plant monster on them on the store shelves and bought them through curiosity. Kids who saw the flyer also bought the game. Then they inserted those factory-fresh cartridges into their Game Boys.... and the rest is history.

Within three months, more than 3 million copies of both games were sold. By 1997 over 10 million were sold. As of the time of writing Pokémon Red and Green (and the (initially mail-order only) version Blue) are the second best-selling Game Boy games in history (Tetris holds the number one spot).

So what made Pokémon Red and Green 
(and its descendants) so successful? 
My answer can be found by clicking here
Pikachu vs Clefairy

The Flaw That Started a Million Fights
While Clefairy and Pikachu were battling out for the kids hearts and minds in the real world, kids were battling, collecting and trading them (and the other 148 Pokémon) on their Game Boys, just like Satoshi hoped for. With millions of copies sold many kids in playgrounds and classrooms across Japan in 1996 were discussing the games. You may have encountered such scenes and people yourself at school. They were the ones had memorised the whole Pokédex and every strategy guide he (mostly) could get their hands on. The ones who wasted entire nights to find that elusive Pokémon or beat that gym leader. The ones that only liked that one Pokémon. The boasters. The know-it-alls. The cheaters. The casual players. And the (older) outside observers who just didn't care. The games had become a nationwide phenomenon. So much so parents had to take notice.... an they really did when it came to a fundamental flaw in the games.
Even though Game Freak had 5-6 years to make the games, when they were released they were bugs in them. Although these flaws (and others that only became flaws in hindsight) were annoying (or interesting, if you were that kind of person), they were minor inconveniences compared to the main flaw. A flaw that only existed because of the reason Pokémon was released as two games - to "catch'em all" you have to have (either) owned both games or have a generous friend (or a few) who had the other game. This was fine as a gaming concept. It was made to encourage social interaction with other players and prevent isolated players doing it on their own. But in practise, your friend(s) had to restart their game after each trade (losing play data in the process), which can be annoying. And it was this (and this is just speculation here) that caused the most friction among players in the early years of Pokémon.
Parents and teachers then (with their almost lack of video game literacy) were not aware of this reason when confronted with this friction (and its FEW violent outcomes). All they knew that a game was causing these "fights" and that the most popular game that this time was Pokémon. If you follow the logic of the time (and believed the anti-game propaganda of the day), you'll come to the conclusion that Pokémon was causing violence, encouraging gambling and making kids fight their pets.......... (I made that last one up, but you believed it.....). What happened in Japanese schools in 1996-7 will repeat in America in 1998, Europe in 1999, and the rest of the world where the games (and trading cards (another cause of "violence")) were released. Many schools worldwide did take action - banning the cards mostly. But they couldn't stop it. Pokémon was gaining momentum and soon a rumour began to spread that'll turn a simple craze into something bigger...

The Pink Easter Egg
As mentioned earlier the games managed to ship over three million units in its first three months. Then it sky-rocketed to ten million by the end of their first year. What caused this jump in sales? What made more kids buy the games? The retrospective answer is... a rumour. Within months of their release a rumour began to spread that were was actually 151 species in the games. And they were right....
click here

No. It wasn't Missingno. That was an accidental glitch. I'm talking about Mew. A Pokémon you can only get through a special download at an event or by trade with someone who had been to that event. According to the official story Mew was a last minute addition placed in the games by programmer Shigeki Morimoto .... at the risk of causing bugs after they had gone through final debugging.
"We put Mew in right at the very end. The cartridge was really full and there wasn’t room for much more on there. Then the debug features which weren't going to be included in the final version of the game were removed, creating a miniscule 300 bytes of free space. So we thought that we could slot Mew in there. What we did would be unthinkable nowadays!" - Shigeki Morimoto
This quote comes from a very informative interview with the late Satoru Iwata made in 2009 on the Iwata Asks series on Nintendo's official website. I suggest you read it to hear the story of Mew's introduction in their words.
The inclusion of the Mew "prank" was something everyone in Game Freak was in on, even Tajiri. It's fitting that the term "prank" was in quotes there, because there is evidence that prove that the idea of Mew was there from the very start of development. Mew's name was the first Pokémon name ever to be trademarked (it was submitted on 9th May 1990 and was granted 31st March 1994), long before the games were completed. It even pre-dates the trademarking of the term "Pocket Monsters" (submitted 11th September 1995 granted 26th December 1997).

 Despite this, for a while the presence of Mew in the games was a secret. 
"Unless we could think about any good opportunity to do so, the existence of Mew wouldn’t have been revealed to the public. It was left in there in case it was suitable for some post-launch activity. But if there wasn’t anyone among ourselves who wanted to use it, I thought it would be fine to just leave it as it was." - Shigeki Morimoto
Mew (using an notable example from this century) was like the "Hot Coffee" mini game that was in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, but more innocent. However, unlike the Hot Coffee mini game, Mew wasn't discovered by a hacker examining the code, it was....
"....due to an unforeseen bug, Mew ended up appearing in some players' games. It looked like we planned all of this, but that wasn't the case. So although it caused all sorts of problems to many concerned, fortunately enough it ended up having a positive effect." - Shigeki Morimoto
The time from launch to admitting the existence of Mew was very short. The first official announcement that confirmed the rumours was in April 1996 (just over a month after launch). In the May 1996 edition of CoroCoro Comics Nintendo announced a special “Legendary Pokémon Offer” where 20 lucky gamers could receive Mew by sending them their cartridges. Over 78,000 applied! The offer proved so popular that another "Offer" was arranged in July. About 80,000 applied - 100 Mews were given away. Whether Mew was an accident or not, Game Freak was onto a winner. It has been argued that without Mew Pokémon may have not have become the franchise it is now. If Mew hadn't have had such a response from players, would have Game Freak ever thought of turning their collection of creatures into stars in their own right, as toys and characters on TV and trading cards?
"Iwata: There was a really incredible response to CoroCoro Comic’s announcement of the Mew offer. I feel that’s really when things turned round for Pokémon.
Ishihara: I believe so too. The monthly sales we’d had up to then began to be equalled by weekly sales, before increasing to become three then four times larger.
Iwata: I remember feeling that I’d never really witnessed a game selling like that before.
Ishihara: By the time it ranked number one in weekly sales, more than a year and a half had gone by since the game was first released." (from this edition of Iwata Ask)
Since then these events have become a regular fixture in the gaming calendar. Mew was the first of what would later become known as "Event Pokémon." Creatures (and items) that are only obtainable (without trade) by a download that can be obtained at special events. Until Nintendo enabled such downloads by Wi-Fi in Gen 4, such downloads were done using special distribution devices placed at certain events, like Nintendo Space World or Toys "R" Us during a movie promotion. As far as I know, Mew was the first item players got in their games through such an arrangement (if I'm wrong, go ahead and correct me in comments). It's a model other games have followed since (especially  online).

Pikachu on the box
With the games becoming a huge success (as evident with the huge turn out for Mew), the obvious thing to do next is to branch out to other media, from comic strips to (what most people would remember most) television. However, the creators were initially reluctant to do so, due to past history of TV shows adapted from games. Back then (and still true today) most TV adaptations of popular crazes in Japan tended to last at most a year. Why such reluctance? Well, with hindsight, we now know that is because the second generation of games were in development at the time. If the show had the typical year long-run it will have ended long before the new games were released. If that had happened, well who would want a game based on a TV show that ended a while ago?
"We originally started work on Gold and Silver right after releasing Red and Green, and then just when we were racing forward with the development, Tajiri-san came to us and said: "We've finished one!" I thought that this was really quick and asked him what it was, to which he replied: "We've finished 'Blue'!"" - Tsunekazu Ishihara, producer of Gold and Silver and (later) President and CEO of The Pokémon Company
More on Gold and Silver later. Despite reservations, the idea went ahead. The job of adapting this RPG into a TV series went to a relatively new animation company. OLM (Oriental Light and Magic (no relation to ILM)) was founded in June 1994 and by the time they were given the lucrative Pokémon gig they had already raked up a lot of episodes in the form the shows Wedding Peach (51 episodes) and Mojacko (74 episodes) (plus three OVAs of Gunsmith Cats). Although Game Freak originally had reservations about the TV series, went it got the go-ahead Game Freak got ambitious about it.
"I remember that originally, when Pokémon started, I was truly surprised to hear that it was planned for a one and a half year run. Series that end up running for a year and a half may not be uncommon, but to have such a plan from the very beginning - that was what amazed me..." - Masaaki Iwane, animation director of the series (from the discussion board on his website, 19th September 2006)
Game Freak went all out and planned for an initial 18-month run. Pokémon was so popular then that its creators thought that it'll sustain an ambitious 18-month long weekly series. Its a big gamble. I mean, how many TV shows begin with an ambitiously long first series? And the broadcaster must have been equally confident in their commission as well. Please remember that this is the mid-1990s, when TV executives were not as willing to gamble as their 60s counterparts. But, as the ink and paint dried on the cels, little did the makers know that what they were making would become one of the most successful and influential anime productions in history ... especially outside of Japan. 

The first episode aired on TV Tokyo at 7pm on Tuesday 1st April 1997 ....

For what happened in the first ever episodes of the Pokemon anime click here

The show proved to be very popular. So much so that when the story reached its original epilogue with Ash in the Pokémon League the series was extended for him to have more adventures ... in the Orange Islands... the Johto (you get the idea). By the time of writing the  Pokémon anime has become the longest-running TV show based on a video game and one of the longest-running animated shows on TV (with a shockingly huge episode count, due to an new episode been shown every week since 1997). How many episodes have there been? I could just give you the figure, but with an new episode every week it'll easily become out-of-date very quickly. So, instead of that, I'm going to tell you how many in an entertaining way (and piss off a critic I mentioned earlier at the same time)....

You-tuber Gar1onriva began his felony-by-felony critique of every episode in November 2013. It has taken him until May 2015 to do episode 25. At this rate, for him to do his "PokéSins" videos for every episode that has been made (excluding the specials and spin-offs and factoring that they have passed the 900th episode mark in December 2015) it'll take him over 54 years. However, if your not the critic-type and just want to watch them (with little time for sleep), it'll take you just over two weeks. 
Looking back at those very early episodes they were a bit of a mess compared to recent examples (in story, visuals and continuity). Even the English dubbing job then was a bit of a shambles (well, much of the anime dubbing industry at the time were in a similar state, so we can't say it was a problem with the Pokémon series alone). If you want proof look up those early episodes or check out Gar1onriva's "PokéSins" videos for more detailed analysis. But I should say that when watching them you must remember that this was 1997. No one then knew that the series will still be on for another 20 years and the fact that their will be multiple regions in the world with hundreds of other species that haven't been thought up by the creators let. But, despite these flaws, the first season of the show is fondly remembered by fans (through rose-tinted lenses, in many cases). If you ask a fan of my age what their favourite episode was, the chances of it been an episode form this season are very high. However, this could be because they haven't seen the later episodes, which is a massive shame, as a lot of great stuff has happened since Ash competed in the Indigo League.

Despite their flaws, the first couple of episodes have a lot of entertaining highlights, including....
The fact this show had a beach episode then is shocking enough without that scene. But hey, the show-makers were trying to find their feet, so we can forgive them for such early craziness. They didn't know the series will be on for another 20 years. And asides, it could have been worse.... 
There is The Electric Tale of Pikachu manga by Toshihiro Ono. A manga based on the show that is one of a few works of art from history where censorship actually improved it. I should warn you that if you are a person who think Carry On films shouldn't been shown on TV during the afternoon do not look for the original Japanese versions. If you want to read them read the English translated (censored) version by VIZ Media. But you may have trouble finding a copy of volume 4 of this 4-volume series (as many Rocketshippers have nabbed them up because of a single illustration in it). Apart from all that, it is very silly.
But what isn't silly is Pocket Monsters: The Animation, a 2-volume anime novelisation by Takeshi Shudō, which paints a much bleaker picture of the Pokémon world. For example, in this adaption you are given a more honest realistic picture of Pokemon training....
"In Pocket Monsters: The Animation, it was revealed that Pokémon training was a very dangerous sport, as the mere act of training a Pokémon can result in severe injuries or even death. It also mentions that various men try to go out and become a Pokémon trainer at age 10 (which was considered the legal age of adulthood), and there was a high dropout rate regarding whether they become skilled trainers that afterwards they come across as incompetent. It is also implied that this is the reason why most of the professional workplaces are almost entirely staffed by women." - Bulbapedia
With revelations like this, its no wonder that this adaptation has fuelled multiple fan theories, especially the Pokémon War Theory, a theory that suggests that years before the events in the games and Anime, a war broke out between Kanto and Johto (or one of the other regions).

But despite the crazy directions the show took in this first phase, things were going great with....
But then, on 16th December 1997, this happened....

The Battle Seizure Incident of 1997

Meanwhile, (hoping that this storm will past) Nintendo made a momentous decision -  "I wonder what the Americans would make of all these 150 creatures?"

Pikachu goes West

For what happened when Pokemon entered America click here

.... The Man Who Doesn't Get It by Richard Corliss

Great title. 

Opening Anime Doors
And now another old man who'd also didn't get it - the late Roger Ebert said this about the first movie.

Roger Ebert and Joyce Kulhawik's review of Pokémon: The First Movie (1999)

This review hits on something I think is important....

Read more by clicking here

Sorry, we got a bit off topic here. Back to the first movie. Despite what the critics said (who mostly didn't get it), Pokémon the First Movie was a huge success in the US, making over $10million on its first day alone. It briefly held the record for the highest-grossing opening weekend for a animated movie (which was quickly taken by Toy Story 2 two weeks later). It was also (by default) the highest-grossing anime film in the US at the time and the highest-grossing film based on a video game in history (until Angelina Jolie stole it off them when she played Lara Croft in that Tomb Raider movie).

So what happens in the movie (and after Porygon)?

I have realised that I have skipped a lot of stuff about what happened in the TV series (and never said what happened in the first movie). Sorry about that. But before we do that, I must address the theme of Kanto. Yes there is a theme. In fact every generation has a near-invisible underlining theme that drives what happens in the game and (in a lesser extent) the anime. 

The theme of Kanto is experimentation and evolution, which makes a lot more sense when we reach the movie. As this is Gen 1 (and no one had any experience with Pokémon let) nearly everyone playing it was experimenting with the game, such as working out which team of Pokémon would be the best to beat the Elite Four or searching for that Mew that is rumoured to be hidden under that truck. And speaking of Mew, one noted feature in the games (and to a way lesser extent) was the fossils, which can be revived (using advanced technology). Although more fossils were added in later generations (except Gen 2, for reasons that'll make sense if you read on) the idea of reviving the extinct Pokémon from fossils (Jurassic Park style) remains primarily linked to Gen 1, mostly thanks to the final boss character... Mewtwo. A highly-modified clone of Mew (made from a fossilised strand of DNA) Mewtwo was a science experiment that went way out of hand (he blew up the lab that created him).
"September 1
The Pokémon Mewtwo is far too powerful.
It's no use…
I cannot control it!" - Straight translation of Japanese version of final diary entry found in Pokémon Mansion, Cinnabar Island (in the games)
One question one asks when encountering such a dairy entry is "Why?" Why did a bunch of geneticists decide to modify the genes of kind bundle of pink joy that is Mew and turn it into a seemingly cold, unloving but powerful being of destruction? The games never gave a true answer. The only things you knew was that afterword Mewtwo went rouge in the wild, later to be found in Cerulean Cave. (You can only enter it after beating the Elite Four, the Champion (who is actually your rival (Green/Blue)) and entered the Hall of Fame.) In there you job is to capture it with your Master Ball, thus completing the game.
It only in the anime, late-on in the Kanto arc, that we all found out who commissioned Mewtwo... But before that here's what happened next in the anime. After Ash nearly gave away Pikachu in the touching episode 'Pikachu's Goodbye', a number of things happened before Ash finally competed in his first league tournament. These include...
Oh, and that incident on New Island - the site of Ash's encounter of that Pokémon that beat Gary in the Viridian City Gym - Mewtwo. 



With its plot featuring a very powerful Pokémon and a fate of the world in the balance premise involving it (with some deep exploration of humanity's relationship with nature and the environment), Mewtwo Strikes Back set the template for all future feature films. 

 Meanwhile....

The Orange Islands Mysteries
... Ash entered his first League Tournament, .....

For more click here

Now, where were we...

Pikachu is Everywhere...
"The heart of this unsettling alternative universe is the Pokémon Centre in downtown Tokyo's Ginza district. It is a vision either of heaven or of hell, depending largely on whether you happen to be aged between five and 12 or not. Pokémon biscuit cutters, toilet-roll holders, toilet-seat covers, sushi-making sets and fruit peelers jostle for shelf space with trading cards, computer software, cuddly toys, themed crockery and stationery; the anxious Japanese businessmen clutching wish lists from their children don't seem to know where to begin." - Oliver Burkeman "Pokemon Power"                 (The Guardian, April 2000)
If you wanted a definitive sign how big Pokémon merchandise was by the time Kurt got the precious GS Ball, this is it....

In July 2000 a Pokémon Boutique opened in FAO Schwarz's (former) prestigious Fifth Avenue New York Store. You know, the place with that giant keyboard in Big. That's a very big deal in the toy industry. 
But there was an earlier sign of how big Pokémon was becoming. On 28th April 1998 the first "Pokémon Center" (a store dedicated to official Pokémon merchandise) opened in Tokyo. In November one opened in Osaka. A year later one opened in New York.

 Okay, you want a sign how quickly Pikachu became ingrained in the cult of video games? In 1999 Pikachu became one of the characters you can fight in the first version of Super Smash Bros. Super Smash Bros series soon became a staple in Nintendo's catalogue, with Pikachu been a combatant in every game (as of 2016). The fact that Pikachu was included in the very first game back in 1999 (remembering that Pokémon was only first released three years earlier) really says how popular Pikachu had become within such a relatively short time. 
2000 will prove to be the peak in Pokémon's domination of Earth. It was the time where it was possible to Pikachu to, metaphorically, have this success go into his head and go crazy, like it was the care-free 1970s.....

New Years Eve 2000
(actually, a sketch from Robot Chicken (2006))

It may sound bad me saying this, but it could have been worse... 

(My legal team has reminded me to tell  you that the video clip you just saw was a sketch from the comedy show Robot Chicken and not, as applied, actual footage of Pikachu have a "good time" in a Studio 54-style disco. Pikachu is a sober character whose only glass-bottled vice is tomato ketchup.)

One sign of huge success of Pokémon is the use of their clip art on unofficial sports team-related merchandise. In 2000 or 2001 (or maybe 2002) while my dad was probably buying bootleg computer software and DVDs at the Barras weekend market in Glasgow (because he was a cheapskate (then) and DVDs then costs as much as blu-rays today?) I saw on a stall a mirror with a piece of Pikachu clip art printed on it which had (printed on top of it to make it look like he was wearing it) a football strip for Celtic F.C. (I'll be not surprised that a Rangers version existed then too). Such a product could only have been made if the makers (who would have been a friend of the stall holder) have heard of Pikachu, knew how popular he is, and thought "The kid fans would like this."
Resconstruction of mirror I saw in the Barras (c2000)
I made the T-shirt blank so you can imagine your local or flavorite team's strip on Pikachu
(no matter which sport it is). 
I'm not going to contribute to the Old Firm tribal conflict by placing a Celtic top on him 
(just like the product I saw back then) or a Rangers top. 
I am not a fan of any sport at all, including football (and all its incarnations), so I don't care about whether to use the term "soccer" here for the sake of our American readers. 
I just don't care at all about sports in general. 
I did see some of the Commonwealth Games in 2014 (if one is wondering), but the only times 
I watched it deliberately was to see the Opening and Closing ceremonies.
Well done to everyone who competed (especially the ones who won something at the games), but I would like to give out a massive pat on the back for all the thousands of volunteers who helped out 
(I'm saying that because some of those very volunteers are working in the 
NAS offices I volunteer in right now, so this is a genuine thank you.).

Oh Arceus, where were we? Oh yes, Pokémon (and don't call me a hypocrite, because I like what is basically a fictional animal combat sport. I never watched it for the battles. 
I watch it for the characters.). Arceus. I got distracted again....

The Donphan in the Room
While talking about the success of Pokémon (and possible flame wars in comments), I think it's time to address the Donphan in the room...
click here more more

Now. Where were we?

The Shiny Games
(Before you start, I know about "shiny" Pokémon and the fact the term didn't become used officially until Generation VI. I'm using the word here because I can't think of any better word that references the materials gold, silver and crystal at the same time. If you can think of a better word, I like to hear it.)

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...

For more click here

The games that would later become Pokémon Gold and Silver were in development as soon as Red and Green were out with a possible release date of around the end of 1997. However, many things delayed them. A number of them were talked about in this interview. The main problem was that the whole of Game Freak at this time only had four programmers! And this fact is made more shocking when you discover that it took nine people to develop Pac-Man. And Pac-Man is a simple 8-bit maze game with simple graphics. Gold and Silver were vast RPGs with many characters and graphics that were pipe dream back in 1980. And Gold and Silver weren't the only games Game Freak were developing at this time. Pokémon Stadium and the English version of Red and Blue were in the works too, dividing their attention. And that was made worse by the exhausting weekly meetings about the ever increasing amount of merchandise been made. Its not surprise that soon after Gold and Silver were released The Pokémon Center Company (founded 23rd April 1998 to manage the the Pokémon Center stores in Japan) was altered to become The Pokémon Company in 2000 to handle all the licencing stuff and let Game Freak focus on making the games. 

So, Gold and Silver were pushed back to 1998 (hopefully to co-inside with the end of the Kanto arc of the anime). But that also proved optimistic. It was then that Nintendo decided to call in back-up - in the form of staff from game developer HAL Laboratory, which included one Satoru Iwata. With his help the battle system in Red and Green was imported into Stadium (in just one week), a formal plan for localising the games were finally sorted out and (most crucially) he developed the data compression tools used to give Gold and Silver its most noted feature - two regions for the price of one.  Iwata (who later became president of Nintendo) is a significant figure in the story of Pokémon in this period. Tsunekazu Ishihara even credits him for been instrumental in bring it to the West.

But even after Iwata's help, when the games were ready fate intervened. An Earthquake in Taiwan damaged the factory making Nintendo's cartridges, forcing Nintendo to scale down the first shipment by half from an optimistic three million units.  (However, they were rumours that Nintendo was lying and used the quake as an excuse to limit shipments, a classic publicity stunt in the world of video games.) The games were finally released in Japan on 21st November 1999 (a day before Time magazine's special feature was published). 

Was the wait worth it? Hell yeah!

 By 1999 Nintendo had finally got around to upgrading the Game Boy in a serious way, with the lighter, more memory-packed Game Boy Color. To take advantage of its new colour graphics capabilities Gold and Silver introduced a new concept - the "shiny" Pokémon. These are rare examples of various species of Pokemon that are different in their colouration, who "sparkle" when they are released into battle - and pretty much nothing else. But that hasn't stopped many players from making a huge song and dance about them - and breeding (a another concept new to Gen 2) hundreds of starters just to get one shiny example of one. Look, I know a lot of you find interest in rare versions of things, like Pokemon with unusual colours, but the breeding of hundreds just to get one shiny? What do you guys do with the hundreds of non-shinnies you breed? Do you just abandon them at the Day Care Center? Release them into the wild, potentially ruining local ecosystems by a population explosion of an invasive species? Be thankful that your only doing this in a game. You'll get in a lot of trouble doing this in the real world. But still, I find this totally crazy. And I'm not the only one who finds this ridiculous.

Gold and Silver (and later, Crystal) were the games that proved that Pokémon was no one-hit wonder. Not only it established the regular tradition of introducing 100-odd "new" species to the universal Pokedex (with the addition of the dark and steel type and genders), it also introduced day and night (which tied with the breeding mechanic) and (in Crystal) the option of which gender you want your avatar to be. It's because of all that these games scored high among gamers and critics. It even holds the Number 1 spot in this Top 10 of Pokémon games from WatchMojo.com. Its no wonder Gold and Silver became the best-selling Game Boy Color games ever, selling 14.5 million units.

So what about the place the games are set in - Johto? The main theme of the Gen 2 is history and tradition, so Johto is a place full of historical sites, from the former Brass Tower to the Bell Tower. (They are other sites, but a number of them only came into existence there in Gen 4.) They were attempts to give the Pokémon world some history back in Gen 1 (with the fossils been the most obvious example) but in Johto the creators have tried to flesh it out. In this respect Kanto was a bit of a rushed job while when it came to  Johto the creators gave some time to it, resulting in a region that complements Kanto while giving the world more for the player to explore. This is apparent when it comes to Gold and Silver's most notable feature - after finishing Johto's gym circuit you can visit Kanto again to complete their gym circuit and after that you can try to beat the "Champion of Pallet Town" - Red (the protagonist from Gen 1) on Mt Silver. Time had pass since the events of Red and Green. Four years to be more precise. And a lot of things have happened (for one thing Cinnabar Island's volcano erupted, destroying everything on it). So even if you ignored the historical sites you are made aware of history just by playing the game through. 

What is also worth noting is because of their very close proximity, Kanto and Johto are very intertwined. Just look at the map from Part 0...


Want more proof? The two places are linked by a maglev between Goldenrod City and Saffron City.
And in the anime, some one-off characters from Kanto and the Orange Islands make reappearances in Johto. In fact, we already began covering the events of the Johto arc some time earlier, just after I finished covering the Orange Islands. That is how intermingled they are. We left off with the trio dropping off the GS Ball (remember that?) in Azalea Town. 

After that they did a lot of things, including...
I know these long bullet-point highlights take up a lot of space, but I'm doing them for the sake of those who didn't see these moments, especially (in the case of the Johto arc) for the Danish fans, who were for some reason denied seeing these episodes.

Oh, I should mention the three films that were made during the Johto arc. There was....
  1. The one with the Unown Entei, generated by a lonely little girl.
  2. The one with Celebi (the reason why the GS Ball was "forgotten about").
  3. The one with the incident in Alto Mare with Latios and Latias (which I referenced at the end of the introduction).
By the time Ash was facing Gary in the ultimate battle to end all battles in the quarter-finals of the Silver Conference, Pokémon had proved itself to be no one-hit-wonder. It was a franchise that caught the kids imagination in a way that it could last a very long time, like Transformers and Star Wars. But would it last...?

The Fall of Pokémon?
"I didn't intend to make any more Pokémon titles. I even thought that once we entered the 21st century, it would be time for me to do something else entirely." - Tsunekazu Ishihara, producer of Gold and Silver and (later) President and CEO of The Pokémon Company

Yes, in an alternate reality, Pokémon could have ended at Generation II. What changed his mind? 
In fact, what made him think that in the first place? As stated earlier, Pokémon was one of biggest successes of the turn of the millennium. So why would anyone think Pokémon wouldn't last? Maybe this quote from the Time magazine special could give us a clue...
"A lot of people misunderstand Pokémon as a babyish game. The stuffed animals and food packaging attract younger kids and tend to keep away older ones who expect the game will be too childish. They never get to understand the depth and strategy involved.... It relies too much on Pikachu, and I believe the true enjoyment of Pokémon comes from the strategy involved rather than the cute looks of the characters. I think Nintendo is running out of ideas. It concentrates too much on gaining popularity among younger children, when kids are more interested in difficult games with flashy graphics." -  Shota Yonekura (from "Inside Stuff" in Time magazine, 22nd November 1999)
Although cuteness sells it can also alienate, especially the older kids. You know, teenagers - the only demographic who desires to get older (after 21 they start to want to get younger (and continue to do so for life)). As soon as the kids who bought the first games turned 13 or so (which began to happen at the turn of the millennium) they started to develop a dislike of everything that is perceived "cute" - and that included poor Pikachu. That is the biggest flaw in going kawaii - it only really works for certain amount of time (before your audience gets "too old for that sort of stuff"). It happens to many childhood crazes. For example, how many of you have seen a Teletubby recently? 

Exactly.
"During the 1999-2000 school year, I was the computer education teacher at Pinelands Elementary School, a small school in central Massachusetts.In April of that year, as we began the last unit, I gave my students the opportunity to do a project on anything in which they were interested.
BILL: Can I do BMX?
Mr. TOBIN: Yes, I said it can be on anything.
BILL: All right! (Pleasurable noises from the boys in the class) 
JOHN: How about WWF?
Mr. TOBIN: Yes, anything.
BOYS: (Pleasurable noises from the class)
JIMMY: How about Pokémon?
BOYS AND GIRLS: (Groans and derision from the class)"
 - Samuel Tobin, from 'Masculinity, Maturity, and the End of Pokémon,' from Pikachu's Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokémon (2004)
Although Pokémon was still the biggest thing in 2000 and still had large clout in 2001 (mostly due to its late introduction in Europe and the rest of the world), by 2002 the biggest craze in the world was really starting to lose steam. It had been five years since Pokémon  began and the backlash by the kids that reached that stage in life was beginning. But Pikachu's cuteness was not the only thing they rebelled against. Pokémon had become "too mainstream" and too big in the world to be considered cool anymore. It happens to every cool thing. It can only remain exclusive for so long. As a result kids were moving away from the yellow leper to join newer less "mainstream" cults, like Yu-Gi-Oh!  and Beyblade (have a guess which one I had more interest in, judging by my output on this blog?). 
So, to sum up, if you want a cultural meme to last a very long time avoid cuteness and over-saturation. That's according to the findings of the authors of Pikachu's Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokémon (another interesting artefact of its time for any Pokelogist).

Meanwhile (and for some time) the adults also back-lashed against Pokémon for many reasons. Mostly that it encouraged violence, desensitised kids to animal cruelty, disrupted education and encourages materialism (like consumerism was invented by the Japanese in the late-1990s). An example of this argument can be seen in this review of the second movie (a movie about an evil collector trying to capture four rare creatures to complete his collection, so the argument has more of a "boo-ya!" effect, suggesting hypocrisy in the maker's part).

But the card game in particular was a huge cause of concern. Although kids did have fights about Pokémon they caught on their GameBoys, the trading cards caused more physical conflict because the cards were real and tangible and trade-able for cash, like oil in the Middle East. 
"Packs of 11 cards should cost £2.45, but single cards can change hands for as much as £30, while on internet auction sites, bids of £300 are not unheard of for rare cards." - (BBC News 14th April, 2000)
In the UK alone in 2000 (when the craze was at its height).....

But it could have been worse, one kid in California sued his school for losing his cards after they were confiscated - and was rewarded $1,5000 in damages - which he said he would use "to get more Pokémon cards."
But the suing went the other way too, in 1999 the makers of the cards were sued by two 9-year-olds boys in New York on the grounds that they turned them into problematic gamblers.

Its no surprise that a number of school tried to ban them.

But as Pikachu and pals walked across America they met a new form of critic - the right-wing religious moralist. Christians criticised it for its perceived violence and occult themes and for teaching kids "evolution."  Its a stand that some still have today.

Some even tried to combat Pokémon at its own game....
"Some people aren't happy with Pokémon and want an alternative, others just want Christian games." - David Tate (BBC News June 2000)
In 1999 British theology student David Tate created an educational alternative to Pokémon trading cards - "Christian Power Cards." It may have had some success among devout Christian communities, but in the end it is an obscure fringe game compared to Pokémon.

But not all Christians saw Pokémon like that. In fact it gained a very significant ally - the Pope. In April 2000 Sat2000 (a satellite TV channel based in Vatican City) announced the Pope's endorsement of Pokémon, saying that “full of inventive imagination,” and didn't contain “any harmful moral side effects” and was based on “ties of intense friendship,” Catholic Church actually "got it." But they were some words saying that it was just a bit of publicity to make the church more trendy with the kids.
Then came the biggest slap in the face from the religious right. In March 2001 Saudi Arabia banned the cards and games on the grounds that....
  1. "It resembles a game of gambling because of the competition which at times involves sums of money being exchanged between collectors of the cards" - Sheikh Abdul Aziz
  2. The cards and games contain secret imagery the resemble crosses from Christianity, triangles representing freemasonry and (the horror of all horrors to Arabs) the Star of David. 
With that last point, it won't be surprising that a number of Arabs think that Pokémon is actually a Zionist propaganda-plot by Israel. But we all know that (through a simple Google search) Pokémon is a Japanese invention... that is unless internet access in Saudi Arabia is like China's. I'm not going to judge here. Click the links to Wikipedia and judge for yourself. 

But (despite their best efforts) Pokémon  proved to be very stubborn. The only thing Nintendo did to alter the card game after criticism (despite condemnation by Saudi Arabia) is that (in 1999) they stopped the printing of one deck - Koga's Ninja Trick - because the Anti-Defamation League  complained it contained swastikas (a traditional Buddhist symbol still used a lot in Japan for religious purposes to represent harmony, but hijacked by the Nazis for the same reason, hence the complaint). Been a very diverse fictional universe it was possible for it to adapt and "evolve" to survive any attack - even to the point of affording to lose a few limbs in the process -  like life itself. 

In fact, it can be argued that the backlash actually helped Pikachu survive to Gen III and onwards. Don't believe me? Look at this 2015 video by the PBS Idea Channel explaining the popularity of another cute yellow critter ... the minions from Despicable Me. 

What If We're All Minions??
  - Idea Channel (PBS Digital Studios, July 2015)

A similar video could have been made back in 2001 on the subject of Pikachu (despite the non-existence of YouTube). By then a lot of people were getting fed up of seeing the yellow mouse everywhere, from pencils to inside claw machines in amusement arcades (I may have spend about £100 on one just to get a Pikachu cuddly toy during a group trip to M&Ds. A number of us did that day. This was long before I learnt how rigged those machines are.). It was like today with the Minion. Older kids were Pikachu-bashing and branding the kids who still liked him "babies." And that was in the real world. Imagine the primitive cyber-bullying that was happening online at the time. 
But in the end, we fans had the last laugh.... 

A New Beginning?
Even when people were thinking that Pokémon locomotive was beginning to loss steam they were signs that there was still some life in the Ponyta let.... 
"For all its inherent virtues as a multidimensional, polysemic product and all of its marketing muscle, Pokémon's decline was rapid. By the summer of 2001, Pokémon's shelf space in Japanese and US toy stores was but a fraction of what it enjoyed in the fall of 1999. The third Pokémon movie opened and closed with none if the press coverage and much less box office than the original.Perhaps the most telling sign of Pokémon's declining fortunes is that, as reported in the essay in this volume by Samuel Tobin [from earlier], by the spring of 2001, on playgrounds and classrooms across Japan and the United States, Pokémon had lost its cool. 
And let, throughout 2001 and on into 2002, press releases on the Nintendo corporate Web site continued to proclaim that Pokémon was thriving." - Joseph Tobin, from Conclusion of Pikachu's Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokémon (2004)
Pokémon, with its stealthy environmental message of love, has become a fixture in the collective human imagination in the 21st century. Its become such a part of our "furniture" that it is impossible to imagine a 21st century without Pikachu in it. Its like trying to imagine Modern America without cars or the Middle East without religion. By been a massive multi-platform franchise Pokémon has multiple means to survive anything that threatened its existence and success, from gender stereotyping to creationists. Even when its popularity began to wane (and the profits began to fall) their was still a demand for Pokémon stuff (and those profits were still high enough for its makers to have a comfortable life.... and consider the idea of making a third generation of games). To use an infamous term from recent history, Pokémon (by 2000) had become "too big to fail." No "moral panic" speech or seizure epidemic can stop Pokémon. Nothing can stop kids discovering it and falling in love with the electric yellow mouse... even when 20 years have passed since gamers first encountered it in Viridian Forest.

Remember Jimmy from Mr S. Tobin's class in 2000? Remember the groans and derision the rest of the class gave when he suggested he'd do Pokémon as a project? This was the scene in many classrooms across the world from 2000 to round about 2004, maybe? To show how things have changed since then all I have to say is that 15 years later, when my (then) 9-year-old nephew suggested doing Pokémon as his project, his PowerPoint presentation (which I helped make) was praised by his peers. They were even impressed by the fact he had with him original merchandise from the years I have covered here.  And this brings up a very significant point. A point so significant that its the reason why I'm writing this special.
By becoming a "piece of furniture" in our collective culture, by the time of the supposed "fall" in 2002-3, kids younger than the original "genwunners" (a term of abuse used to describe fans who think "the originals are best and everything afterwards is crap," first used in the Poké-fandom in 2012 (according to knowyourmeme.com)) were discovering Pikachu themselves in the same way you may have discovered this blog your reading now. By doing so a baton was past from the first generation of fans to the next generation. Very few franchises succeed in doing this.... and Nintendo knows this very well, as they did it before with Mario and Zelda. It is well noted that Nintendo's success is based on its great creation of characters. And if you got a great character it doesn't matter which medium that character appears in, as long as he/she/it is doing what they are famous for, And if a group (either a geographic area or a generation) get bored of it, you can just expose it to a new group. After been exposed to everyone on Earth Pikachu made the hard to pull off step of becoming a staple in another generation's childhoods. 
Today, in the mist of heightened interest bought on by Pokémon GO and the franchise's massive revamp in Gen 5 (and the fact many players of those (and later) games are the offspring from adults who were kids during the 1990s), people surprised by the fact kids are still playing Pokémon in 2016 are looking back to the time of Gen 1 and 2. Why? Maybe nostalgia or trying to answer the question how Pokémon has survived to have a Gen 7. These are two factors that drove me to write this special. Another is to help provide the world with a subjective history of the whole story of the franchise. Apart from Wikipedia, most texts covering the history of  Pokémon are fan-generated (I know, technically, this one counts as one too). They are some more subjective ones out there, like Pikachu's Global Adventure, bust most of them were published before or during Gen 2. Very few of them cover events that happened after the release of Ruby and Sapphire. And that is a massive shame, because it was in those "wilderness years" of 2002 to 2010 that we can find the answers to the question "How did Pokémon survive after Gen 2?" and how it is possible for kids to be playing the games after so many years. I admit that I know this telling of the history of Pokémon won't be seen in the same light as NeuroTribes  or the writings of Ernst Gombrich, but I do hope that someday when someone(s) do finally gets around to doing an official detailed telling of history they'll use this blog as a reference. 

All that, plus its possible environmental message I think many people aren't aware of... and to elaborate why all of you should stop calling Pokémon battles "cock-fighting."

In 2002 it appeared that Pikachu's wild adventure had reached its end and was beginning to experience the hangover.And in that hangover phase significant things happened in the anime that could have been interpreted  (without future knowledge) as signs of the show was coming to an end. 
First Ash finally beat Gary in a battle, in the Johto Silver Conference. Ash then lost the tournament in the quarter-finals (in case your wondering). Then on the way home to Pallet Town, via Viridian City, Misty finally got her bike fixed, but then had to be called home by her sisters, because they won a around-the-world trip in a beauty contest and needed someone to be the Cerulean City Gym leader (to her annoyance). Then Brock leaves because he got an e-mail from his family telling him to come back (for some reason). So Ash returned to Pallet Town alone (with Pikachu, despite Team Rocket's efforts). If you have stopped watching the show form here, you would have thought the show had reached its end....
But it didn't. 

If you continued to watch, you'll find that Ash, (after some advice and inspiration from Gray) decided to (after brief rest-bite in Pallet Town) leave behind all his Pokémon he had then (except Pikachu, of course) at Professor Oak's Ranch and head to Hoenn to start off a new journey from scratch like back in episode one. A decision that seemed to have holy blessing, when Ho-oh appeared in the sky above him, flying in the direction of Hoenn, as he was thinking that decision.
But the journey to continue his adventures was rocky (to begin with). While on the boat on the way to Hoenn Team Rocket managed to capture Pikachu and nearly got away. But some things happened in the chaos that resulted in the boat needing to go to the nearest port for repairs, Pikachu and Meowth got separated from the group getting lost and get involved in a turf war with some Haunter. After sorting out the turf war and sending Team Rocket blasting off (again), Ash and Pikachu managed to get back on the boat in a nick of time. Things were fine, now.

However, as they arrive in Hoenn Pikachu developed a fever as a result of the previous day's chaos. 

A sign of trouble in the franchise's health?
Has Pikachu "crashed" after those years of partying?

In normal kids crazes Pokémon should have "died out" in 2002... but it didn't. Although interest had dwindled, there was still enough fans left for it to continue living, like a pacemaker. And those fans will experience many changes, some interesting, some diabolical. But in the end, 2002 was not the end - it was the end of the beginning.... 
It was a New Beginning!

End of Part 1
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