Pokémon took the world by storm 25 years ago, yet very little is known about the mysterious man who created the "pocket monster" franchise...
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GamingTranscript
00:00So when I was a kid I used to make counterfeit Pokemon cards and sell them on the playground.
00:30There have been sightings of him, but it's almost like sighting Bigfoot nowadays.
00:53He started as being a kid that was just obsessed with bugs and collecting them and stuff like
01:00that.
01:01So much so that he got the nickname Dr. Bug from his playmates, I guess you could say.
01:07And all of this kind of was able to happen because I guess at the time where he lived
01:12it was a more rural area of Japan.
01:14But then as he started to get older and time started to pass, the urbanization of that
01:19area started to happen.
01:20And this also coincided with Tajiri becoming interested in video games.
01:26And it started out as an interest, but then quickly became an obsession.
01:30And when it came time for him to make Pokemon, or when he was putting together this idea,
01:35his childhood experiences of collecting bugs and just being interested in that, that is
01:41ultimately what served as the foundation for the concept of Pokemon, where you're going
01:46out and you're catching them.
01:51It inspired him to create this magazine that was known as Game Freak, which is the name
01:57of the company that makes the Pokemon games.
01:59And it started out as literally a magazine that he hand wrote, he hand stapled together.
02:05After doing that for a while, he sort of became dissatisfied with how games were at the time.
02:11He thought they weren't up to snuff.
02:13He thought they could be a lot better.
02:15And this ultimately drove him to want to create a game.
02:23You wouldn't think it would take that long to make a Game Boy game.
02:26However, it took six years to make the first Pokemon games.
02:31And that was just due to a combination of their goals growing for the games, but also
02:35the amount of challenge and adversity that they faced making the games.
02:41The Game Freak as a company, they almost went bankrupt.
02:46A bunch of employees quit because of this.
02:48Tajiri got to the point where he wasn't even getting paid himself.
02:53He was just living off of his parents' income at the time.
02:56And then there was also a story about one of the computers crashing that they were using
03:01to make the game.
03:02And they almost lost all of the data and it just almost went up in flames.
03:05So to even get to the point where they released the first game was a miracle in and of itself.
03:11There's a lot of reports that say that it has something to do with the fact that Satoshi
03:24Tajiri actually has Asperger's, which I, from what I understand, can contribute to being
03:30a little more reserved socially.
03:34Ultimately, yeah, I think it just kind of is who he is as a person, I think, that kind
03:42of makes him avoid the limelight.
03:44And because he's been so mysterious over the years, you have to be kind of a guy like me
03:50who is just obsessed with Pokemon and has made it their life to really know who he is
03:54because he has virtually no presence online as far as a record of him.
04:01When you do find a quote or a picture of him, it's often misinterpreted because there
04:06are a ton of pictures floating around that misidentify Satoshi Tajiri as Tsunekazu Ishihara,
04:13which is the CEO of the Pokemon company.
04:15And so because of that elusiveness, misinformation gets thrown around in addition to people just
04:21not knowing who he is.
04:23I think whether you're a fan like me or you're just a casual person, it's really important
04:28to know because, I mean, Pokemon changed culture forever.
04:34Not only is it a huge video game success, but it is a part of pop culture.
04:40Pikachu is as big as Mickey Mouse nowadays, it's as recognizable.
04:45So I think it's really important that people know his story and the story of Pokemon.