While studying electrical engineering at Tokyo College of Technology [ja], Tajiri began publishing a doujinshi magazine titled Game Freak.

[74] Combining this inspiration with his memories of catching insects and other small species, Tajiri's idea would eventually evolve into a virtual recreation of his boyhood experiences,[75] and an attempt to "regain the world that he had lost".

[109] Still, development had mostly come to a halt until the summer of 1994, after the release of the platform game Pulseman, upon which Tajiri decided it was time to make a serious effort towards finishing Pocket Monsters.

For training purposes, they were ordered to study and make bug fixes to the source code of Red & Green, and to create new sprites for it;[143] the test was later dubbed Pocket Monsters Blue.

Kawaguchi then suggested an alternative, which Yamauchi agreed with: Blue would not receive a normal retail release, but would instead be made available only through mail order for a limited time as a special offer.

[145] It was announced in the November issue of CoroCoro, which explicitly stated that Blue was not a new game, but rather a special, limited edition to celebrate 1 million sales of Red and Green.

[155] All were former staff members of Ape and had previously worked on EarthBound (1994): Miura was the game's main designer, Ōyama was its art director, and Akabane was one of its chief debuggers.

[200] Around the time that planning of the anime begun, licensing requests for Pokemon started to increase, which Nintendo had difficulties handling due to a lack of (experienced) staff.

[119][203][204] Attendees usually included Ishihara and his secretary, representatives of Nintendo, Game Freak, ShoPro, TV Tokyo, and JR Kikaku, as well as head of the anime Yoshikawa.

While flying through cyberspace, they are attacked by an anti-virus program which mistakes them for viruses, shooting "vaccine missiles" at the group resulting in explosions of bright, rapidly swapping red and blue flashes.

[221] The intense stimuli brought about by the episode triggered a variety of adverse health effects in more than 10,000 viewers,[222] primarily irritated eyes, headaches, dizziness, and nausea.

[241] At the time, role-playing games (RPGs) were not very popular outside Japan,[242] and NoA executives believed that American children did not have the attention span for such a complex title.

[245] Up to that point, few Japanese properties had been successfully mainstreamed in the US, and if they were, it was alleged to be on account of having been properly Americanized: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was considered a prime example of this.

[247][248] In an effort to enhance the franchise's coolness, NoA considered a graphical redesign and contracted a few external artists to create some test-designs for the American market.

[270][271] The phrase "miraculously managed to gain approval" by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which normally prohibits the use of injunctions in ads directed at children (e.g. "You must buy this!").

[16] Similarly, USA Today reported in November 1999 that factories making Hasbro's Pokémon toys had expanded production by 20 times, but demand still exceeded supply.

[386] The developers faithfully recreated the original story and added elements from the Generation IV games and Yellow, the latter of which was released concurrently with Gold and Silver.

[406] The developers chose Hawaii for inspiration due to its distinctive warm sunlight and clear moonlight and unique biomes that helped support the games' regional Pokémon variance concept.

[416] The same month, Sensor Tower reported that the game had passed more than $200 million in worldwide revenue, beating every existing record set by Clash of Clans and Candy Crush by a wide margin.

Tobin (2004) notes that rarity in this case is "artificially created", and "effectively a form of gambling" in which children need to repeatedly purchase booster packs to get more rare cards.

[478] Brougère [fr] (2004) described a cynicism among adults that corporations could apparently, "out of thin air", ascribe value to cards which they saw as valueless, thereby "deceiving vulnerable young consumers and garnering excessive profits".

[508] CNN quoted child psychiatrist John Lochridge as worrying that "Pokémon's creators and marketers deliberately set out to create a fantasy world so compelling that children would quickly become obsessed".

[509] An op-ed in the New Zealander newspaper The Dominion Post claimed that the anti-Pokémon sentiment was particularly American: "The backlash, which seems largely confined to the United States, may be no more than the sound of the world's leading cultural imperialist gagging on a taste of its own medicine".

[517][521] High prices on the grey market were a motive behind some of the crimes, "posing a great temptation for older kids and bullies to take advantage of weaker children".

[5][16][22] Stephanie Strom wrote in The New York Times that the Pokémon anime taught children "traditional Japanese values – responsibility, empathy, cooperation, obedience, respect for elders, humility".

Allison also notes that the Columbine High School massacre occurred during Pokémania (on 20 April 1999), causing violent television, music, and games to be scrutinized.

Yano (2004) attributes this to cultural differences, which includes: 1) greater acceptance of exuberant consumerism – to buy is to be a good citizen; 2) less focus on media influence – instead, Japan's educational system, bullying, and dysfunctional families are more often the target of attention; 3) less separation between child- and adulthood – what is suitable for adults is not necessarily considered unsuitable for kids; 4) Pokémon being permeated with kawaisa (cuteness), a hallmark of Japanese culture; 5) Japan's core religions, Buddhism and Shinto, are less moralizing in nature.

[543] The surprise success of Pokémon was "an undeniable breakthrough in the homeland of Disney" that "changed preexisting assumptions about the US marketplace at the same time that it was constantly resisted for deviating from them".

[552] In the 20th century, anime found niche popularity in North America and Europe in series (Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion, Speed Racer) and films (Akira, Ghost in the Shell).

[323] After Princess Mononoke, Pokémon: The First Movie became the second anime film to open at mainstream cinemas in the West, as opposed to the usual art house venues.