A Game Boy Game About Catching Monsters Became a Religion

When Pokémon Red and Green launched in Japan on February 27, 1996, the Game Boy was six years old and widely considered a dying platform. Satoshi Tajiri, who had spent six years developing the game and nearly bankrupted his studio in the process, had created something deceptively simple: walk through tall grass, catch creatures, make them fight other creatures, collect all 151. It shouldn't have worked as well as it did. But something about the formula — the collecting, the trading, the sense that your Pokémon were yours — tapped into a psychological vein so deep it transcended language, culture, and age. When it hit the US in 1998, it became a full-blown cultural phenomenon: the anime, the cards, the merchandise, the movie. Kids who couldn't point to Japan on a map were learning Japanese attack names. The franchise would go on to gross over $100 billion, making it the highest-revenue media franchise in history. All from a game on a console that was supposed to be obsolete.