As a kid growing up in the early 2000s, Pokémon was unavoidable. Early Saturday mornings featured Ash, Pikachu, and a slew of supporting cast and characters solving problems and battling other trainers, all while following Ash on his quest to become "Pokémon Champion." Pokémon trading cards were all the rage in elementary school, with the quest to acquire a "Shiny Charizard" costing many lunchbox snacks. Oftentimes I played Pokémon Emerald on my Game Boy until my thumbs cramped and into the early hours of the morning, usually arousing the ire of my parents. However, one of the reasons for my, as well as millions of other children's joy (and parents' dismay) often goes unnoticed and unrecognized. Satoshi Tajiri, founder of Game Freak and creator of the Pokémon franchise, is a name that is unknown to many fans. As one of the most influential people in a sweepingly popular, multi-billion dollar franchise that single-handedly revitalized Nintendo in the mid-late 1990s and created one of the most recognizable figures in the world, I thought it only fitting to give Mr. Tajiri a bit of praise and analysis in this post.
Growing up in Machida (a neighborhood within Tokyo) in the 1960s and 70s, Tajiri was fascinated with bug collecting, often going on day-long excursions to find new specimens. As his neighborhood quickly urbanized, Tajiri saw his prime hunting grounds grow smaller and smaller, forcing him to take up a new hobby. This materialized in arcade and coin-op games, which eventually led to Tajiri skipping classes and almost failing to earn his high-school diploma. It was this fascination with video games that gave Tajiri an outlet for his creative spirit, and resulted in his creation of the Game Freak magazine in 1981. This fanzine provided realistic information, Easter eggs, and other tips and tricks for myriad games at the time. After creating his own video game and pitching the idea of "Pocket Monsters" (Pokémon) to Nintendo executives, Tajiri's creative spirit was unleashed. Relying heavily on childhood memories and intrinsic motivation, as discussed in Chapter 2 of Gardner, Tajiri labored on the first Pokémon games for 6 years before they were released.
Touching upon Tajiri's intrinsic motivation for a moment, we can see that it was the early memories of finding and collecting different insects and the whimsy of a new discovery that drove what is now Pokémon. As Gardner writes: "...individuals will exert considerable practice and effort, and even tolerate physical or psychological pain, in pursuit thereof [the state of "flow"]" (pg. 26). Tajiri disclosed that while working on Pokémon and subsequent projects, he would often stay awake for 24 hours to induce a creative state and ensure that any and all ideas were collected and expounded upon. Following this, Tajiri would sleep for 12 hours straight. Notwithstanding, we can see that Tajiri's devotion to his projects and creation often led him to test the extremes of the human physique and psyche, similar to many of the creatives we are currently studying. Like most of the Gardner creatives, Tajiri was also initially faced with many roadblocks on his path to success. Upon its' release, Pokémon had lackluster sales and nearly bankrupted Nintendo, with the concept not gaining nearly as much traction with the public that the company and Tajiri had envisioned. However, through effective marketing and the "leak" of a secret Pokémon that Tajiri had included in the game design (which Nintendo was initially unaware of), sales and notoriety began to rise in Japan and the United States, two of the largest markets for the company. Tajiri also did not take a salary until Pokémon became profitable, meaning that he worked for 6+ years pro bono, all to see the fruition of his dream.
Sources:
Gardner, Chapter 2
TIME Magazine Interview: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2040095,00.html
NY Daily News Summary: https://web.archive.org/web/20111103233300/http://articles.nydailynews.com/1999-11-15/news/18108980_1_pokemon-craze-satoshi-tajiri-insects
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ReplyDeleteAs someone who has loved Pokémon her entire life, I was really happy to see someone write about this. I relate to all of your childhood anecdotes; I would often stay up late, trying time and time again to defeat the Elite 4. Tajiri's creation defined the childhood of millions of children, reaching audiences around the globe. It goes without question that the creation of Pokémon created a paradigm shift in the realm of RPGs and pop culture in general. The idea of Pokémon was revolutionary as it was a video game who's concept can be directly applied to the real world. Previous groundbreaking games took place in worlds that existed only within the console (pong, tetris, pac-man). But Pokémon's concept is easily assimilated to the real world, allowing kids to pretend to set out on a Pokémon journey or "catch" and "train" animals much like Tajiri. After Pokémon's explosion, many other video games tried to follow suit, though resulting in less success than Pokémon (Digimon, Yokai Watch 3). Pokémon, with its far-reaching TV shows, movies, trading card game, and video game, is the highest grossing franchise of all time at $100 billion dollars in total revenue. If this doesn't prove Satoshi Tajiri as an underrated Big-C creative, I don't know what does. No matter how old I get, Pokémon will always hold a special place in my heart, all thanks to Tajiki.
ReplyDeletePokemon has been super prevalent throughout my life as well, even to this day. I absolutely agree that Tajiri's creativity is one to be praised and acknowledged. His creation has touched so many lives and continues to do so. The Pokemon universe has expanded so much since his original idea and it truly was transformative to the entertainment industry, from video games to movies and TV shows to the trading cards. Pokemon to me is so groundbreaking as it does not just limit itself to one type of media and has maintained its popularity in all realms. It goes to show that this concept of "pocket monsters" was revolutionary, as Stephanie suggested, through the creation of other similar ideas. Yet none have shown as much prevalence in pop culture as Pokemon. It was so interesting to learn about the background of this Big-C creative and the methods he employed to establish his creation.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up I did not have the money for Nintendo devices, but I could afford the cards. I was obsessed with Pokémon. I was especially enticed by all the ways I could interact with them. Through a TV, Nintendo device and, of course, the training cards. I was surprised to hear that Tajiki did not take a salary for 6+ years. It reminds me of the Faustian bargains, and how creative people have to make extreme sacrifices for their ideas to expand. This is also not the first time I have read creative people forcing sleep deprivation for creative thoughts which is super interesting!
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