“Pokémon became the world’s biggest videogame by a process of systematic and calculating media saturation,” Edge wrote in 2003, setting up the usual explanation of the craze. Then it knocked it down: “Except of course, that’s not how it happened. The game came first, and everything that followed was born out of the fervour that it inspired.”
The game was Game Freak’s Pocket Monsters, which went on sale in Japan in February 1996 with little fuss. The cards, the cartoon, the films and the toys followed it, country by country, and each time the same pattern played out: a craze among children, then alarm among adults. This entry follows that craze. The games themselves are covered in Pokémon and Pokémon Red & Blue.
Fast facts
- Began: Pocket Monsters Red and Green, Game Boy, Japan, 27 February 1996.
- Spread: the trading card game (Japan, October 1996), the TV series (TV Tokyo, April 1997), the first film (Japan, July 1998; North America, November 1999).
- Waves: Japan 1996–97; North America 1998–99; Britain 1999–2000; Pokémon GO, 2016.
- Scale by March 2026: more than 515 million units of Pokémon software shipped, more than 85 billion cards printed, and the TV series shown in more than 190 countries and regions (The Pokémon Company).
Japan, 1996–97
The game arrived quietly and then kept selling. The Pokémon Company launched the trading card game in October 1996, and in April 1997 TV Tokyo began showing the cartoon. At Nintendo’s Space World show in November 1997, Edge reported, Pocket Monsters had been the best-selling game in Japan that year. By the end of December, Edge wrote, the monsters were “easily Japan’s most popular Christmas present this year by a substantial margin”, two songs from the show were in the Christmas Top 40, and around ¥400 billion (£3.19 billion) of Pocket Monsters merchandise had been sold. In the spring of 1998 Nintendo Power counted more than 600 Pokémon products in Japanese shops.
Then came the scare. On 16 December 1997 TV Tokyo showed an episode called “Computer Warrior Porygon”, in which the characters travel inside a computer. About twenty minutes in, an explosion was followed by flashing red lights, and children watching across Japan began to fall ill. The British magazines’ figures differ: Edge reported that about 600 children had an epileptic reaction and about 120 stayed in hospital overnight, while Computer and Video Games said 729 children had been taken to hospital and 208 kept in. Both blamed photosensitive epilepsy, set off by the flashing. TV Tokyo held an emergency press conference and began an investigation, several stations said they would not show the cartoon again, and Nintendo’s share price fell the next day. Edge expected no lasting harm to Nintendo, and noted that the series had already been sold to American television, where it would be shown “with the offending scene cut out”.
North America, 1998–99
Nintendo of America brought Pokémon over all at once. The cartoon started on American television on 7 September 1998, ahead of the Red and Blue games at the end of the month, and Nintendo opened the campaign as an “invasion” that started in Topeka, Kansas. The Pokémon Red & Blue entry tells that story.
The cards took off next. Wizards of the Coast published the trading card game in English, and by September 1999 Nintendo Power reported that it had sold more than a million copies in North America and that “Pokémaniacs want to unwrap all the booster packs they can find”. The Jungle expansion added 64 more cards. A month later the magazine was warning readers about fakes: “when a craze gets big enough, people with the ethics of Team Rocket decide to try to take advantage of it.” Genuine goods, it explained, carried the copyright line of Nintendo, Creatures and Game Freak.
Pokémon: The First Movie opened across North America on 12 November 1999, with a short, Pikachu’s Vacation, before the main feature, Mewtwo Strikes Back. Burger King promoted it with 57 toys and 151 trading cards to collect from its children’s meals, and Edge reported that the company’s Pokémon website had 1.3 million hits in its first six hours. The toys came in plastic Poké Balls, and the balls were dangerous. In December 1999 a 13-month-old girl suffocated when half of one sealed over her nose and mouth. Burger King and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled more than 25 million of the balls on 27 December, and in January 2000, after a four-month-old boy died the same way, they urged parents again to destroy them. When Burger King brought the promotion back in 2000, N64 Magazine noted, the toys came in small plastic bags.
The craze reached the sky as well. All Nippon Airways had painted three of its planes with Pokémon, and in September 1999 Edge reported that the airline had taken them international, on a five-days-a-week service between Tokyo and San Francisco, with Pokémon goods on sale duty-free.
Britain, 1999–2000
The games reached Britain in October 1999, at £24.99, and the counterfeiters were already there. Computer and Video Games warned that pirated Pokémon toys and cards were arriving, and quoted Nintendo’s licensing agent: “There’s little official Pokémon merchandise this year.”
In the spring of 2000 the cards reached the playground. N64 Magazine reported in June that, according to the BBC’s news website, a growing number of schools were banning them. A packet of eleven cost £2.25, but the rarest cards could be worth £30, and “anything up to £300 on Internet auctions”. Teachers worried about “aggressive trading” in school. That spring Pokémon: The First Movie opened in British cinemas and went straight to number one, knocking Lake Placid off the top. Edge later collected the year’s stranger news stories, among them a Californian school that paid a pupil $1,500 in compensation after losing the Pokémon cards it had confiscated, and an eight-year-old in Hampshire who offered his baby sister on a radio swap-shop in exchange for a rare Vaporeon card.
After the craze
By 2003 Edge could write that “Pokéfever may have abated”, but Game Freak kept making a new pair of games every few years, and each pair found new players. In July 2016 Pokémon reached phones with Niantic’s Pokémon GO. Looking back at the decade, Wireframe listed it among the events of 2016 as the game that “turns mobile phones into a monster-catching app”. By the end of March 2026 The Pokémon Company counted more than 515 million units of Pokémon software shipped and more than 85 billion trading cards printed.
Sources
- “It’s super effective!”, Edge issue 127, September 2003, from p. 84: the “media saturation” quotation and its rebuttal; “Pokéfever may have abated”; the “Millennium madness” sidebar (the Californian school and the Hampshire swap-shop).
- Retro Gamer issue 33, 2006, p. 44: the Japanese release on 27 February 1996.
- Edge issue 54, January 1998, news: the Space World ’97 report (the best-selling game of 1997 in Japan). See also the Pokémon Red & Blue entry.
- “Nintendo’s Pokemon headache”, Edge issue 55, February 1998, “Out There”: the 16 December episode, the flashing lights, about 600 affected and 120 kept in hospital, Nintendo’s share price, the American sale of the series, the Christmas presents, the two songs and the ¥400 billion of merchandise.
- “Pocket Monster panic hits Japan!”, Computer and Video Games issue 195, February 1998, news: 729 children taken to hospital and 208 kept in, TV Tokyo’s press conference and investigation, stations dropping the show, photosensitive epilepsy, Nintendo’s share price.
- Nintendo Power issue 108, May 1998: more than 600 Pokémon products in Japan.
- Nintendo Power issue 112, September 1998, p. 106: the “invasion” from Topeka and the TV series from 7 September.
- Nintendo Power issue 123, August 1999: Pokémon: The First Movie due in North America on 12 November, with Pikachu’s Vacation.
- Nintendo Power issue 124, September 1999: the Wizards of the Coast card game’s sales of more than a million in North America; the Jungle set.
- Nintendo Power issue 125, October 1999: “Don’t Be Fooled!”, on counterfeit Pokémon goods and the copyright line.
- Nintendo Power issue 127, December 1999: Burger King advertisement (57 toys and 151 cards).
- Edge issue 80, January 2000, news statistics: 1.3 million hits on Burger King’s Pokémon website in its first six hours.
- US Consumer Product Safety Commission, “In wake of second death, CPSC and Burger King again urge consumers to destroy and discard Pokémon balls”, 27 January 2000 (web): the recall of more than 25 million balls on 27 December 1999 and the deaths of a 13-month-old girl and a four-month-old boy. https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2000/in-wake-of-second-death-cpsc-and-burger-king-again-urge-consumers-to-destroy-and
- N64 Magazine issue 41, May 2000, news: the Burger King promotion relaunched, with toys in plastic bags after the fuss over the Poké Balls.
- Edge issue 75, September 1999, news: All Nippon Airways’ Pokémon jets on the Tokyo–San Francisco route.
- Computer and Video Games issue 216, November 1999, p. 40 (pirated merchandise and the licensing agent’s comment) and pp. 104–105 (the £24.99 price).
- N64 Magazine issue 42, June 2000, news: schools banning the cards, their prices, Pokémon: The First Movie at number one in Britain.
- Wireframe issue 30, January 2020, p. 22: the decade’s timeline (Pokémon GO in 2016).
- Wireframe issue 15, May 2019, p. 50: Pokémon GO, developed by Niantic.
- The Pokémon Company, corporate history (web): the card game in October 1996, the TV series in April 1997, the first film in July 1998, the American launch in September 1998, Pokémon GO in July 2016. https://corporate.pokemon.co.jp/en/aboutus/history/
- The Pokémon Company, “Pokémon in Figures”, as of the end of March 2026 (web): software shipments, cards printed and the countries showing the series, as cited in the Pokémon entry. https://corporate.pokemon.co.jp/en/aboutus/figures/