Satoshi Tajiri - Pokemon Makers

Satoshi Tajiri was born on August 28, 1965, in Machida, a suburb on the outskirts of Tokyo, Japan. His father was a Nissan car salesman while his mother was a housewife. As a young man, he likes to venture into the outside environment and are particularly interested in all kinds of insects. She likes to collect insects, hunting insects in ponds, fields and forests, the insects continue to seek new and looking for new ways to catch insects such as beetles. He has an interest in collecting and studying insects, so he was nicknamed "Dr. Bug "among his friends.


In the late 1970s, the fields and ponds Tajiri preferred time to hunt insects and displaced children there are also built apartment buildings and shopping centers. At this time, Satoshi Tajiri penchant of insects moving in a video game and arcade machines, this is the forerunner of making games and animated Pokemon. Tajiri know the game as he sat in the engineering school, spending much of his time in playing the arcade machines. He was a big fan of arcade games to the point that one of the local arcade center gave him a Space Invaders machine to take home. It is confusing and makes the parents upset, feeling that he had thrown his future. In the end, Tajiri lulu of a two-year program at the Tokyo National College of Technology. His father wanted him to become an electrical repairman, but instead it's what she wanted.

In 1981, when he was sixteen years old, Tajiri won a contest sponsored by Nintendo rival Sega for game design concepts. A year later, in 1982, Tajiri and his friends set up a gaming magazine called Game Freak. A friend and contributor to Game Freak named Ken Sugimori, is a figure who later became an illustrator and designer of all the Pokemon picture, the human characters, and other aspects of the game. Throughout 1981, the magazine Game Freak had a decent sales and became popular in the gaming world. At first, the magazine written by hand, but when it started to become increasingly popular, Tajiri made it professionally printed magazine. It costs around 300 yen (about $ 3.00 USD) and the average contains 28 pages.


When Tajiri learn more about the game, he became interested in making your own. He felt that the world market, the game will be better in the future. He learned how to write software by first taking part in the Nintendo Entertainment System to see how it works and then learn how to programmed.

In 1987, Tajiri publish his first game, entitled Quinty (Mendel Palace in North America). Two years later, he officially founded the company Game Freak, which was named after the magazine. Tajiri and Game Freak went on to develop a lot of titles for various companies such as Nintendo and Sega. The titles he had ever done that in the year 1991; Jerry Boy, where Tajiri won a design award from the character of Multimedia Content Association of



In 1990, Tajiri published a book called Catch The Packland - Stories of video games from Youth. The book contains twelve stories enal about Tajiri memories of playing arcade games when he was in high school and university. The book was published by the Japanese Cultural Center and the flow of information.

At the beginning of Pokemon Creation


In early 1990, when Tajiri saw two children playing Game Boy them together using a link cable, he imagined insects crawling across the cable between the two systems. When he was thinking about the ability of the cable link, the idea of ​​Pokemon began to emerge, in which he wanted to provide opportunities for children to hunt a wide range of modern creatures as he did before.

He offered the idea to Nintendo's Pokemon, and even if they do not quite understand the concept of games offered, Nintendo gave the initial capital and the concept of working from another game design studio, Creaturues, Inc. .. Tajiri spent the next six years to work on Pokemon. Shigeru Miyamoto, the figure behind Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Pikmin, and Donkey Kong, was assigned to assist the development of an early version of Pocket Monsters Red and Green. During that Tajiri so admire Miyamoto and regard it as a mentor. As a tribute to Miyamoto and Tajiri, the main character in the game and his rival was named "Satoshi" and "Shigeru" among several other early names, while the main character in the animated series, Ash Ketchum and his first rival, Gary Oak, have the same name in Japanese version.

After six years of development, Pokemon Red and Green Versions completed. Although the engine starts outdated Game Boy, the game still remains popular because children younger can not buy the latest game console machine so they turn on the Game Boy games are cheap.

The success of Pokemon and then make it adapted in the form of manga, the animated series, and some advanced / sequel to the Pokemon games and other distractions games.

Just Information

Tajiri was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, in which Nintendo officially refer to it as a very creative, approaching the "loner" and "eccentric", two common symptoms of Asperger syndrome. Tajiri confirmed the diagnosis but did not discuss it publicly.


Tajiri is Poliwhirl favorite Pokemon, where he mentions that his stomach is a gut circle, representing the fact that the organs in the tadpoles can be seen when he was taken and examined.


Based on an interview with Time magazine in 1999, Tajiri stated that he slept for 12 hours, and then working on his game for 24 hours without stopping. He said an irregular schedule to help him think of new ideas for the game.


A biography of Satoshi Tajiri Tajiri entitled: Pokemon Creator published in 2008 by publisher KidHaven.