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In the short time it has been out, Pokemon Go has already managed to bring Pokemon back
into the mainstream in a huge way. Already surpassing the daily active users of huge
apps like Twitter and Tinder, the game has proven to be Nintendo’s biggest hit in years.
That’s a pretty big accomplishment for a game that started as little more than a prank,
by one of the country’s biggest companies. Google has always been a big fan of April
Fools Day jokes, and in 2014 they released one of their best: a commercial claiming they
were looking to hire Pokemon Masters who used Google Maps. The technology shown off in the
video looks suspiciously similar to the game they would help create just a few years later.
Along with the commercial, a short game was released that was also pretty similar to the
game we know today. Cementing this connection is the fact that John Hanke, the CEO of Niantic
Labs, the developers behind Go, was still working at Google when the prank video and
game was released. Little did they know that their simple April Fools joke would be one
of 2016’s biggest hit games. As some fans probably already know, the initial
inspiration behind the creation of the series can be traced back to the childhood of Satoshi
Tajiri. Known as “Mr. Bug” to his friends in his early school days, Tajiri was a massive
fan of insects and bug collecting when he was young. Bug collecting in Japan, especially
back in the ‘70s, was a much bigger deal than it ever was in the west, with kids across
the country trying to capture as many species of insects as they could.
But the collecting aspect isn’t the only part of Japan’s love of bugs that inspired
the series. In Japan, children and adults making insects fight each other is something
of a minor tradition. With fights between Japanese Rhinoceros Beetles being particularly
popular. Tajiri combined these cultural interests with his love of Japanese RPGs and created
one of the most successful gaming franchises of all time.
Moving on to some actual Pokemon, many of the series’ creatures have their roots in
nature. Take Caterpie (CAT-ER-PEE), who is based off of the Eastern tiger swallowtail
caterpillar. Or Polliwag, whose unique swirl design is directly taken from translucent
tadpoles. Magikarp also bears a striking resemblance to the strange looking Yellow Rockfish. Even
plants get in on the action, with Victreebel’s look being taken from the Pitcher plant and
Vileplume taking inspiration from the extoic Rafflesia arnoldii, which is also the largest
flower on planet Earth. But plants and animals aren’t the only things
that have inspired Pokemon, some are actually based in real-world mythology. Take Team Instinct's
mascot Zapdos, who does appear somewhere in Pokemon Go according to the game’s files...though
as of this recording no one has managed to find him, this electric bird’s ability to
summon lightning from its wings is extremely similar to the Native American Thunderbird.
Many different tribes, like the Lakota and the Winnebago, feature some version of the
Thunderbird, which had many names. Though all of them have some mythology in common:
the Thunderbird was seen as the spirit of thunder and lightning and was able to create
massive thunderstorms just by flapping its wings. Much like Zapdos, who was one of the
most powerful Pokemon in the original set. Speaking of powerful Pokemon, Moltres, whose
silhouette represents Team Valor, was also inspired by a mythic bird, this time the Firebird
from Slavic folklore, who has most of the same abilities as Moltres.
Vulpix and its evolved form Ninetales also have a pretty interesting origin. They are
based the kitsune, Japanese foxes that are often featured in the country’s ancient
myths. The legends hold that the kitsune have all kinds of supernatural powers. Some overlap
with Vulpix and Ninetales’ abilities and some...like the power to possess women through
their breasts, have not made their way into the world of Pokemon. The most notable similarity
is the multiple tails that the kitsune were said to have. The older and wiser the creature
was, the more tails it had. This is reflected in the evolution of Vuplix, who of course
has more tails once he turns into Ninetails. In the end though the biggest inspiration
behind Pokemon Go has nothing to do with the Pokemon themselves. Niantic’s previous augmented
reality game, Ingress (in which players from opposing factions battled over control of
portals found throughout the world) serves as the groundwork that all of Pokemon Go is
built on. The locations tagged in Go actually come directly from Ingress players, who have
created a worldwide data pool for the game since 2011. According to Hanke, “We basically
defined the kinds of places that we wanted to be part of the game. Things that were public
artwork, that were historical sites, that were buildings with some unique architectural
history or characteristic, or a unique local businesses." So if you’re a big Pokemon
Go fan, thank an Ingress player! This community driven way of marking locations is also why
even places like Antarctica and the North Pole have a few Pokestops.
No comment showcase this but be sure to subscribe, like and comment to make sure we get to keep
making more Pokemon stuff! So in last week’s trivia we asked you to name Alan Lee’s sister
in the Fallout 4 expansion Far Harbor, and the answer was C) Sandra. This week we have
an old school Pokemon question: what Pokemon does Magikarp evolve into?