It’s Superbowl ad season, and Pokémon has come out with a surprisingly strong, Nike-esque showing that places their most popular characters in real life. The massively popular game is celebrating its 20th anniversary, with a Pokémon 20 fan site featuring fan mail from its many fans, and on Feb 27 Nintendo will relaunch Red, Blue and Yellow on 3DS in celebration.
What is Pokémon?
Created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1995 when he was 30 years old, it is really a media franchise focused on a game about fictional monster/animals and their trainers, which catch or rear these creatures for battle or sport. The original games were roleplaying games with an element of strategy, created by Satoshi Tajiri for the Gameboy. From the game it has since branched out into film, tv, huge amounts of merchandise – including a large flagship store in Tokyo – trading cards, comics and more, including having their livery printed on Shinkansen trains and All Nippon Airways Boeing jets. Published by Nintendo, it is the second most successful and lucrative video game franchise in the world, behind Nintendo’s Mario franchise, and earned $2 billion in 2014 alone. Given the huge success of the series, it’s perhaps inevitable that they did move into Superbowl, with an ad that has such high production values. Happy 50th anniversary, guys!