Pokémon is turning 30! From Pocket Monsters, to best-selling franchise

If you love Pikachu, Eevee and Charizard then Pokémon Day is for you!

It takes place each year on 27 February, and in 2026 Pokémon is celebrating its 30th anniversary.

From the games, to the TV series and trading cards, Pokémon has had a huge impact since it was created.

We've been taking a look back at the history of Pokémon to see how it started and how much it's grown over the last 30 years.

So, if you want to be a Pokémon Master... of knowledge - then take a look!

Pokémon was invented by a Japanese man named Satoshi Tajiri, helped by his friend Ken Sugimori, who is an illustrator.

Around 1981 Satoshi started a gaming magazine together with his friends called Game Freak, but after a while he decided to start making his own video games, instead of writing about them.

In 1989 Satoshi and Ken turned Game Freak into a gaming company, and together with their friends they released a few games such as Pulseman, Yoshi and Mario & Wario, which did pretty well.

In the early 1990s, inspired by his childhood exploring forests and finding bugs and tadpoles, Satoshi came up with the idea for Pocket Monsters (or as it's better known Pokémon), and pitched it to Nintendo.

Did you know?

Satoshi Tajiri loved bugs so much when he was younger, he wanted to be an entomologist - a person who studies bugs - and his passion earned him the nickname 'Dr Bug' from his friends.

Nintendo was a bit unsure about Pocket Monsters at first, but eventually accepted it, and Satoshi spent the next six years working with legendary game maker Shigeru Miyamoto (the man behind Mario and The Legend of Zelda) to make Pocket Monsters a reality.

On 27 February 1996, Pocket Monsters was released in a Red and Green version for the Gameboy, in Japan.

The games were on a cartridge, and players could trade Pokémon using a cable to connect to each other's Gameboy.

Did you know?

In the Japanese Pokémon games and TV series, the main character is called Satoshi, and his rival is named Shigeru as a tribute to Satoshi Tajiri and Shigeru Miyamoto.

The games went on to sell millions of copies, and were released in the US in 1998, and the UK a year later, as a Red and Blue version (instead of Green).

The name was also shortened from Pocket Monsters to Pokémon.

Since then, eight more generations of Pokémon games have been released, from Gold and Silver, to Ruby and Sapphire, Diamond and Pearl, Black and White, X and Y, Sun and Moon, Sword and Shield and most recently Scarlet and Violet.

With each new generation more Pokémon joined the games, in fact there are now more than 1,000 different species of Pokémon! (So it's going to take a long time to Catch 'Em All!)

As of March 2025, the Pokémon games have sold more than 489 million copies worldwide - making it the fourth best-selling video game franchise of all time, just behind the Mario and Tetris franchises.

Did you know?

There are nine different regions to explore in the Pokémon world: Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos, Alola, Galar and Paldea.

After the success of the first games, a company called Media Factory created the Pokémon Trading Card Game (or TCG for short).

The first set of cards was released on October 20, 1996, containing 102 cards, with drawings by Ken Sugimori, Mitsuhiro Arita and Keiji Kinebuchi.

The cards soon became very popular, and three years later in 1999, they were introduced to North America by Wizards of the Coast and, shortly after, to the rest of the world.

Pokémon card tournaments sprang up, where players could battle it out, and there is now even a world championship tournament.

Since then, more than 30 billion cards have been printed, and some people will even pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for some of the more rare cards.

Did you know?

The most expensive Pokémon trading card to be sold at auction is the "Pikachu Illustrator" card, which sold for $900,000 (£662,634), in 2022.

It is popular with collectors because it was designed by Atsuko Nishida, who is credited as the original creator of Pikachu.

The ultra-rare card was not sold but was instead given away as a prize in a 1998 illustration competition.

In 1997 Pokémon was turned into an animated TV series in Japan.

It followed the story of a boy named Satoshi (named after Satoshi Tajiri himself), as he set off on a journey to try to become a Pokémon master with his companion, Pikachu.

When the series was released worldwide, the producers changed Satoshi's name to Ash Ketchum.

Since then, there have been 25 seasons of Pokémon, following Ash and Pikachu's journey, and more than 1,000 episodes of the show!

In 2019 Ash finally beat the Alola Pokémon League, to became a Pokémon Master in the Sun and Moon series.

In 2023 the show said goodbye to Ash and Pikachu, and hello to new characters Liko and Roy in the new animated series Pokémon Horizons.

Did you know?

Pikachu gets its name from: 'Pika' the sound Japanese people say an electric spark makes, and 'chu' the sound a mouse makes.

A year after the first TV series dropped, a movie hit cinemas in Japan.

The film, called Pocket Monsters the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back, followed trainer Ash Ketchum and his friends as they are invited to a mysterious island where they meet the powerful Pokémon Mewtwo.

The film was a huge success and was released worldwide a year later.

Since then 23 animated films have been made, and one live action movie, Detective Pikachu which starred Ryan Reynolds.

In 2016 a pretty big game landed on our phones and made waves around the world upon its release: Pokémon GO.

The mobile game was pretty ground-breaking, as it allowed players to walk around and explore their neighbourhood in the real world, using satellite and Augmented Reality (AR) technology to make it seem like the Pokémon players could see on their phone screens, were there in real life.

Pokémon GO smashed download records on its release, and has since been downloaded more than a billion times!

In 2018 Nintendo released a remake of the Pokémon Red and Blue and Yellow games in the form of Let's Go Eevee and Pikachu.

The game broke records in its first week of release, and sparked a new wave of Pokémon remakes, including Pokémon Snap and Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.

The Pokémon Company has also made spin-off games like Pokémon Legends Arceus, and Pokémon Legends: Z-A - which take place in the Pokémon world but are not part of the mainline series.

Fans are curious to see if a new mainline game will be announced as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations.