What childhood hobby inspired Satoshi Tajiri’s original Pokémon concept?

Insect collecting inspired Satoshi Tajiri’s original Pokémon concept.

Tajiri collected insects as a child and exchanged them with friends. As urban development reduced the available spaces for finding bugs, he imagined a video game that could give children a similar feeling of discovering and collecting creatures. This childhood interest became one of the central ideas behind Pokémon.

The Game Boy’s link cable provided the technological spark. Tajiri imagined creatures moving between two connected handheld systems, allowing players to trade Pokémon rather than simply compete. That combination of collecting, discovery, and communication shaped the original game design.

The concept was developed by Game Freak and eventually became Pokémon Red and Green. Shigeru Miyamoto helped guide the project at Nintendo, while Ken Sugimori became a key artist and designer. The inspiration is sometimes simplified as “bugs,” but insect collecting is the more precise description of Tajiri’s childhood hobby. Pokémon later expanded far beyond insect-like creatures, while retaining the original themes of collecting and exchanging.