What real-world hobby inspired Satoshi Tajiri to create Pokémon?

Insect collecting inspired Satoshi Tajiri to create Pokémon.

As a child in Japan, Tajiri enjoyed searching for and catching insects. He later connected that collecting instinct with the Game Boy's Link Cable, imagining creatures that could be exchanged between players. That combination became the foundation for Pokémon's central loop of finding, collecting, and trading.

The idea was not simply to make a catalog of monsters. Tajiri wanted the handheld system to reproduce the excitement of discovering creatures in nature while giving players a way to share those discoveries with friends.

The inspiration is sometimes reduced to “bugs,” but insect collecting is the more precise description of the hobby. Pokémon eventually expanded far beyond insect-like designs, incorporating animals, plants, minerals, myths, and other imaginative sources.