Who created the Pokémon franchise, inspired partly by childhood insect collecting?

Satoshi Tajiri created the Pokémon franchise, drawing partly on his childhood hobby of collecting insects.

Tajiri grew up in Machida, Tokyo, where he explored fields and ponds collecting insects. Friends reportedly nicknamed him “Dr. Bug,” and the experience later shaped his desire to recreate the excitement of finding, catching and exchanging creatures in a game. Urban development and the loss of natural spaces also influenced that idea.

He conceived Pokémon around 1990 after seeing the Game Boy’s ability to connect two systems with a link cable. Tajiri imagined players trading creatures between cartridges, turning a technical feature into the franchise’s defining collecting-and-trading concept. He developed the project through Game Freak, the company he founded with artist Ken Sugimori.

The first Pokémon games, Pocket Monsters Red and Green, were released in Japan in 1996 after roughly six years of development. Shigeru Miyamoto advised the project, but he did not create Pokémon; Junichi Masuda was a key Game Freak composer and developer, while Sugimori led much of the visual design.