[Main Page] The Lore of Pokémon

27 min readApr 19, 2024

Pokémon needs no introduction. Starting in 1996 with the first pair of role-playing games developed by Game Freak, the franchise soon grew with multiple videogames, animated series, movies, manga, trading card games, books, and many more. At some point in their life, any kid born from the 90s onwards came across Satoshi Tajiri’s creation in one form or another. Large part of Pokémon success comes from the simplicity of its premise: the world is inhabited by mysterious and powerful creatures; you, as a Pokémon Trainer, can catch these “pocket monsters” in special capsules, level them up battling with other Trainers as you travel across the map, and slowly make your way to the top of the league and become the very best. Add the iconicity of the monsters’ designs and you have a perfect recipe for success. Due to the inherent straightforwardness of this formula, most people who approached the franchise through the main games never even consider the existence of a larger narrative. This certainly is a fair approach to the series; while more modern games have started to put more focus on storytelling, gameplay does remain the main priority through which Pokémon expresses its identity. Yet denying the existence of a narrative substratum would also be disingenuous, and developers have undeniably put a certain level of care in depicting the Pokémon World as a coherent setting — if the result has always been convincing is another matter entirely. You can argue you’d have to be insane to invest time and effort to analyze in depth a decades-long running franchise with the legitimate doubt the same amount of both wasn’t put by developers in the first place. You would be right. But here insanity is at home, and we’re going to do it regardless. First, we have to premise our methodology.

On textual storytelling

As obvious as it may sound, the first step to understand a story is to read through it. As your typical JRPG series, Pokémon heavily relies on written text to deliver its world and its themes to the players; our role is simply to listen what the games are telling us, making sure to take in account every given bit of information so that we can look at the whole picture the creative team wanted to paint. Sounds easy enough, but even with the best intentions it’s not difficult to corner ourselves in interpretative dead ends.

Localization

Pokémon games are originally written in Japanese, by Japanese people, for a Japanese audience. The phenomenon obviously exploded worldwide in no time, and to these days the titles are officially translated in many languages. In virtue of its popularity, the franchise was always characterized by a history of high-quality localizations. For the English side specifically, the work was supervised by Nintendo of America since the very first iterations, going by the testimony of Nob Ogasawara, who took the role of official translator from Red and Blue up until Platinum. Like for Korean and Chinese, the English script is based directly on the original Japanese; the situation for other languages in the West has changed through the course of years — interviews from the teams and contextual evidences make clear the first games were adapted from the English manuscript, while more modern titles seem to rest somewhere in between. The Spanish, Italian, French, and German versions had the help of the original developers at least in more recent iterations, as even The Pokémon Company official website states outright. This is apparent just looking at the text. The Old Verses from Legends: Arceus from most of these languages are occasionally closer to Japanese than English; some Pokémon cries when displayed in written format can be more similar to the original than the anglophone take. Yet some key details evidently remain to be based on the English script — for instance, Koraidon’s ability references orichalcum in all Western languages, while this connotation is absent in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. In other words, communication between various teams across the world has been strengthened in the last decade, and it’s not an oddity to notice some overlapping when confronting different versions of the same passage.

That being said, it’s in the nature of localizations to give the audience a mirror in which the original product is reflected; but even the best of mirrors comes with its own small distortions. For instance, the names of Pokémon, moves, abilities, items, characters, locations, were all changed and adapted for a public of English speakers. This is only natural for a product targeted towards a younger audience, who would surely struggle to remember and pronounce obstruse eastern words; but it is still worth to check how the original played out to see if something interesting was lost in the process. For example, before the introduction of in-game sprites for items made this apparent, you could’ve learned Repels functioned as spray cans as they are actually “repellent sprays” [むしよけスプレー]. Protein is more specifically “Taurine” [タウリン], and all other vitamins have their own particular composition. Some names were also changed completely to be more accessible from a cultural standpoint. Cleanse Tag and Spell Tag are both “ofuda” [おふだ], traditional Shinto and Buddhist talismans imbued with the power of deities or other revered figures. These are only examples, Pokémon and Japanese culture are highly intertwined, and we can often trace back some aspects of the narrative to folklore, myths, and even pop-culture which is hard to grasp for a foreigner.

Targeting the games specifically to children also made occasional censorship of sensitive themes necessary — at least according to those in charge. Explicitly religious motives are often hidden in the English version, replacing concepts like “God” [神] with more generic “higher powers”. In Generation I, Buddhist shrines [ぶつだん] you can find inside common houses were replaced with Diglett sculptures. The same process is applied to other sensitive topics. A Veteran in Diamond and Pearl’s Victory Road originally comments how both Pokémon and humans eventually die, a connotation that was restored in English only with Platinum. The old man blocking the path across Viridian City never needed a coffee, he was simply drunk. Commentaries on sexuality get either toned down or cut outright. Sinnoh Folk Story 3 originally reveals how people and Pokémon used to join in marriage, while localization simply states they ate at the same table. A Beauty in Pokémon X and Y Battle Mansion comments her transition from a Black Belt — a purely male Trainer Class — with the Japanese adding this was possible through modern science. Regardless of the adequacy of these censorships, they are undeniably something to take notice of while attempting to decode the narrative.

Then there are issues more intrinsic to a Japanese-to-English translation. Japanese is often ambiguous when it comes to number and gender of nouns, and it’s always possible for the localizers to either misinterpret a text without the proper in-game context, or forced to chose a certain path that was otherwise meant to be ambiguous. Mewtwo’s Red and Blue Pokédex entry claims it was cloned by “a scientist”, while the journals in Pokémon Mansion seem to suggest more people were involved in the process. The Japanese never explicitly suggest a plurality in the first place. Checking the original text may also be useful to dissipate ambiguities on the English behalf, as kanji tend to be read more straight-forwardly especially for nouns. Puns and wordplays will obviously be lost in the process too; while the English cleverly tries to keep the joke with a similar sounding name, Old Gateau [もりのヨウカン] is actually pronounced the same as the “forest manor” [もりのようかん] where we can obtain the delicacy. The gaming nature of the products also introduces the impediment of character limitation, as English words are usually longer than Japanese and the physical space to insert the translation may be limited. This is why, according to Nob Ogasawara, the Russian branch of Silph Co. was moved from Ponaya Tunguska [ポナヤツングスカ] to the shorter Tiksi. With the franchise spanning for decades, some terms that were originally adapted one way may change in later iterations, making it hard to grasp a possible connection. Finally, there may be genuine mistakes or instances where the text simply diverges too much from the original due to the localizers’ personal inclinations. If we trade a Raichu with a man in Cinnabar Island, the English for Red and Blue will have the Trainer comments the Mouse Pokémon has evolved; but this is only because the text is based on the Japanese Blue version, in which we trade a Kadabra instead. On the other hand, Legends: Arceus suffers of a form of over-embellishment of some descriptions and dialogues on the English side, that often makes their reading far more cryptic and ambiguous than initially intended.

Hearsay and exaggeration

While playing the games and advancing through the story, you may start to question the authenticity of what you’re learning. Consider the following scenario: you are tasked with a specific mission from a certain Professor; you never meet them in person, but exchange multiple messages either via videocall or phone. At last, it comes the time for you two to stand face to face, and… they reveal they never were the real Professor, but a sophisticated AI with their semblances! Was the writing flawed because they originally claimed to be the genuine article? Of course not! The character simply lied, and this led to an impactful twist. Pokémon games lack an omniscient narrator, and even most descriptions are written by people contextual to the world. But does this mean everything should be discredited as hearsay? Not in the slightest.

Unreliable narration should never be a justification to ignore given evidences. On the contrary, it’s a narrative tool that — when used correctly — enhance the understanding of a setting rather than making it foggier. Look again at the previous example: the “lie” is made obvious by the game itself, you don’t need to hypothesize the writing is at fault. Hiding the truth was a temporary expedient, but that same truth is made obvious later. Imagine finding an old record from a lost civilization, in which is claimed a neighboring, hostile kingdom was actually ruled by a monster masked as a human. The text goes so in detail in describing the atrocities perpetrated by this demon that it becomes impossible to sympathize with him. What would this tell us? Without a doubt, that such ruler was perceived as evil by said civilization. On the other hand, dehumanize the enemy is commonality among conflicting faction, and the overabundance of information makes you wonder if some of these feats weren’t exaggerated for propagandistic motives. Through a piece of evidence written by a flawed source, we can infer with a good degree of clarity not only information on the object, but even on the writer.

When framing this in the context of a story, it becomes apparent the problem of unreliability is ultimately a non-factor. When the narrative wants to be ambiguous, it is the duty of the writer to make it clear to the audience. Never the other way around. If the games don’t provide sufficient clues to doubt a certain line, we have no reason to raise our eyebrows. This is why formulas like “it is said”, or “according to” can often be disregarded as flavor text. At best [or at worst, depending on your perspective], they leave open the possibility for developers to actually frame pre-established canon as hearsay, if they change their minds in successive iterations — but even then, they may be unrequired. For example, Archen was originally said to be the ancestor of all birds. At the time the description was written, we had no reason to believe this was false information, and was likely written with all the intent to be true. More recently, the same assertion is said to be challenged by “modern researches”. The narrative has evolved with the writers’ intentions, and the unreliability of the narration serves as a basis to make the new version substantiated avoiding a more abrupt retcon. It’s again a tool to strengthen the worldbuilding, not to undermining it.

Naturally this doesn’t mean everything should be taken literally. Figurative speech is an inherent part of the language, and it would be absurd to deny its interpretative layers. A character who has “lost his heart” is not a zombie devoid of a working blood pump. Two lovers vowing to “be together forever” are not secretly scheming to reach immortality. Pokémon is not immune to metaphoric talks. In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, the Fossil Maniac claims Steven had to “cross three seas” [３つの海を越えて] to reach Kalos from Hoenn, but the way this is worded is clearly idiomatic. Some localizations like the Italian one even adapted the line with their own local expressions. Considering the same games also stress out the regions are at swimming distance from each other, the man is simply speaking hyperbolically. On the same topic, characters may describe certain situations based on their personal sensibilities. Kalos is a place “far” from Hoenn according to Mr. Stone, but who’s to say what “far” means to an old Japanese man? Even Cianwood City is “far” from Olivine City to the locals that never crossed the sea. Some may say Feebas is an “ugly” Pokémon, but beauty may just be in the eyes of the beholder. It is always important to discern reasonable biases from deliberate lies, and adjust our understanding of the world accordingly.

Typos, contradictions, retcons

Pokémon games are written by human beings, and as such their scripts are fallible. It is not a shock to find sporadic typos in the text, although more apparent in the localized versions. Capital letters may skip, some plural may not be standardized to Pokémon naming convention, punctuation could be missing. There is no reason to panic at errors, even when they may affect the titles more directly. In Scarlet and Violet code, Shiinotic is listed as a Mythical Pokémon. This, however, is not to take at face value, as it’s a simple mistake from the developers’ side: they confused the mushroom マシェード [Mashēdo] with the similar Gloomdweller Pokémon マーシャドー [Māshadō]. Similarly, in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl a Psychic on Route 228 uses a Banette with Shadow Force. We have no reason to believe the doll to be Giratina in disguise, the move was simply mistaken for the similar Phantom Force.

The line dividing a mistake from an intended ambiguity becomes fine when facing certain narrative inconsistencies. Some of these are internal to a single pair of games. Magneton is said to evolve by the combination of three Magnemite, yet its weight is ten times a single specimen. While you may attempt a reconciliation, this is likely a leftover from the time in development this evolutive line had a middle stage. Movepools are also not always consistent with the Pokémon physiology. Many Pokémon with beaks can’t learn Peck. Even without visible hands Wooper can learn punch moves. Despite the Pokédex claims Vullaby is unable to fly, it can learn the homonymous move. The examples are endless. With almost a thousand of different attacks to the current roster, such contradictions are only natural, and overthinking too much their raison d’être would be pointless.

Then there are inconsistencies emerging between titles. The most apparent is arguably Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire recontextualization of Mega Evolution being featured in Hoenn, while they were outright stated to be exclusively present in Kalos, all while the remakes heavily hint to serve as prequels to X and Y. Retcons are a commonality in a long-running franchise like Pokémon, especially when the authors behind the world are subject to change. To avoid the cumulation of these discrepancies, developers have historically “switched” the continuity the games are set in when they felt a massive retelling was needed. This occurred especially between Generation II and Generation III, when it was starting to sink in the idea to separate the Pokémon World from our Earth; and from Generation V and Generation VI, where the Multiverse was formalized as a narrative tool and Mega Evolution was introduced as a discriminant. Yet, these processes are far from perfect. Remnants of the “Old Canon” established by Satoshi Tajiri were still evident up to Black and White, with the occasional mentioning of real-world locations and animals both in reused and new entries in post-retcon iterations. Similarly, X and Y were hardly conceived to diverge from the previous generation as Hoenn’s remake made apparent, with the games resulting in an inconvenient limbo impossible to really fit in any given continuity without contradicting the other.

Regardless, not all inconsistencies have to be developers’ fault. Sometimes there is enough room to harmonize two conflictual information without vexing the established narrative too much. Lunatone were originally said to be discovered 40 years ago, with the entry carrying even in more modern titles. Yet we see the Pokémon in depictions of the Kalos War, 3000 years ago. Bridging the gap between the two assertions, we can simply conclude this is a case of Lazarus taxon: the species was known to the ancient world, but the population decreased to a point of disappearing from the records, only to remerge in more modern times. Another example is the exact nature of Ghost Pokémon. The games suggest multiple times representatives of this Type are, at least in part, souls of the dead linked to the material plane. Yet, they can apparently reproduce like living organisms. Maybe breeding for ethereal beings is more similar to a summoning, but we can only wonder. Such “plot holes” are quite recurring in a franchise that doesn’t want to explain everything to its players, and as long as common sense allows it, try to fill the gaps is part of the fun.

On environmental storytelling

Contrary to conventional literature, videogames are also a visual medium, and it would be obtuse to overlook its implication in storytelling. Let’s say our avatar is walking down the dark allies of a big metropolis. At some point, we come across a wall with a visible writing painted in red: “James was her-”. The text ends abruptly, with the spray taking a turn to the right from the last letter as to rapidly sketch the missing “e”. It takes some steps ahead to find a jacket stuck on a metal fence: one of its sleeves is tainted in red dye. The implication is obvious: someone signing himself as “James” was smearing the wall; as he was about to be caught, he run away leaving the work unfinished; and in the rush to jump over the metal fence, he inadvertently left behind its jacket. We were not there to see the events unfolding, nor we found written sources confirming the stunt, but we have no need to: the environment spoke for us.

Someone may advocate against these sorts of claims due to their unverifiability. The reconstruction seems surely plausible, but what if we are missing key evidences? Maybe the culprit and the jacket just happened to be in the same area but are ultimately unrelated. Maybe James really wanted to conclude the message with a “her” instead of “here”. Maybe this is actually the work of a serial killer and the graffiti is written in blood. These are counterpoints that could work in the real world, where such claims can be verified and eventually disproven or confirmed, but they are ultimately pretentious in the context of a manufactured setting. Unless the intention is to purposefully confound the audience, a narration has to offer all the key details to be properly read. The jacket wasn’t placed near the written wall by unaccountable causality, but by human beings crafting their own fictional scenario: posit a connection would only be common sense, and if we aren’t given a reason to add more layers to the implied narrative, we shall not.

So, while we can reasonably hold written information in best regard due to their clarity, environmental storytelling must be taken in account to get the full picture. Pokémon is no exception. Architectural consistency may not always follow a precise and technical set of rules, but if we find ancient ruins with an identical style, we may imagine a connection between the sites. If a castle is sinking down the sands of an arid desert it’s reasonable to think the facility saw better days, rather than be constructed partially below ground. Enemy and item placement is another powerful tool in the hands of a good writer. If a place is infested by ghosts, we have to wonder where the connection to the occult comes from: maybe it’s a cemetery, or maybe once inhabited remains of a dead town. Similarly, we can expect to loot a Rare Bone near a burial site, or Berries near cultivated fields. Stopping at what the games say out loud is to miss a good chunk of valuable information deliberately added by developers; but we should also not exaggerate in the other direction.

The gameplay problem

Videogames are games before stories. As such, the ludic component of the products can’t and shouldn’t be ignored when analyzing their narrative. In order to offer a fun experience, compromises on the storytelling’s behalf are all but uncommon. For instance, a JRPG requires a certain structure: both teams have to wait their turn in order to act, but this obviously doesn’t mean Pokémon stand on their feet waiting to be hit by their opponent until the right time comes. The mathematical component of fights is also mostly detached from the worldbuilding. While there may be some credibility in looking at individual stats to understand a Pokémon’s generalities — a slow monster will more likely have low Speed, one strong in dealing physical damage will have a high Attack, and so on — comparing them inter-species often breaks the boundaries of ludo-narrative dissonance. Pyukumuku is surely a defensive Pokémon, but in-lore it would likely struggle in a resistance competition against God. Dugtrio is undoubtedly quick, but can it really outrun a Mega Rayquaza? When looking at the whole picture, it’s best to take these and many other oddities as the simple consequence of game balancing, rather than reliable sources for power scaling.

Decisions based on gameplay are made equally to hinder or to facilitate exploration. While some titles made the obstacles bigger and more realistic, trees and rocks to move through Hidden Machines are often placed with no much consideration for context. Sometimes you may feel there could be ways to pass the barrier without going through the tedious process of wasting a move slot, other instances unrealistically block a path that should be frequently taken by other people too. The reason HMs can’t be simply forgotten by the Pokémon without a specific process also doesn’t seem to hold ground in the narrative, similarly to limitations on nicknaming traded specimens — concepts ultimately dropped in later iterations. In the end, these are simply obstacles added to give players a sense of progression. On the other hand, realism is often sacrificed to avoid needless limitations. A Magcargo can hardly survive underwater, but we can still send it to battle while diving with Sub. While secondary media try to explain this, Pokémon floating in the air during sky soaring in Hoenn is hardly meant to be look at seriously. The space in our bag is seemingly infinite, even storing large objects like bicycles — while some have proposed digitalization may come into play, the organization in multiple, realistic pockets as seen in many in-game menus seems to put this more in the field of unnecessary rationalizations. Occasionally we could meet Trainers with Pokémon that evolved below the required level, or that use moves they should not be able to learn, but this simply diversifies enemy variety while keeping the difficulty to a reasonable middle ground.

Some gameplay simplifications even affected the function of certain items — the Exp. Share is the obvious example. Even evolutive methods have adapted to a leaner system. Leaf Stones and Ice Stones didn’t work on Eevee since Generation VIII, but now they can be used to evolve it in Leafeon a Glaceon respectively. Similarly, Pokémon once evolving through magnetic fields now react to the Thunder Stone. Since Scarlet and Violet, Incenses aren’t needed to hatch Baby Pokémon anymore. From a worldbuilding perspective, nothing really occurred for these items to suddenly work on species previously unaffected, or to not work while previously vital. These are simply developers’ choices to simplify an always growing net of relations — not dissimilar from movepool changing from game to game, with some moves even being cut altogether in recent titles.

Artistic liberties

While searching for clues of environmental storytelling, you may start to notice some oddities. For instance, even the biggest city is no more than a desolate hamlet if we look at square surface and number of citizens. This, of course, is another case of narrative being trumped over by necessity. Especially in older titles, the space you could physically represent on screen was limited, and this naturally leads to a process of stylization. We can see and visit only a limited number of houses of a settlement, but this doesn’t necessarily mean these are the only present in town. With a bit of imagination, a bunch of pixels can become a real village, with streets and neighborhoods brimming with life. Implementing a more realistic scenario would be a waste of resources and time from the developers’ side, so it’s not a surprise everything is reduced to its essentials.

Through the tool of artistic license, the creative team can recontextualize some aspects of the world without burdening both the code with unnecessary data and the player with endless exploration. The same process is roughly applied to enemy and item placement. Some Pokémon may be present in a certain area to stress a thematic connection, even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense from an internal perspective. Let’s say we find a bunch of Gallade stationed at the gates of an ancient temple: we can reasonably infer the evoked image is that of guards from an age of yore, even if their presence in modern times would probably be improbable due to their own mortality. Similarly, modern items can occasionally be found in ancient sites, without being explicitly addressed as OOPArts. Dragonspiral Tower’s inner layout was inaccessible until the events of Black and White, yet we can loot medicines like Hyper Potions and Revives inside. Rather than the actual items, we should ask ourselves what their presence may denote here. If the intention is to highlight how medical procedures [be it through actual substances or religious blessings] were performed inside the shrine, then it would be pointless to create separate items just for this purpose: the healing tools we already have at hands equally convey the same idea, while also offering a useful gameplay reward.

This recontextualization is more evident while looking at Technical Machines. While these are man-made items, they are often found in the wilds holding moves strictly tied to the environment. No one actually put a Sunny Day at the end of the Scorched Slab, but the grotto’s connections to Heatran makes it the perfect den for such a move to be stored. Granite Cave and its dark layout naturally hides a Shadow Claw. And so on. Looking at these objects asking what they may signify more than how they got there may reveal much of the world around us.

On character-based storytelling

Least but not last, psychology also plays a crucial role in storytelling. We can infer much from written sources, and even more from the broader environment, but what about the people moving in said setting? What are the forces driving one action or the other? A basic investigation of the human mind can deepen our understanding of the characters, and by extension of the consequences brought by their choices on the setting. This doesn’t mean you require a degree in the field to understand a story. Especially in gameplay-driven games, characters can be usually reduced to few components they thematically represent. Giovanni is a stereotypical mafia boss, ruthlessly scheming on everyone’s back to his benefit alone. Oak is the embodiment of the good scientist, who devoted his life to research and is now ready to pass the torch to the new generation. There can obviously be nuances, but they usually stem from that single core at the character’s foundation — either strengthening established traits, or purposefully subverting them. Because of this, we can at least attempt to fill eventual gaps in the narrative with a good understanding of the characters’ fundamentals. If we meet a young boy who considers an older figure as a “father” while not related by blood, it’s legit to infer his real father is either deceased or missing. From there we can search for contextual clues and investigate on the parent’s whereabouts. Psychological analysis can reveal to be a useful tool in the audience’s hands, but we also must be careful in how we employ it. Misunderstanding a character’s core is an easy misstep, and can lead to a dangerous snowball effect. In the same way, ignore the characters’ thematic purpose often ends in implausible interpretation. “This character is secretly evil” and variations are fan favorites, but the reality is a secret has not only to be substantiated by evidence, but also be reasonable from the internal perspective of characters. As always, common sense is the general rule to go by.

On levels of canon

A final word to the general approach this series of analysis will take in regard to canonicity. We will consider primary source of information all main-series games developed by Game Freak, with the addition of outsourced remakes like Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl which explicitly connects to the narrative while staying consistent with the overall setting conceived by the main team. That being said, the matter can become tricky when it comes to spin-offs. Games like Colosseum or the Ranger series directly connect to the main entries, while others like Masters have the writing explicitly going under close scrutiny by Game Freak. Generally speaking, developers of these side projects usually seem to be in contact with the main team to avoid depictions of the Pokémon World too divergent from the established canon. To exactly determine where external guidelines were followed Vs. more creative freedom was allowed, however, would be playing Russian roulette — unless it is made clear in the main titles, or from the developers themselves. For this reason, the general approach will be to ignore the spin-offs’ settings while analyzing the main series — while we will look back at them in their own individual analysis, in the attempt to get a better grasp of the “expanded” worldbuilding they can offer.

External media generally follow similar rules when it comes to the setting’s fidelity, although more explicitly set in different continuities that the games. With franchise’s increasing popularity, both anime and manga most successful adaptations have became more and more acquainted with Game Freak’s vision, up until the formation of production committees overseeing the movies’ scenario writing. This, of course, caused a partial loss of creative liberties in those products, but also helped to reconcile for the better the basic rules one must follow to work with the franchise. This occasionally resulted in different canons overlapping with each other, to a point secondary media ended up influencing the games. This is particularly true for the anime — both with its main series and with more faithful retellings and expansions — a list of all the references that made it to the main scenario has been compiled here. To lesser extent, this is also true for the Pokémon Adventures manga and for the Training Card Game. The former is where the Eterna City statue’s design in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl originated from, and Blue using a Machamp in HeartGold and SoulSilver could as well be a reference to his printed counterpart. The latter’s artworks were used as the basis of numerous paintings in Lumiose Museum in Pokémon X and Y. In short, while it is true we must always separate the primary source of information from the derivative, we should also not ignore developers don’t work in a vacuum, and due to their close relation, they can easily be influenced by secondary creative works.

External sources and authorial intent

On the sources’ hierarchy, we must also factor interviews with developers and other complementary material. Unless there’s a concrete reason to argue otherwise, the approach will be to ignore information solely featured in Official Strategy Guides, activity books, and any other piece of licensed media. While official products, this type of merchandise often prove to be unreliable and full of trivial mistakes, making any more in-depth claim questionable at best. If Game Freak doesn’t work directly on such products, or if their collaboration in the writing isn’t made explicit, then we can simply disregard their oddities as unrevised error and misconceptions on the authors’ behalf. A different case is that of official websites. From both the Japanese and the English sites, main titles are often given their own sub-addresses, updated with contextual information on the new region, characters, and Pokémon during the pre-release period. These are valuable sources delivered through an official account, and even if not everything ends up in the published games we can still reasonably consider them valid to our understanding of the setting. The same can be said for other official social media like Youtube and X — the former even publishing extended narrative videos for some of the Pokémon from Scarlet and Violet.

Then we have developers’ interviews and other similar assertions. It’s not weird for authors to deliver supplementary information to their work more directly, but you may ask how much weight one should give to authorial intent if not conveyed by the story itself. While this is a tricky topic and we surely won’t try to put an end to the academic conundrum here among all places, the approach that will be used during this analysis will rest in middle ground. Interviews can reveal much on the creative process behind a game, and we can use these secondary data to drive our investigations. But they remain secondary, apocrypha to the canonical Bible represented by the games. Even if something was meant to be true at some point in the minds of developers, it won’t necessarily hold up as such in later iterations — especially with a long-lasting franchise like Pokémon, that has seen many different directors and will see many more in the years to come. So, we must always carefully ponder our position on each singular external assertion, and integrate them in the analysis only if coherent with the actual scenario.

Finally, there is everything that serves as inspiration external to the franchise. Cultural aspects from Japan and from the rest of the planet visibly shape the world of Pokémon in every aspect. Both mythology and real historical events are referenced multiple times through the games, and geography is usually a carbon copy of our own Earth — at least from a regional scale. Popular media the authors are acquainted with equally, and obviously, influence the creative process [nowhere this is more obvious than the similarities with the first Pokémon conceived by Satoshi Tajiri and Ultraseven’s Kaiju]. Yet, Masuda has clarified our world is just “similar” to its fictional counterpart, and trying to reduce everything to its proxy may be counterproductive. Indeed, while there are obvious overlaps in the settings’ specific history, even more are the spots where they diverge. Fictional stories can and should be accessible and comprehensible on their own, so resort too much on cultural subtexts may be useless, if not harmful to the narrative’s self-sustainability. Because of this, we will only notice possible inspirations to support and strengthen connections than can be drawn on their own, without delving in external media and folklore more than necessary.

Cut content

Cut content is cut for a reason. That is undeniably true, but said reason isn’t necessarily due to narrative incompatibility. There are instances where this is indeed the case: through the development process, it is only natural many ideas to be considered and eventually scrapped, and when it comes to monster collectors the monsters is where most of the creative process will be focused. As a result, many creatures conceptualized early in development never see the light of day, and we know plenty especially from the first two generations. While these Pokémon are obviously nonexistent in the current narrative, their former presence can still be used to explain some oddities in the commercialized titles. As addressed earlier, Magneton unusual weight may be a leftover from the times a middle-stage existed in the code. Likewise, Kanto has many Ground Pokémon like Sandshrew and Cubone because a desert was once an explorable area — when it was ultimately cut, they were displaced in more-or-less fitting locations, while a cactus Pokémon firstly showed in the manga “Satoshi Tajiri: The Man Who Created Pokémon” ended up scrapped altogether.

Rather than focusing on specific attempts to harmonize early versions of the draft with the final product, we should investigate the implications of the cut case by case. Sometimes, developers even play meta-jokes with the cutting room floor. For example, map data for an unused village settled on a lake’s shores have been found in the code of Gold and Silver, likely an early implementation of the Lake of Rage. When the city was scrapped, the story changed accordingly, and the area is now known to have had once a town, at some point ravaged by Gyarados. Unused items still present in the game files may as well be factored in the analysis. The Azure Flute was never officially distributed back in Generation IV, but the related Arceus event was later restored in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and the artifact played an even bigger role in Legends: Arceus. Similarly, Thousand Waves and Thousand Arrows were present in the code since X and Y, but made available only a generation later. At least as far as the game data are concerned, looking at remains from early stages of development may as well as give us hints to the overarching setting, and maybe to the franchise’s future.

On the articles

Finally, we come to the analysis. This tedious and long premise was necessary to drive our work from now on, serving as a solid foundation to build upon. This project is currently moving its first steps, and the topics to cover are still numerous and far to be completed. As for the reading order, past the general threads we decided to start with Generation IV. You may argue skipping the first three generations could be confusing, but Diamond and Pearl are the titles in which Pokémon introduced the most crucial aspects of its worldbuilding. It’s fitting, then, to examine the the world’s essentials first, only to look back at the franchise’s beginning afterwards.

An important note on the Japanese you’ll find in the articles. For the most important texts, you’ll find word-by-word translations from the original source. This isn’t meant in any way to diminish the work of the official localizers, and localization is indeed a different process entirely. Without the filter of English sensibility, we can look at a more faithful, albeit worst-sounding, version of the script. Sometimes this is helpful to highlight hidden connections that are harder to grasp in other languages. Other times, it just shows the localization was completely on point: if nothing else, it takes the doubt away! Translations provided here aren’t the work of a native speaker nor a professionist either, and while quality control will always be a priority, mistakes can always happen — if you spot any, notify it and it will be promptly adjusted.

The articles will be classified in different types. The “theses” are the larger analysis, where we explore in details the lore of a certain subject. The “interludes” are smaller threads still crucial to the general chronology. Finally, the “bits” are similarly short articles more disconnected to main setting. And with that, there’s nothing more to say, except wish you a good read.

General

Sinnoh and Hisui

Kanto

Johto

Hoenn

Unova

Kalos

Alola

Galar

Paldea

What’s next? During the course of 2024, the project will primarily focus on closing the ongoing analysis. Sinnoh/Hisui and Paldea have precedence, while the works for Kalos will start in the background until Legends: Z-A will be released. The intention will be then to continue advancing in parallel — one “backlog” region like Kanto in pair with the newest addition to the franchise, Kalos first, whatever comes after then.