What inspired Pokémon?

Satoshi Tajiri told TIME (November 22, 1999) the whole origin in one image: as a boy in Machida, he collected insects so obsessively that the other children called him "Dr. Bug." In his own words: "Every time I found a new insect, it was mysterious to me. And the more I searched for insects, the more I found."

Then Tokyo paved the fields over. Tajiri's project became rebuilding that vanished feeling as a game: creatures to search for, find, and catalogue, in a world that always had one more species hiding in the grass.

The Game Boy's link cable completed the thought. Tajiri pictured living creatures, like his insects, travelling between machines to be traded, and the collecting instinct gained a social half: your friend's cartridge held the specimens your fields did not.