POKEMON DESIGNER Satoshi Tajiri PAIGE V POLINSKY Checkerboard Library An Imprint of Abdo Publishing abdopublishing com
Chapter 1 Dr Bug In 1996 the Nintendo company released a popular new video game called Pokémon It allowed players to collect and battle monsters The game became an instant hit It soon launched a gaming revolution Pokémon shaped millions of childhoods Today it is still wildly popular with gamers of all ages And it all began with a young bug collector named Satoshi Tajiri Satoshi Tajiri was born on August 28 1965 in Tokyo Japan His father was a car salesman and his mother was a homemaker The Tajiris lived in Machida a town near Tokyo As a child Satoshi spent much of his time hunting bugs in forests near the Tama River He carefully studied each insect he found Because of this hobby Satoshi’s friends called him Dr Bug Satoshi also loved television and comics He watched anime and read manga comic books As Satoshi grew older he stopped hunting insects Instead Satoshi began arcade games playing fun fact Tajiri has said that if he didn’t become a game creator he would have worked in the anime industry 4
Satoshi particularly enjoyed catching stag beetles He would place large rocks under trees Later he would lift the rocks to find stag beetles beneath them After high school Satoshi went to college But he often skipped classes to go to the arcade After college Satoshi’s father tried to get him a job as an electrical repairman But Satoshi wasn’t interested His parents began to lose hope in his future They did not know that their son would soon develop one of the most successful video games in history 5
