Gotta Catch These 24 Facts About Pokémon
Gotta catch 'em all!
In the summer of 2016, Pokémon Go took the world by storm. In what felt like the blink of an eye, public parks and streets became epicentres of a weird and unexpected cultural event, all powered by 90s kids and the nostalgia that grew out of playing with pokémon again. With Pokémon Red and Blue hitting North American shelves in 1998, the phenomenon was an instant hit, and grew to include many more video games on top of trading cards, TV shows, movies and more merchandise than you can shake a stick at. So whether you're a pokémon master already or if you're just taking the first steps out of Pallet Town, read on for 24 facts about pokémon, from Abra to Zubat.
1. Real Life Prize Fighters
There's a reason Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan are considered "prize fighting Pokémon". The two fighting types get their names from martial arts icons Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.
2. Almost Legendary
In the original games, Arcanine was meant to be a legendary pokémon, along with Zapdos and Articuno, but the game designers thought that it might be confusing two have two birds and a dog as the legendary trio.
They ended up adding Moltres to the game and making Arcanine a regular 'mon. Good thing they did too, or maybe we wouldn't have the #1 best doggo, Growlithe.
3. Anatomy Lesson
It should come as no surprise to anyone that many pokémon are based on real-life animals, but maybe you didn't know just how accurate the designers were being. Poliwag, Poliwhirl and Poliwrath are all based on tadpoles; They each have a spiral on their stomach because it's meant to resemble the intestines that are visible though a tadpole's translucent stomach.
4. Catchy Name
Despite the game's Japanese origins, the name "pokémon" does indeed come from the English words "pocket" and "monster". It's an example of something called wasei-eigo, which means "Japanese-made English" and involves the creation of new Japanese words out of existing English ones. Some other examples are donmai which means "I don't mind" and romansugurei, which come from the English words "romance" and "grey" and means a handsome, older man—a silver fox.
