When there are multiple people working on a project such as a video game — sometimes many multiples of people — it's often that fans attribute the hard work to the most prominent designer or director they can think of. Even with individual aspects, such as music, art, level design, and the many other elements that make up the video game whole, there are usually one or two prominent names in each department that stick in people's minds who tend to get credited with the whole shebang. It's a mistake many of us make from time to time!
This is often the case with Pokémon designs. The two most famous designers in the franchise are Ken Sugimori and James Turner. Many tend to attribute a lot of early pocket monster designs to the former, while Turner is often at the forefront of adorable creature art in the modern games. But with such a wide variety of designs, and over 900 Pokémon just catch and marvel over, there's simply no way just two people come up with every one of these fabulous creations! And yes, we're counting Trubbish and Garbodor under the "fabulous creations" umbrella here.
One fan is looking to change this perception, though. Known as Altruis on Bulbapedia, they're compiling a list of Pokémon per generation, based on their designers. With the Pokédex as large as it is, that sounds like a Heracross-ulean task, especially with many of the older titles like Pokémon Red and Blue and Pokémon Gold and Silver as it's much harder to source the original artists.
To ensure the information they're uploading is correct, Altrius is only using sources such as official interviews conducted with the artists, or by reaching out and asking directly. With more recent titles, however, a lot of designers often share their creations and joy via social media, such as freelance artist Yusuke Kozaki, who came up with the rocking, electrifying Toxtricity from Pokémon Sword and Shield.
One of the biggest discoveries is that the person responsible for the rosy-cheeked Pikachu's design — Atsuko Nishida — is, in fact, responsible for a ton of fan-favourites, such as the original starter trio, Zorua, and many of the Eeveelutions.
You can keep checking back at the list as more and more information is uncovered, and details about the artists, the Pokémon, and their designers, are added. But we think this is a fantastic resource that shines a light on the unsung heroes of the Pokémon franchise. Some people might never have found their favourite pocket monsters without these designs. We wonder who'll be designing the new Pokémon we're bound to encounter in the upcoming Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.
Share with us your favourite Pokémon designs down in the comments below!
[source bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net, via automaton-media.com]
Comments 11
I feel like this is a problem with the Super Smash Bros. games as well. Everyone thanks Sakurai for everything with it, but there’s hundreds of others who bring his vision to life.
Forget James Turner! SnS designs were bleh. Sugimori forever! Crazy to think more ppl know about Turner than these legends below!
Atsuko Nishida
Motofumi Fujiwara
Muneo Saitō
Kagemaru Himeno
Satoshi Ohta
Rena Yoshikawa
Shigeki Morimoto
Hironobu Yoshida
To find them is my real test, to credit is my cause!
I am very glad James Turner is so well known now. He’s always been one of the best designers they have and he’s really worked magic since becoming art director and ensures that pokémon designs don’t get stuck in the past and keep moving forward with creative ideas. That said, all of these designers deserve to be just as well known, im really happy somebody is trying to put together a comprehensive list. A lot of the best pokémon of every generation arent designed by the main art directors.
I absolutely love Pokemon designers. Seeing how they interpret the setting of the region into a design that has both many different inspirations whilst also looking cohesive, cute/cool and, above all else, interesting is so good.
A few of my personal favourites are Hironobu Yoshida (Wobbuffet, Rayquaza, Jirachi), Megumi Mizutani (Hisuian Growlithe/Arcanine and Mimikyu) and Hitoshi Ariga (Aegislash, Gen 6 and 8 Fossils, Vikavolt), that last one of which also being one of my favourite artists period, I LOVE ARIGA.
@Handy_Man Happens in every piece of media, actually. The Director or Producer if any project (film, music, gaming) get like 99% of the credit, when in truth most modern media projects involves hundreds of people.
Even your small indie-games or retro ports have a credits lists with dozens of names sometimes, but people tend to only remember the Developer, Publisher, and maybe the creative director or producer.
This is nice but one thing I'd like to know is who designed the Battle Tower in Shining Pearl and Brilliant Diamond? I swear this is the dirtiest most rigged version of the Battle Tower/Maison/Tree whatever I have ever played in the entire series. Sorry for going off topic a bit but good God whoever designed this deserves a live wire shoved up their backside tied to a chair.
@RubyCarbuncle That's really harsh. But alright.
@Handy_Man finally, someone said it. Sakurai is great no doubt but he's not a one man army.
@Olmectron You know I don't actually mean this right? it's just frustration talking lol but seriously how the hell is an unevolved Pokèmon with lower speed able to act first over a perfect IV fully EV trained Jolteon when its held item was Focus Sash plus it wasn't even using a priority move either. Unless I'm missing something then the game is 100% rigged to favour the A.I creating artificial difficulty and nothing else.
This is really rad, long over due. One thing that I've always wondered is what did people call Pokémon before the advent of pockets?
Tap here to load 11 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...