Game Freak's Masuda and Sugimori detail their Pokemon Company origins, discuss Pokemon popularity

A portion of an ONM interview with Game Freak’s Ken Sugimori and Junichi Masuda…

ONM: Let’s start at the beginning. Could you tell us how you both came to be working for the Pokémon Company? We’d also like to know which is your favourite Pokémon from Black and White!

Junichi Masuda: I am a board member and director of game developing. I started to work on Pokémon from the very first game - Red and Blue. I was the director for Pokémon Black and White. I was engaged in the battle sound as well as composing for the videogame. My favourite Pokémon is Victini.

Ken Sugimori: I’m also a board member as well as art director. As you may know, Mr Tajiri is the founder of Game Freak and I was a friend of Mr Tajiri when we were students. We played videogames together and that’s how we started the company. For Black and White I was art director. I was in charge of supervising the graphic designers to create Pokémon. And I drew all the official art for Pokémon. My favourite is Zekrom.

ONM: Why do you think people like Pokémon as much as they do?

Ken Sugimori: It’s easy to understand and diverse. The characters which are now used in the TV shows or movies are based on the characters for the videogame. [Depending on its] feature, ability or shape, if you look at that Pokémon you get an idea of what kind of Pokémon it is.

It could be colour. If it’s green, it’s something related to grass. And that’s what’s easy to understand.

There are more than 500 Pokémon right now. They’re not created by one person. They’re actually created by more than 30 people. Each one has a personal feeling or attachment to the specific Pokémon he or she created.

There are a mixture of cool Pokémon and cute Pokémon. That makes it easy for the audience to pick their favourite Pokémon. [There are] always some Pokémon you like. That’s the reason it’s very popular and the reason it’s liked all over the world.