As the celebration of the 30th anniversary of Pokémon continues, there continues to be more and more interesting content covering the early history of Pokémon.
Most people think they know where Pokémon began — maybe it was the Saturday morning cartoon, the Base Set trading cards, or Ash’s first steps out of Pallet Town. But the real story stretches back much further. A new deep-dive video from the CardBound Project reconstructs the forgotten timeline of early Pokémon history, exploring the obscure magazines, manga, toys, cards, and collectibles that quietly shaped the franchise before it became a global phenomenon. The timeline covers everything released before 1997 in full, then narrows to key milestones from 1997 through to the release of the English Base Set — focusing on the evolution of the manga and the earliest English-language items, rather than getting lost in the sheer volume of releases during that explosive period.
This video is part of CardBound, a feature-length documentary following a collector’s search to uncover the true origins of the Pokémon Trading Card Game. The video features many of the early art and media from the early era of Pokemon and a timeline of this content.
Clocking in at 28 minutes, it’s packed with three years’ worth of archival research covering rare Japanese magazines, proto-merchandise, and promotional artifacts most fans have never seen. A few highlights to whet your appetite:
- Game Freak started as a hand-stapled fanzine — and without the modest success of their 1989 NES game Quinty, Pokémon Red & Green might never have been greenlit.
- The Space World ’95 flyers listed a late 1995 release date, showing just how close Pokémon came to launching in a completely different era.
- CoroCoro’s legendary Mew giveaway (just 20 winners!) is what single-handedly turned playground rumors into a nationwide craze.
- Shadowless cards actually predate the English 1st Edition — the 1998 Wizards of the Coast demo packs prove it.
