On this day, February 27, 1996, two little games, Pocket Monsters Red and Pocket Monsters Green, launched in Japan and changed the world forever.
Thirty years later, what started as a childhood dream in Satoshi Tajiri’s imagination has grown into one of the most beloved franchises on the planet. From the original 151 to over 1,000 species, from the Game Boy to Switch 2, from the schoolyard to the big screen — Pokémon has been there for generations of fans through every chapter of their lives.
Whether you remember blowing into a cartridge, trading cards at lunch, or screaming when your phone buzzed with a rare spawn in Pokémon Go, Pokémon has a way of meeting you exactly where you are. Thank you for all of the wonderful memories and looking forward to what the next decades brings.
Here’s to 30 years of adventure, friendship, and the reminder that the journey matters just as much as the destination.
The authenticity of the Pokémon TCG’s highly sought-after “prototype cards” are now under scrutiny. Last year, hundreds of these prototypes, claimed to be from the personal collection of Takumi Akabane—an original creator of the Pokémon TCG who worked at Creatures until 2008—began circulating in collecting circles. Akabane even attended events to sign some of the cards, and grading company CGC collaborated with him to verify their authenticity.
These prototypes, said to date back to 1996, showcase the TCG’s evolution from early “proof of concept” designs featuring Red & Green sprites to beta versions with final artwork by Mitsuhiro Arita and Ken Sugimori. However, the collecting community was recently shaken when pfm, a buyer of the cards, used forensic analysis to reveal that many were printed in 2024. This includes cards CGC authenticated as part of Akabane’s collection.
Hidden watermarks and dot code matrices on the cards, such as a prototype Nidoqueen, indicate a June 29, 2024, printing date. Other collectors have since confirmed similar findings.
It remains unclear whether some or all of the cards are fake, or if an original print run exists. Akabane’s involvement is also uncertain, though it seems unlikely he would knowingly participate in wrongdoing, given Pokémon’s strict IP protections. Millions of dollars’ worth of these cards have been sold, including a prototype Pikachu that fetched $20,000 at auction.
CGC is currently conducting an investigation. Though their reputation had already been on precarious footing after the comic slabbing scandal from last year. It also calls into question the role of grading companies if they aren’t even conducting this level of research to authenticate such expensive and rare cards.
You can also read the article from CGC where they first start to detail their process authenticating these playtest cards and there are some photos of the cards.
This video does a great job detailing the scandal and also gives some of the visual history of the early playtesting Pokemon TCG cards.
The official Pokemon Youtube channel also posted a video sharing more information about the new heroes that will lead the show after Ash.
There’s a lot of other coverage of this in detail though I thought I’d just commemorate this given the nostalgia tinged flavour of this site in general. Quite an interesting bittersweet feeling about the end of this “era” and it does bring back a lot of fond memories. I haven’t kept up with the anime for years though can’t help but feel like I should at least catch this chapter.
Welcome back everyone. I felt nostalgic recently and decided to revive my first website. Originally we were hosted on Angelfire and the original webpage is still online. We were originally named Pokemon Universe before eventually being renamed Mount Moon Pokemon Center and having that shortened to Mount Moon.
I originally started the webpage back in 1998 after Red and Blue was released in North America and it was my first webpage. I learned HTML the same time I started the webpage and wished I still had copies of the old webpage. The internet archive manages to preserve some of the old webpages though I’ve lost a lot of the old code. I miss all of the marquees, midis and animated gifs that dominated the internet at the time.
I remain a Pokemon fan to this day and it will always have a place in my heart. Given the 25th anniversary is coming up, I thought I’d dust off and create the Mount Moon page again. Let me know if you’re looking for any sort of interesting content and looking forward to having you all visit again soon.
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