Satoshi Tajiri free essay sample

Asian Art History Satoshi Tajiri Contemporary Artist Project Satoshi Tajiri was born on august 18th 1965 in Tokyo Japan. His father was a Nissan car salesman in his home town of Machida. His name is known by few, yet most people in my generation have bought his products and watched his show without knowing who the man behind the idea was. As a young boy who lived in the rural town of Machida, Satoshi grew to love manga, anime, fantasy series, arcade games, but mostly bugs. He would go outside for hours on end and collect insects to learn their anatomy.His friends gave him the nickname â€Å"Mr. Bug†. This would inspire him in works as an adult. In his teenage years he started to write his own fan journal on video games called â€Å"Game Freak†. In Japan at the time there were no magazines on videogames. The first issues were hand written and interwoven stapled together in Satoshi’s bedroom. We will write a custom essay sample on Satoshi Tajiri or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The journal revealed the â€Å"secrets† of computer games. His love of gaming got in the way of his school work and he almost did not graduate from school. Tajiri once bought a Famicom and took it completely disassembled it to understand how it worked.His father wanted him to work at The Tokyo Electric Power Company, but he did not agree with his dad. Instead he went on to receive a technical degree in electronics from the Tokyo National College of Technology. Satoshi and his editorial team always dreamt of making better video games. This is where things got serious. He learned the new Family BASIC programing language released by Nintendo. Satoshi’s magazine evolved into the game development company by the same name of Game Freak in 1989. His team won a contest held by Sega for best game idea in their concept of the game â€Å"Quinity†.The game was later published by Namco. Then the Gameboy was introduced as a handheld gaming system which would revolutionize the industry. With the addition of link cables two people could play a game together on two different devices. Satoshi then got his greatest idea imagining bugs crawling back and forth from Gameboy to Gameboy. This is where his massive imagination came into play and he thought of pocket monsters or Pokemon. He soon pitched his new game idea to Nintendo, and because of his experience with programing on The Legend of Zelda, they decided to green light his game. Shigeru Miyamoto (the creator of great games such as Mario, Donkey Kong, and Star Fox met Satoshi when he helped with Zelda) became a personal mentor to Satoshi during the creation of Pokemon. The games (Red and Green version, Blue version came later) were so large with so many different characters and creatures it took six years to complete and nearly bankrupted Game Freak. Satoshi never took a salary during the creation and lived with his father because finances were so tight. If not for an investment from a company called Creatures Inc. he games would never have been completed. He agreed to give Creatures Inc. one third of the franchise rights. Pokemon ended up being one of the most successful game series ever made with gross revenue at 41760000 dollars since 1996. I remember playing the Pokemon games nonstop, collecting the trading cards, and watching the show religiously afterschool. One fond memory of mine was on a road trip to Traverse City when I first beat the game. I was super excited and jumping round, and my whole family was just at a loss why I was going crazy in the back of our van.I’m pretty sure most people my age all remember the huge Pokemon invasion in the late 1990s. Thinking now, I probably almost bankrupted my parents with all the toys and games that I just had to have. Sometimes flipping through the channels on TV, I’ll catch a few minutes of my old favorite cartoon which has changed so much in recent years with the addition of what seems like a million new creatures. It’s easy to see why I would choose an artist who had so much influence on my childhood. Satoshi Tajiri was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome as a child.Asperger’s syndrome is a form of autism in which is characterized by the great focus in one thing (like Satoshi’s love of insects and video games) but causes other things to be neglected (like his school work). This form of autism causes social problems which is why he is not as famous as other game designers. Repetition of certain things like in obsessive compulsive disorder is also common with Aspergers. Tajiri prefers to work for 24 hours straight rather than normal 8 hour shifts. All in all, I feel that more people should know who created and what inspired such a great game and show.