Pokémon

is a media franchise owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri around 1995. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video game, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video game-based media franchise in the world, behind only Nintendo's Mario series. Pokémon properties have since been merchandised into anime, manga, trading cards, toys, books, and other media. The franchise celebrated its tenth anniversary on 27 February, 2006, and as of 1 December, 2006, cumulative sold units of the video games (including home console versions, such as the "Pikachu" Nintendo 64) have reached more than 155 million copies.The name Pokémon is the romanized contraction of the Japanese brand, , as such contractions are very common in Japan. The term "Pokémon", in addition to referring to the Pokémon franchise itself, also collectively refers to the 493 fictional species that have made appearances in Pokémon media as of...