Satoshi Tajiri Manga Reveals A Treasure Trove Of Unreleased Pokemon

This week, a book on Pokemon creator Satoshi Tajiri’s life and the creation of Game Freak was released in Japan.

Although there were many claims made in the past on how internal documentation of Pokemon Red and Green never existed or were lost to time, the Satoshi Tajiri manga contains a panel on what appears to be an internal poll of Pokemon created during development:

As you can see, some of the Pokemon shown in the manga never saw the day of light, while others made the cut. In the final version of Pokemon Red and Green, unused Pokemon on that sheet turned into a Missingno:

054 Magneton (obscured)
055 Koffing (semi-obscured)
056 Deer
057 Mankey (obscured)
058 Seel (obscured)
059 Diglett
060 Tauros (obscured)
061 —-ro (obscured)
062 Crocky
063 Unused (obscured)
064 Farfetch’d (named -kepaan instead of Kamonegi)
065 Venonat
066 Dragonite (obscured)
067 Cactus (semi-obscured)
068 Jagg

And here are the internal poll results of “popular Pokemon” voted by employees of Game Freak at that time:

1. Exeggutor: 23 votes
2. Chansey: 17 votes
3. Clefairy: 14 votes
4. –muraa (may be Hitmonlee): 11 votes
5. —kii (may be Machoke, Machoke using Machamp’s name, or Mankey, ): 10 votes
6. –kara (may be Cubone): 9 votes
7. —-n: 8 votes
8. —-mo (may be Poliwag): 8 votes
9. —-ma (may be Exeggcute): 7 votes
10. —–: 7 votes
11-20. Unknown (Tanegla and Grimer are circled and likely placed in here)
21. Voltorb: 3 votes
22. Lickitung: 3 Votes
23. “Magnemite” (This may actually be Magneton, its spot on the left sheet is circled): 3 votes
24. Cactus: 3 votes
25. Kadabra: 3 votes
26. “Hypno” (This may be Drowzee, Hypno is much further down the index list): 2 votes
27. Nidoking (named MaikoM, like the Game Center CX interview revealed): 2 votes
28. “Buu” (no idea): 1 vote
29. “Perunta(A)” (no idea): 1 vote
30. Scyther: 1 vote
31. Diglett: 1 vote (poor Morimoto)

Interested to learn more? You can now import the Satoshi Tajiri manga from Amazon Japan here.