Thirty years on, Pokémon is still a monster hit

The monsters are everywhere.

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Pokémon is the highest-grossing media franchise in the world, with total revenues of $150 billion.

A group of bushy-tailed Eevee frolic on the grass; a Diglett pokes its mole-like head out of the ground; grinning yellow Pikachu climb up trees. Visit PokéPark Kanto, the first permanent Pokémon theme park, which opened in Tokyo on February 5th, to catch more than 600 Pokémon (short for “pocket monsters”). Fans are thrilled: tickets for the park's first three months sold out immediately.

The enthusiasm reflects Pokémon’s cultural clout, three decades after its launch.

When the first Pokémon video games were released in Japan in February 1996, few executives expected it to become a global craze. Yet “Pokémania” quickly spread: today the Pokémon Company has sold nearly 500m video games and over 75bn trading cards, as well as broadcasting an anime series to around 190 countries.

Pokémon is the highest-grossing media franchise in the world, according to Guinness World Records, with total revenues of $150 billion—more than Star Wars or Marvel. Pokémon GO, an augmented-reality app, enjoys around 30m active monthly users. Top players battle it out in the annual Pokémon World Championships, and collectors pay monster sums to acquire trading cards. On February 16th a rare Pikachu card sold for a record-breaking $16m.