Beta Pokemon Revealed in 1997 Japanese Magazine

Written by Dr Lava, January 20 2019

Before we get to the meat of this article, I’ll quickly introduce Ken Sugimori for those who don’t know who he is. In the early 1980’s, Satoshi Tajiri (the future creator of Pokémon) was self-publishing a gaming fan magazine called Game Freak. Sugimori discovered an issue of the fanzine in a Japanese comic book shop and decided to reach out to Tajiri in order to offer his services as an artist.

Eventually, Tajiri and Sugimori transformed their gaming fanzine into a video game development company. Fast forward a few years and Game Freak is developing the very first Pokemon games, with Sugimori acting as lead artist and monster designer. I think you know the rest of the story.

Although he didn’t design every Gen 1 Pokemon, it was Sugimori who finalized all their designs and created their iconic watercolor artwork. His art style is quite distinct, and fans of the early games in the series still long for a return to his iconic watercolor art style.

1997 Sugimori Interview

In April 1997 — about seven months before Gold & Silver’s now-famous demo was exhibited at Spaceworld ’97 — a Japanese magazine called MicroGroup Game Review conducted an interview with Sugimori. As something of a gift to MicroGroup Game Review, Sugimori contributed some never-seen-before monster designs for the magazine to feature on its cover. These three monsters were drawn just for this magazine, and weren’t intended for inclusion in Generation 2 — not at first anyway.

Here’s a couple interview excerpts translated into English: 

MicroGroup: Tell us about the concept behind your recent work. [Dr Lava’s note: this question is referring to the art featured on the magazine’s cover.]

Sugimori: I’ve tried to create some original characters using the Pokemon worldview, in which everyday people co-exist with cool and cute monsters. It’s another world… like Pokemon, but not Pokemon.

MicroGroup: Where did you get the ideas for those designs?

Sugimori: From an unflinching reconsideration and reexamination of my own past designs, no matter how embarrassing, no matter how much I feel like yelling, “Whoa! This is BAD!”

[A big thanks to Plague Von Karma by the way, whose translation and commentary on this topic were invaluable in the writing of this article.]

Initially non-canon

In other words, these two trainers and three monsters aren’t going to be in any future Pokémon games, and they shouldn’t be considered canon.

Indeed, neither trainer was ever seen again. But one of those monsters is clearly Tyrannitar, and the spinning top monster looks like he ended up as Hitmontop, although the design shown here seems to have more of a feline influence. As you can see in the photo above, Hitmontop’s 1997 demo sprite appears to be the middle stage between these two designs. The turtle isn’t as clear-cut as the other two monsters, but it does bear some resemblance to Tirtouga, and may have been a precursor to his appearance in Gen 5.

So although these 3 illustrations were initially non-canon, it seems they ended up blossoming into future Pokemon down the road — particularly Tyrannitar, who looks almost identical on this magazine cover as how he appeared in Gold and Silver more than two years later.

It’s also possible Tyrannitar was a redesign of Gyaoon, a Pokemon that was created during Gen 1’s development, but didn’t end up making the final cut. If you’re not familiar with Gyaoon, you should check out my YouTube video about Gen 1’s cut content, which covers ten lost Pokemon.

Reconsidering past designs

The possibility that Tyrannitar is a redesigned Gyaoon, and that Tirtouga and Hitmontop are redesigns of the other two Pokémon featured on this magazine cover, would make sense when looking at Sugimori’s above quote: that he’s always reconsidering past designs and improving them, rethinking them. So yes, when this interview was conducted, these were not considered Pokemon, or even beta Pokemon designs. But really, they were. Eventually.

I know, it’s confusing. The complexity of this one drawing has caused a lot of disagreements among Pokemon fans over the past 20+ years. Some fans consider them beta Pokemon, while others say they’re just non-canon Sugimori art drawn as a one-off, as he described. If you want to know my opinion, I’d have to say yes, the turtle and the spinning top should be counted among the long list of unused monster designs. And the third monster is nearly identical to Tyrannitar, and should be classified as such.

Related Articles:

• Ken Sugimori reveals origins of Gen 5 Pokemon designs

• Sugimori: several hundred Pokemon created for Gen 2, most got cut

• All 1004 sprites from Gold & Silver’s 1997 demo, high-res