in the world of Pokémon There are objects that are decisive to progress in the adventure, being the poke balls the most essential in the saga, since they are in charge of containing the Pokémon inside them to take them out to fight. However, its creation was not by magic and it has its reason for existence.
In Pokémon Legends: Arceus we could see that a very different type of Poké Ball was used in the Hisui region than what we are used to seeing in general. These were characterized by being made of wood and by releasing a cloud of steam when capturing a Pokémon, but also by being the first to exist in all of history, or at least that is the impression that the game gave when talking about them as a recent invention.
However, what about modern Poké Balls? When were they invented? Although there is no answer that is clearly the official one, the anime series is the one that has tried to give us a closer answer to these questions. For that you have to take a look at the book. Pocket Monsters: The Animation which was published in Japan in 1997 and was written by Takeshi Shudō, the main scriptwriter of the original series.
It said that modern Poké Balls were created in 1925 after the so-called Professor Nishinomori tried to perform a series of experiments on his Primeape in order to extract the energy of his anger. More than anything because in the novel it was mentioned that the trainers suffered very serious injuries and sometimes died from the wild Pokémon, Primeape being the most dangerous of all.
During the tests it is seen that he must have miscalculated the doses of drugs that he administered to his Pokémon, weakening it too much, to the point that it generated in him a survival instinct that led him to take refuge and curl up in a kind of capsule. That’s when the teacher came up with the idea of inventing some easy-to-capture capsules for Pokémon.
Over time, after many revisions, what we currently know as Poké Balls was created, or at least that is what the book in question says that we must not forget that it is official material. Also, as a curiosity, Professor Nishimori’s name is a combination of Nishi and Mori, which mean west and forestrespectively.
The combination of these English words, west and wood, results in Westwoodwhich is precisely the name of the professor who appears in the anime series in the episode “The Evolution Solution”, considered one of the most talented for being the creator of the Pokédex and for devoting himself to researching the evolution of Pokémon.
Even so, Nishimori’s name was a tribute to Kōji Nishino y Ken Sugimori, two of the most responsible in the development of the legendary editions Pokémon Red and Green (Blue in the West). But the important thing is to know a little more history about the origin of the Poké Ball and how many different models have emerged from them, such as the Veloz Ball, Weight Ball, Mesh Ball, etc.
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