Unused Pokemon Appear in New Manga

An educational manga released in Japan revealed four previously unseen “rejected” Pokemon.

Shogakukan released a new educational manga about Satoshi Tajiri, the video game designer who conceived the Pokemon franchise. Created by Tstuomu Tanaka and Hideyuki Kikuta, the manga is a fascinating look into the early days of Game Freak and the Pokemon world.

Game Freak employee James Turner (a designer responsible for Pokemon like Poipole and Buzzwole) posted some pages from the new manga on his Twitter account, which revealed four previously unseen Pokemon concepts for Pokemon Red and Green. These Pokemon didn’t make the cut, but it’s still great to see a few Pokemon that “could have been” for the first time ever.

The four new Pokemon include the deer-esque Pokemon “Diaa” (#56), the crocodile Pokemon “Kurokki” (#62), a cactus Pokemon named “Kakutasu” (#67) and a shark-like Pokemon named Jaggu (#68).

While these four Pokemon didn’t make the cut, they might have still made an impact on later Pokemon designs. We saw a walking cactus Pokemon in the form of Cacnea and Cacturne, and Sharpedo eventually appeared in the franchise as a shark Pokemon.

Pokemon fans loved seeing the unrevealed Pokemon, and a few artists even used the sprite art as inspiration for some more fleshed out Pokemon designs.

These aren’t the first scrapped Pokemon to appear online. We’ve seen concept art for kaiju-like Pokemon called Godzillante, a gorilla Pokemon named Gorillaimo. A few Pokemon like the seal-like Kurusu and the bear-type Honoguma even made it into the beta version of games before they were scrapped. There was even a Pokemon based on the cloned sheep Dolly that was rejected as being “too controversial.”

With a return to Pokemon’s roots likely, maybe one or more of these rejected Pokemon will find new life in the upcoming Pokemon games. It’s a coincidence that the manga was released during the peak of Pokemon rumor season, but maybe Kurokki or one of these other proto-Pokemon will breath life into the planned Pokemon: Let’s Go games set in the Kanto region.