Pokemon was originally created by Satoshi Tajiri, a Japanese designer of video games. According to Tajiri, the idea for Pokemon was itself inspired by the Game Boy series. He created the new game in 1996 and at first it was released as a pair of Game Boy games, part of Game Freak of which Tajiri was the co-founder. It is sold and marketed by Nintendo and is the world's top selling franchise of its kind in the world apart from Mario, Super Mario etc, which is also part of Nintendo. The name Pokemon comes from the phrase pocket monsters'.
Satoshi Tajiri, who will be 48 this year, has been a fan of games ever since he started playing arcade games as a teenager. He started Game Freak as a fanzine while still in his teens, and has been in the world of entertainment and video games ever since.
You can connect with Satoshi Tajiri on Facebook.