Hello everyone,
So some may know me or not and seen or not my previous topic.
Since i collect many aspects of pokemon and not only TCG. I decided to make review for the different corocoro issues mostly the vintage issues 1996-2001.
My love for collecting pokemon stuff unrelated to TCG was always there.
I always loved collecting other stuff like the manga, guide books and such, graded and ungraded.
book guides are really cool and magazines too IMO specially those more unfimilar ones. Me growing up in israel, we barely had any pokemon magazines or game magazines in the country like nintendo power and such. and most magazines were boring with teenager subjects.
This i guess made me appreciate more the books/guides/magazines not to mention specially these days there are almost no game guides and such.
My Corocoro collection interest started when i first time saw one for sale in ebay (one of the older issues).
I saw these book magazines called corocoro which were only in japan. the magazines themselves are pretty thick and heavy. it usually has an appendix and some extra like stickers, pokemon TCG intact to the appendix and unpeeled which some of are very rare these days specially if you find the book with the card attached.
usually the first half of the book is filled with information on new stuff, new games, what games in japan are in what place that time, advertisments and such.
Corocoro started way back in the 80’s but ofc pokemon would not depict in it until 1996. unfourtently i will not go by order completely as i do not own all issues yet. so i will go by the first issue that i have first the earlierst.
so when i saw the corocoro comic i knew i had to start a collection, knew i had to preserve the information for myself and a lot of intresting artwork information and extras that you get from these magazines.
back then it was the only way to get some really rare unique cards including jumbo cards and cards that only people like @smpratte have these days from various contests.
at the start it was also the only way to get a legit mew or pokemon blue japanese which was to be subbed to the magazine and doing some extra steps.
I must say that some issues won’t have that much and not be that intresting while others will. I am also a horriable editor and i tend to sometime jump from subject to subject but will try my best.
so with the prelogue done lets get it going.
The first issue we are going to look at today is 15th april of 1996
this one just the second time that pokemon was mentioned in corocoro magazine.
we can see in a photo i took here on this page that pokemon was ranked 5th at the time of the magazine as pokemon started to pick up more motion and steam.
First Place: Super Mario RPG
Second Place: Dragon Quest VI
Third Place: Super Donkey Kong 2 (Donkey Kong Country 2)
Fourth Place: Rockman X3 (Mega Man X3)
Fifth Place: Pocket Monsters
Sixth Place: Super Momotarou Dentetsu DX
Seventh Place: Virtua Fighter
Eighth Place: Derby Stallion 96
Ninth Place: Bahamut Lagoon
Tenth Place: Kirby’s Block Ball
The text beneath the ranks there says “Which one do you want, Red or Green?” It then stated that the game received 2,509 votes that month.
The big story in this issue, however, was the official reveal of the mirage pokemon Mew. In the January 2016 issue of Switch. series producer Ishihara Tsunekazu was asked when he realized that Pocket Monsters was actually becoming a big hit. He talks about the games causing a shortage of Game Boy Link Cables for a minute before going on to talk about Mew: “In addition, there were all these rumors that were spreading but only through word-of-mouth. But then once media outlets like CoroCoro Comics started writing about them then everybody started to talk about how there seems to be a mythical pokemon named Mew. That moment, when these urban legends started to spread more and more, is when we realized that it had become a hit.”
Also in this issue, we can see the information firstly received first time about how to get mew back then.
So the text is writen over two pages and says “We’re giving away the 151st pokemon in Pocket Monsters!” Here’s what the rest of the text on that first page says:
Purple arrow: Its name is Mew!!
In reality, this pokemon is the newest species of pokemon recently discovered by Ohkido Hakase. And you won’t believe this, but you CoroCoro Comics readers out there will be able to get your hands on one!
The green text bubble beside Ohkido Hakase:
“I’m also shocked! To find out that a monster like this exists is a huge discovery. But even if you get really excited and search your own game cart for one you won’t be able to find it. Oh, what’s that? You want one for yourself? Well, I’ll give one out only to you CoroCoro Comics readers!”
The purple text under Mew:
Mew’s Profile
Name: Mew, Species: New Kind of Pokemon
This is an extinct pokemon. It has a high intelligence and can remember anything.
Yellow box at the bottom:
What’s that!? This mythical pokemon will be given away to 20 lucky CoroCoro readers!!
The top half of the second page says that it’s impossible to capture Mew but “hey, here are three pokemon that you can capture that can be kind of tricky! Those three are Kabigon, Strike, and Lucky.”
The bottom half explains how you can enter the Mew contest :
Those of you who want the mythical 151st pokemon Mew should write the following on a postcard
1 Address 2 Name 3 What grade you’re in 4 Telephone Number 5 The name of your favorite pokemon and why 6 The name of your least favorite pokemon and why and then send it to the address on the left. Twenty lucky winners will receive a Mew of their very own! The application deadline is May 4th and the winners will be announced in the July issue of this magazine. Winners will be sent detailed instructions on how to send their game carts to Ohkido Hakase.
That is it for this time feel free to comment and the next issue may be next friday I guess.
Have a good day.
