Manga About Pokemon Creator Shows Unused Pokemon

Well, it's been quite a week. Since my last post here, I and others assembled a super group of translators, coders, nerds, people who know random trivia about the franchise, nerds, magnification wizards, you name it. We got the manga, scanned everything in, and were able to unearth quite a lot of information that was missed with the twitter posts. Also, of course, HIGHER RESOLUTION IMAGES THAN PHONE PICTURES ON TWITTER:

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(Please note that in the actual manga, these images are super small. We're talking less than 5cm for every table).

Here's what we've got out of the four panels used for the internal poll. Black has no edits made (other than splices), opaque grey is the final sprite overlayed over a damaged sprite, and opaque teal is where we believe a Pokemon would be based on surrounding data. We've also included names found on the individual votes and placed them on the chart with the same color rules. Now for hopefully the last time I have to do this... individual bios for everything here! Deleted or massively changed Pokemon are bolded:

(Once again, the index order so you can follow along and the unused cries so you can listen along)

Block 1: The leftmost block is... probably the strangest. Nothing really follows any sort of order here.

39 Tangela: Tangela is largely the same as the final, but is 7 slots off from where it should be in the index order. Tangela won a place on the poll.
?? A Pinsir: Only able to be identified via its foot and raised arm, Pinsir appears to have a different name than its final name (Kairos). We believe it could be "Yairos", but the text is too distorted to be read.
?? B: This Pokemon is entirely cut off and could literally be anything.
35 Blastoise: Named Caravaggio like in the Capsule Monsters pitch, Blastoise also appears nearly identical and 7 slots removed from its current place in the index order like Tangela.
?? C Scyther: Scyther is identical, but unfortunately its number is cut off.
?? D "O": An unused Pokemon, no sprites match up with it and it's crossed off as to tell people not to vote for it.
29 Gastly: It's a bit difficult to make out, but Gastly does have a mouth here. Has Haunter's Japanese name "Ghost" (Gastly is "Ghos").
?? E Gengar: Identical to the final, number is too blurry and it's a single digit.
?? F NidoranM: Nidoran's sprite is identical, but like Gengar the number is blurred and a single digit. Note that the name looks like "HadoranM", but the name Nidoran was mentioned in Capsule Monsters. It's very blurry so we can't tell.
7 Voltorb: It's Voltorb. It's one slot off from where it should be. It won a place. Let's put its eyes in terrible photoshops of new Pokemon to celebrate!
?? G: Gyaoon: Gyaoon is interesting. Its name is the onomatopoeia for Godzilla's roar and it has elements that later went to Nidorino, Charizard, Gyarados, Tyranitar... you name it. It showed up with the first 17 Pokemon with an entirely different design, and here you can see they scratched out "(a)su", which means its name was "Gyarth" at some point. Was probably cut for not standing out enough compared to the other four Pokemon it looks like.
?? H Grimer: Grimer finally got its trademark goofy mouth since the Capsule Monsters version, other than that it's the same.
17 Omuomu: Clearly Spearow, but the reason this one is crossed out may be because this design replaced the Sugimori Bird. Might also be crossed out because Cubone took slot 17 in the final and is on this poll in an unseen space. The name appears to be a joke about omelettes.
18 Gagars: A strange slot. Slot 18 in the final is home to Rhyhorn and this same sprite of Rhydon without its horn was seen in the 1990 image, however Rhydon was known as "Rock" in Capsule Monsters. This may have been a placeholder for Rhyhorn while they worked on its sprite.
13 Lickitung: Same as the final and it won despite being a nightmare creature.

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Block 2: This block had to be heavily reconstructed as it was about 2cm tall and tilted in the manga. We were able to line up some of the final sprites with the dots, but not all of them had matches. Mostly in order with some slots flipped by one place.

38 Graveler: Swapped with Kadabra most likely. The sprite itself was printed very dark so we overlayed Graveler's final sprite to give it more definition.
39 Kadabra: The only indication that it was on here is that the name was voted for and the comment mentioned a spoon. Probably stayed similar design-wise.
40 Chansey: Won 2nd place on the poll. The manga provided the final sprite for it on the same page so it's unclear if it had the same one at this point or that was what was given to the author.
41 Machoke: Seems to be the same pose and visible enough to not have to edit it.
42 ???: This may be Mr. Mime, but the sprite doesn't match the dots at all. There's a "Baririina" on the poll which would imply a Ballerina... so maybe Mr. Mime (Bariyaado/Barrierd) had a different career choice at this point in development.
43 Hitmonlee: It's mentioned in the voting a lot and would seem to fit here.
44 Hitmonchan: The sprite is mostly the same, but the boxing gloves don't have forced perspective like in the final. If they had kept it like this it probably would have prevented... certain comparisons.
45 Arbok: This was quite a mystery, but the faded dots lined up perfectly with Arbok's final sprite.
46 Fungus: Mentioned in the votes and commented that it looked like a hermit crab... it's most likely Parasect. I misread this earlier as "Fansesu" due to how blurry the first image was.
47 Psyduck: Named "Ducky" in the votes. Design stayed the same and was instantly recognizable even missing about 80% of it.
48 Drowzee: Another miraculous reconstruction from dots. Hypno's name appears in the votes so I assume this is another case like Gastly.
49 ???: If something were to be here, it would be Golem.
50 Magmar: Same sprite as the final, but one space off from where it should be. It may be connected to the name "Buu", but the name is too long on the panel itself and seems more like it was named "Buubaa" like in the final.
51 ???: No idea, unfortunately someone's hand covers it up completely in the manga.
52 Electabuzz: Somehow, the 5 minuscule inkblots managed to line up perfectly with dark spots on Electabuzz's final sprite. It would be off by one slot like Magmar was.

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Block 3: Block 3 is by far the most bountiful of the four we have. Several early designs, names, and cut Pokemon are on this one and it was the first to be posted last week. Of note here are several sprites that are marked with a triangle and none of those sprites or Pokemon are in the final game. I guess it meant "needs improvement or we're cutting it".

54 Magneton: Mostly the same sprite as the final, but strangely has Magnemite's name (Coil, instead of Rarecoil)
55 Koffing: Missing the hand-smoke from its final sprite and has even more of a... pleased? expression.
56 Deer (Deiaa): Deer was not long for this world unfortunately. Elements may have gone into several Pokemon later though, some even decades away.
57 Mankey: The sprite actually looked better here, no idea why they changed it.
58 Seel: Oh boy, where to begin. Seel went through quite the makeover in the final game. It appears to be more of a realistic seal with several spots all over the top of its back, but then it reaches the head and just goes off the rails. The head is very similar to Slakoth with Chia Pet hair and has some serious wall-eye going on. Possibly had a beard or Shellder-like face with tusks and a big, human-like nose. I actually kinda like this version of Seel better, it looks more like something that would only know how to Headbutt other creatures at the start.
59 Diglett: The last place winner of the poll and has a circle mark next to it. I guess somebody really liked it.
60 ???: Slot 60 would be Tauros and I see no reason why it wouldn't be considering how accurate this has been to the index order. Also of note, Mankey, Diglett, and Tauros were designed by Shigeki Morimoto, so Tauros being close by would make sense.
61 ???: It's very hard to make out the last character in this Pokemon's name, but it may be Ro or Ko. A hulking bipedal Elephant, was likely cut for being too similar to Nidoking. Damn shame if you ask me.
62 Crocky (Kurokki): A bug-eyed, hunchbacked, bipedal crocodile with hair that says "Marty we gotta go to 2015". I hope it returns someday.
63 ???: Covered up in both shots sadly. We'll likely never know what this was until a Game Freak employee accidentally posts a picture of this chart while showing off napkins or something.
64 Farfetch'd: Mostly the same, except for the name (Kamonegi in the final). We tried for over an hour to decipher what this name could have been or meant to no avail, could be Kekupaan or Okupaan going by the handwriting on other Pokemon.
65 Venonat: A much bigger sprite.
66 ???: Very likely Dragonite. Such a shame that we couldn't see this earlier sprite as it could look quite different.
67 Cactus: A weird cactus creature with sharp needles protruding in every direction, a tail, and what may be eyes or eyebrows on the bottom sphere. This Pokemon's cry actually survived in the final game, sounding very similar to Togepi's in Gold and Silver.
68 Jagg: Possibly a goblin shark with big eyes and incredibly sharp teeth in a style very alien to Pokemon. We wouldn't have a shark Pokemon for years after it was cut and never one so ferocious.

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Block 4: The final block on the right has one very strange oddity at the end of it, that being a numberless Kangaskhan at the end of a row that's filled with MissingNo. in the final game. It may be that Kangaskhan didn't fit on another sheet and they moved it to an empty row here. Other than that, it follows the index order very closely like Block 3, but has one weird swap like Block 2.

70 ???: This may be Poliwag considering Doduo is in Poliwag's slot. We used the sprite posted to Game Freak's website years ago for accuracy to the times.
71 Doduo: A massive sprite and appears to have a single-feather version of Dodrio's tail. Looks a little bit more menacing like Dodrio too, you can kinda make out some fierce eyes on the visible head.
72 Jynx: For better or for worse (it's for worse) it's Jynx in her pre-makeover design. Same name, same sprite, same design that required edits to the Virtual Console version of Yellow.
73 ???: By process of elimination and index order it's pretty obvious Moltres was here.
74 Articuno: Same as in the final, and you can even make out a little of its name, "Freezer".
75 Zapdos: Same as Articuno, but you can make out its entire name, "Thunder".
76 Ditto: I had thought Ditto would be here regardless, but a vote on the poll specifically wrote out the number next to its name. Thank you for making our job easier, random employee!
77 Meowth: Pretty different design from what you can make out. Shorter ears that are fully black, what may be a headband holding on its coin, and it's still holding one paw up like it tends to do.
78 Krabby: A much larger Krabby than in the final with several elements of Kingler. This may be like Doduo up there and the design was scaled back a bit when an evolution was planned. Sadly the name is a little too blurry to make out, but it may be called "Onikurabu (Onicrab)".
79 ???: All that's left of this one is some cry data. A short, static-y noise using Rattata's cry-type.
80 ???: Nothing is left of this one
81 ???: An orb that looks a lot like a certain character from Kirby Star Allies. This one has been my personal fixation for most of the week. It has a cry that survived in the final which is very similar to Poliwhirl and Ditto's, so I really wanted to find out what this thing's name was but it's just too blurry. There's one name on the poll itself that we can sort of match up with what's written there, the Pokemon named Barunda(A). The name itself is a pun on balloon and someone voted for it while commenting that they wondered if it was fluffy, which I guess kinda fits? The problem is this one's name on the chart is written by a different person than the others and there's no other handwriting to compare it to, there's also some weird text before the "Ba" and after a half-formed 81. So, this Pokemon was likely named Barunda, but it's impossible to say for sure.
The final row: Mentioned it above in the block description. If anything was here, it's gone now regardless.

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Phew. I'll be making one final post (god willing) on this tomorrow (god willing) with the high-res original 17 Pokemon image along with some handy sprite reconstructions made by Helix Chamber's manga-owning magnification expert member, qbert. These are worth the wait, trust me.

Alright, for this particular topic, this should be the last major entry. On one of the pages, there's a very small blurb explaining the Capsule Monsters pitch to Nintendo (the one that gets posted around a lot). On that page were 4 pages from the pitch, two we've seen before (the title page with Gengar fighting... something and the famous battle screen with Godzillante) and two really interesting ones. First off is concept art for a "region". Please note that the actual layout of Kanto was included in the pitch and was dated 1990, so all this is is conceptual, not an entirely different design for Kanto:

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The text above is selling the concept of the game's use of the link cable and is unrelated to this concept art. We don't have a full translation yet (Yet) but here's the short version:

1) "You may buy, sell, or trade Capsule Monsters or items via the link cable"
2) "You can also battle your friends with the link cable"
3) "This is deeper than what these two points let on, imagine back to when you were a child" and then goes on to talk about children's drive to collect and interact with each other, then compares it to menko cards, baseball cards, chocolate stickers, Pogs, and other collectible things.

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So apparently money was planned to have another function in the earliest stages, as well as being to trade items. To this day we still can't trade just items, but Generation 2 on added the ability to attach them to Pokemon while trading and Pokemon Stadium allowed you to store them and move them between games (giving a rather interesting sequence break in Generation 1).

Second is something that was posted earlier in this thread, but somehow blown up to be clear (I'm not kidding, this thing is 1x2cm in real life) by qbert again, so thanks to him:

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I couldn't even believe how clear these were. You can even make out the exact pixels, which I suppose means they weren't hand-drawn after all. These are the first 17 Pokemon ever designed and line up with the internal index order... give or take the first two slots.

0 Rhydon - Same pose, but lacks a drill and the stomach pattern is slightly different. ID 0 is occupied by a null value in the final game and isn't actual data.
1 Gyaoon/Gyarth - Has Rhydon's ID number, only truly deleted Pokemon here.
2 Kangaskhan - Identical.
3 Nidoran M - Bigger sprite, less thorns on its ears. The poll sprite is identical with more thorns, the final one was scaled down.
4 Clefairy - The Sugimori design from 1990, might be the little white monster in this Capumon illustration. The poll sprite was traced on this one and the final one was scaled down.
5 "Spearow" - This design was replaced with 17 Omuomu from the poll. Elements from this may have inspired Pidgey and even Fearow.
6 Voltorb - Bigger sprite, eyes are a bit different.
7 Nidoking - Totally different sprite facing backwards, the sprite is 62x62, bigger than the maximum allowed in the final games (56x56).
8 Slowbro - Similar sprite, the final was traced over this one. It seems to have a bump in the middle of its forehead and its arm is down.
9 "Ivysaur" - Allegedly Ivysaur with Venusaur's concept due to their placement in the final game. The top of its flower and the stalk share pixels with the final Venusaur green sprite.
10 Exeggutor - Almost identical sprite, its eyes are bigger and the shading is a little different.
11 Lickitung - This sprite was reworked into the final one. Forked tongue, no thumbs, no markings on its body, slightly thinner tail, different position of its arms.
12 Exeggcute - Another sprite at 62x62 instead of 56x56. Bigger eyes, scaled down and re-traced for the final.
13 Grimer - Bigger than the final one, closed mouth. The poll sprite is identical to this one but with an open mouth like the modern design.
14 Gengar - Identical except for the lack of ear spikes, rounder eyes, and a lesser grin only showing its two vampire-like fangs.
15 Nidoran F - Bigger sprite.
16 Nidoqueen - Bigger sprite (surprisingly), the sprite is 62x60 which is again over the 56x56 maximum, was scaled down and traced for the final.

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And here is a chart comparing the sprites throughout the various stages of development:
(1990 | Internal Poll | Red/Green Final | Blue JP and International Red/Blue)

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And finally, because even with the amazing job that was done with enhancing the image, it's still kinda hard to see the sprites. So here's some recreations by tumblr user louminosus who you should definitely be sure to credit if you end up using these for, say, a romhack or something:


Anyways, thanks for sticking around. If you have any questions I might be able to answer them. Now to get back to hoping that the Spaceworld 97 Gen 2 Demo cart leaks to the internet someday...

pld said:

This is so funny in hindsight. Who would have thought that it would happen few days later lmao. Sorry for the bump but this is too good :p

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This happens with me sometimes, I have an amazing ability to occasionally guess what happens the very next day when there's absolutely no evidence, chance, or I'm even aware that I've done it.

Anyways seeing as this got bumped, it turns out those unused cries continued into the Gen 2 Proto cart. Cactus' is attached to Elebaby and Mystery Orb/Possible Barunda's is attached to Bombseeker, but they're a little corrupted due to the conversion method for cries changing in that prototype. Quite possibly the last time they ever existed.

And of course, the name Baririina was attached to Mr. Mime's baby form there as well. There's no concrete evidence to suggest it was a pre-evolution in this game, but Mr. Mime does have Confusion in its learnset twice, a trait usually exclusive to evolved Pokemon.