Fuji TV Preps Pokémon GO Doc

TOKYO: Fuji Television is gearing up to air a documentary chronicling the Pokémon GO phenomenon that includes interviews with the mobile game’s developers.

How Pokémon GO Changed the World will air domestically December 20 and is being showcased by Fuji Television at Asia TV Forum this week. It looks at the relationship players have with the game by focusing on a boy in North Carolina who started playing Pokémon GO while recovering from an illness. It also explores how Pokémon GO benefited the recovery in areas devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake. Fuji also goes behind the scenes of the game’s development.

Jun Hama, producer at Fuji Television in charge of the production, noted, “Pokémon GO developer Mr. John Hanke, in his on-camera interview for the first time since the launch of the game, speaks about the purpose of developing Pokémon GO, which was to ‘change the world.’ We were greatly impressed by his responses. Pokémon GO made more than 600 million people around the world go outside with a smartphone in hand to enjoy the game. What amazed us while proceeding with the coverage were the scenes where the world was actually changing with this game, such as a socially withdrawn boy who suffered a communication disorder going outside and making friends, a senior citizen living in a nursing home smiling again, and tourists returning to the earthquake disaster area in North Eastern Japan, which helped the local economy.”

He continued. “For the first time, our program gives a preview of the currently ongoing new service development, and introduces the story behind the development of the world’s greatest product this year, a creation that would never have been produced without the collaboration of the country who produced Pokémon, the Japanese staff, and the country with the world’s best IT technology, the American staff. The show approaches the substantiality and amazingness of Pokémon GO, which is ‘changing the world,’ exceeding a mere game.”