Recently, I played through Pokemon: Red Version for the first time since I was a child. Most of the key details I remembered, but one recurring element I did not - that has been all but sanded off of the franchise entirely at this point - was the inclusion of several real-world references throughout the game’s setting, the Kanto region.

Early on, you visit a science museum. Here, a nice man tells you about “the moon landing,” even giving you the date is happened: July 20, 1969! A model space shuttle in one corner of the museum’s ongoing space exhibit is labeled: “Space Shuttle Columbia.” Oh wow, so I must just be in the Pokemon-laden part of the real world? Like there’s a United States and Russia out there! Maybe the S. S. Anne sails to California!