Pokémon is a massive Japanese media franchise—spanning video games, anime, trading cards, and more—set in a universe where humans co-exist with powerful creatures, making it the world's highest-grossing media property despite its core target audience of children aged 5 to 12. The franchise began with role-playing games created by Satoshi Tajiri and Game Freak, released on the Game Boy on 27 February 1996; its global export from 1998 to 2000 triggered an unprecedented craze called "Pokémania," which saw a second major resurgence in 2016 with the augmented reality game Pokémon Go. Since 2000, the series has been managed by The Pokémon Company (TPC)—a joint venture of Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak—with The Pokémon Company International (TPCi) handling all non-Asian regions since 2009. In gameplay, players act as Trainers who explore the world, use spherical Poké Balls to catch creatures to complete their Pokédex, and battle other Pokémon, who never die but simply faint; the roster has grown from the original 151 species to over 1,025 today. Originally titled Pocket Monsters, the abbreviated name Pokémon (with an acute accent over the "e" for pronunciation) refers to both the franchise and its creatures, remaining grammatically identical in singular and plural—so "one Pikachu" and "many Pikachu" are both correct.