Silktree

I figured out most of the Mr. Fuji/Dr. Fuji/Mew/Mewtwo connection a long time ago, but I've always assumed that Mew, having the DNA of all Pokémon, was able to give birth to any Pokémon willingly.

My theory went like this: Mew felt threatened by the new presence of Mr. Fuji, gave birth to another Mew in order to make sure they don't become extinct, Mr. Fuji takes the child instead of the original Mew, experiments on it, it becomes Mewtwo, Mr. Fuji learns the errors of his ways and becomes more considerate of Pokémon, Mewtwo escapes.

There are some holes in my theory, and you comparison to Jekyll and Hyde made me think that maybe Mr. Fuji, knowing that Mew reveals itself to pure-hearted people only, wanted to see if he himself was pure-hearted, but when he found Mew on his own rather than Mew revealing himself, he assumed he was evil, and took the role of the scientist Dr. Fuji in order to determine that the "Mew only reveals itself to pure-hearted people" thing is a legend by experimenting on the Mew.

It's very complicated...

Note that Mew gave birth on February 6th, and Fuji left Faraway Island on the 6th day of some month; chances are that this is not a coincidence, meaning that Fuji left the island with Mew's baby as soon as possible, and probably never left beforehand (otherwise Mew would not have given birth on the very day Fuji left it behind).

This is certainly an interesting point here, it wasn't something I could reconcile when I was making my theory. I was always wondering whether Fuji did, in fact, go back to Mew's island, but this explanation makes much more sense.

It makes me wonder though, could the genetic experiments have been performed after Mewtwo's birth? I had always thought, if Mew was the ancestor of (most) Pokemon, how could Mewtwo be considered a clone in most of his incarnations? I can only think of are two possibilities:

1. The term "birth" is used very loosely and there was a Mew egg, and they had genetically altered Mewtwo while it was in its early stages

2. The genetics weren't so much gene splicing as they may have been experiments on epigenetics to influence the expression of genes that Mew already had.

Personally, I lean toward the second.

So what could explain Fuji's dumbfounding actions?

The answer I have in mind is found in the title of this article. Mr. Fuji and Dr. Fuji... Does that ring any bells? It should if you've read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

If I recall the story being called an allusion to drug addiction because of what the author was going through at the time, but there are other things that can make good people turn bad--particularly war. We know that there was a war in the Pokémon World. This is what my theory was going to make. Fans always speculate how war would be conducted in the Pokéverse. It's evident from Lt. Surge's dialogue that wars are at least fought along side Pokémon, and from Surge's account, his Pokemon were used to augment his fighter plane.

So what of Mewtwo? I viewed him as a superweapon of sorts. Many atrocious acts have happened in the past in the name of war, and many people have tried to justify it as "I was just following orders"--of course, I do not believe Fuji was one of those people. His heart was kind. I would think that what influenced him was a more manipulative mind in the background, convincing him that if this superweapon was made, and its power shown, that the war would end much earlier, and there would be considerably less life lost on both sides than if the war was drawn out. Sound familiar? If I my history knowledge checks out (and please feel free to correct me), that was one of the justifications for using the A-bomb. Of course, the details of this war is left up in the air, but I believe it was resolved long before Mewtwo was released.

What I believe happened was not a case of split personality, but that because a good man was forced to choose between the lesser of two evils, or at least forced to choose what he was made to believe was the lesser of two evils (I guess you can say I've been influenced by Doctor Who in that regard).

The acts of Mr. Fuji at Pokémon Tower, and his defiance of Team Rocket, I had always seen as an act of repentance for what he did, and his new resolve to no longer be swayed by others to do evil deeds. I don't believe that there was any supernatural transference of malice, though Mewtwo being a powerful psychic Pokemon certainly doesn't rule out such an event.

I believe the source of Mewtwo's malice is that it was conceived as a weapon of war, and likely brought up as one. There has been no fictional character that I've seen that was well adjusted when they were created and raised for the sole purpose of being a weapon. It could be very possible that being a Psychic, they tried to implant hostile images of the world in its mind to more easily justify using it as a weapon.

Though my biggest problem is that Mew would apparently appear to Fuji when it had that malice hidden deep in his heart. I see the story of Mr. Fuji to be analogous to that of N. They were both pure-hearted individuals, and it is this pure heart that allowed others to manipulate them by tricking them into saying they are helping others--N helping Pokemon by separating them, and Fuji helping the world at large by helping a war end sooner.

At first when I was writing this, I had thought I was rejecting your Jekyll and Hyde position, but upon reading this over again, I think I was giving an answer to what I believed that potion was--war. It didn't necessarily release his darker impulses but was more like N in the fact that he was a kind individual being used by others. Fuji's kind heart was taken advantage of. A heart that would never want to see harm done unto others was forced to choose a lesser of two evils, made to believe that had he refused the creation of Mewtwo that the war mentioned in the Pokemon World would rage on for decades. Concordia put it best: "[His] heart is pure and innocent. But there is nothing more beautiful and terrifying than innocence"

Perhaps it was this innocence that Mewtwo felt that caused it to not exact its revenge on Fuji or to destroy the land. Mewtwo's accounts of being vicious and heartless would likely come from the limited interactions humans had with it, particularly the interaction which led to the destruction of Fuji's lab.
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I'd like to thank you for posting this, it helped me get my theory organized as well, though I won't be posting it for awhile. With a Mewtwo event on the horizon, I think I'll be waiting to see how Game Freak plays it out.

Note: I mentioned the war with Surge. He's fairly young, the war was likely not WWII, I personally don't think the war would line up with any human war, but it certainly happened long enough ago that we don't really see any of its after effects. The way people talk about the Cinnabar Mansion as well made it seem like it happened a long time ago, so basically, when I was theorizing I tried to link two points in Pokemon history.

Game Freak's not above mentioning Pokemon created as weapons, so only time will tell if they'll illuminate this for us.

That's a surprisingly logical theory! The comparison of Mr./Dr. Fuji to the characters of that book seems incredibly likely, and puts light on many questions on Fuji's behavior. It also completely fits to Mewtwo's dramatic past and character. Very good job on detecting this possible source of inspiration.

If there's a part I disagree with, that would be the disregard of the scientific background behind Mewtwo's birth -- I'm not necessarily convinced that it wasn't Mr. Fuji who triggered the birth of Mewtwo. The following seems to indicate that Dr. Fuji didn't start his experiments when he arrived to the Cinnabar Island.

Originally Posted by Yellow

Its DNA is almost the same as Mew's. However, its size and disposition are vastly different.

As far as the discussion is concerned, it probably doesn't matter if Mewtwo should be labeled as a clone of Mew (sharing [ι]most[/i] of its DNA with Mew on a place when it's hard to tell if there are multiple Mews and born in a convenient time when Fuji and his crew arrived to the island -- also, them leaving the day Mewtwo was born makes it seem that they were monitoring the Pokémon at the time). Just felt like pointing it out, we've discussed that before.

The point Kyuujux raises about Mr. Fuji being disappointed over not being recognized by Mew is something I had thought myself lately; but such behavior would still be a gross exaggeration. Surely there has to be something else that was the main reason of Dr. Fuji's final outcome. One thought would be that his original interest to Mew was in relation to the Pokémon's genetic features and origin; while Mew probably acknowledged Mr. Fuji's pure heart, it could not have appeared before Mr. Fuji knowing that he may have other intentions too. Still, that doesn't explain why Mr. Fuji created his evil persona, Dr. Fuji.

I surely hope the incoming event will shed some light on this, or at least a few hint on a future event in "Grey".

Still, that doesn't explain why Mr. Fuji created his evil persona, Dr. Fuji.

Nitpick, but I don't like the phrasing which suggests that Fuji as a scientist was the inherently evil persona. Like I said earlier, I don't believe there was an actual evil persona but more like history (retroactively) repeating itself with Fuji's story following N's. I don't think Game Freak is as devoid of continuity as people think. The struggle between humans and Pokemon in BW had been alluded to in HgSs's plot, and also the Sinnoh myths which had a story outlining the close relation between the humans and Pokemon, as well as the Veilstone myth, which seems to allude to the struggle between the two species.

In either case, it was clear that Mr. Fuji had already held a doctorate and would likely have referred to himself as Dr. Fuji when he first found Mew. He was still who he was.

More likely I believe that Fuji, after his actions with Mewtwo had stepped down as a man of science due to the guilt he felt, hence no longer being referred to as Dr. Fuji.

Originally Posted by Kyuujux

There are some holes in my theory, and you comparison to Jekyll and Hyde made me think that maybe Mr. Fuji, knowing that Mew reveals itself to pure-hearted people only, wanted to see if he himself was pure-hearted, but when he found Mew on his own rather than Mew revealing himself, he assumed he was evil, and took the role of the scientist Dr. Fuji in order to determine that the "Mew only reveals itself to pure-hearted people" thing is a legend by experimenting on the Mew.

I find this hard to swallow. Are you arguing that Fuji was making a point that Mew was right not have to shown itself to him? That was the extent of his motivation to put Mew's baby through hell? Considering that Mewtwo has the ability to make itself invisible, I doubt anyone would have found it unless it had wanted to be found.

Originally Posted by The Outrage

2. The genetics weren't so much gene splicing as they may have been experiments on epigenetics to influence the expression of genes that Mew already had.

Personally, I lean toward the second.

I think this is strongly implied by the Pokédex entries.

What I believe happened was not a case of split personality, but that because a good man was forced to choose between the lesser of two evils, or at least forced to choose what he was made to believe was the lesser of two evils (I guess you can say I've been influenced by Doctor Who in that regard).

I can't see this being the case. If there was a war in recent times that was big enough to convince Mr. Fuji that he had to create Mewtwo, why isn't it referenced in the games? I think there is a reason why only a foreigner (Lt. Surge) was said to have fought in a war; the Japan that Satoshi Tajiri created is not a place where people are tied to war.

The acts of Mr. Fuji at Pokémon Tower, and his defiance of Team Rocket, I had always seen as an act of repentance for what he did, and his new resolve to no longer be swayed by others to do evil deeds.

I had thought so, too, until I realized that Fuji must have written the Faraway Island message before the experiments began. If he knew then that he was going to do something wrong, and yet he still didn't stop, there is little repentance for that.

and Fuji helping the world at large by helping a war end sooner.

Would he have helped the world at large? Some side would have suffered. Considering that it is unlikely Mewtwo would have helped even Kanto (which has only had Team Rocket as a threat in recent years), how would using Mewtwo as a weapon have been worth it? I know there are possible answers to this question, but they all seem like a stretch within the scope of what we know.

At first when I was writing this, I had thought I was rejecting your Jekyll and Hyde position, but upon reading this over again, I think I was giving an answer to what I believed that potion was--war. It didn't necessarily release his darker impulses but was more like N in the fact that he was a kind individual being used by others. Fuji's kind heart was taken advantage of. A heart that would never want to see harm done unto others was forced to choose a lesser of two evils, made to believe that had he refused the creation of Mewtwo that the war mentioned in the Pokemon World would rage on for decades. Concordia put it best: "[His] heart is pure and innocent. But there is nothing more beautiful and terrifying than innocence"

I feel compelled to point out that N changed his mind about using Genesect as a weapon, choosing to befriend Reshiram/Zekrom instead. That's a very significant difference from what you're suggesting Mr. Fuji did.

I don't think Game Freak is as devoid of continuity as people think. The struggle between humans and Pokemon in BW had been alluded to in HgSs's plot, and also the Sinnoh myths which had a story outlining the close relation between the humans and Pokemon, as well as the Veilstone myth, which seems to allude to the struggle between the two species.

But in no game is it said there was a war in recent times on the scale of a World War where people had to question their morals. I've honestly never thought of Lt. Surge's war as being particularly important; I think Game Freak were taking a stab at the Gulf War, which is often parodied.

In either case, it was clear that Mr. Fuji had already held a doctorate and would likely have referred to himself as Dr. Fuji when he first found Mew. He was still who he was.

The analogy isn't exact. The point is that in the end, Mr. Fuji stopped being a doctor much in the same way as Mr. Hyde stopped being a normal person; Game Freak chose the reverse ending for Fuji. This is not to say that he was always bad as a scientist.

Would he have helped the world at large? Some side would have suffered. Considering that it is unlikely Mewtwo would have helped even Kanto (which has only had Team Rocket as a threat in recent years), how would using Mewtwo as a weapon have been worth it? I know there are possible answers to this question, but they all seem like a stretch within the scope of what we know.

The point isn't whether he would or would not have. All what matters is what he believed to be right, and as I said, its choosing the lesser evil. Yes, at least one side would suffer more, but the suffering would be less compared to a prolonged battle, and as evident from their diaries, they did not expect Mewtwo to be so uncontrollable.

I feel compelled to point out that N changed his mind about using Genesect as a weapon, choosing to befriend Reshiram/Zekrom instead. That's a very significant difference from what you're suggesting Mr. Fuji did.

I said analogous, not the exact same story. From what I can gather, N did not even know about Genesect until it was already in development. I assume it was more of Ghetsis' plan for after N succeeded. We cannot discount N's upbringing compared to Fuji. N believed humans to be villains, thus he viewed Genesect to be abhorrent to the natural order, as it was a Pokemon influenced by human hands. He no doubt would have viewed the same of Mewtwo and would have had him terminated.

The difference lies in their choices. N was trying to separate two societies by force, my suggestion was that Fuji may have tried to prevent greater strife in the world. But what is analogous is they were both used by a higher power. N by Ghetsis, and Fuji by whoever commissioned him. That is the similarity between the two I want to point out.

But in no game is it said there was a war in recent times on the scale of a World War where people had to question their morals. I've honestly never thought of Lt. Surge's war as being particularly important; I think Game Freak were taking a stab at the Gulf War, which is often parodied.

There is no such war where morals are not put into question. Perhaps it was a Gulf War analog, but again, I don't believe that all historical events in our reality lines up with theirs.

If he knew then that he was going to do something wrong, and yet he still didn't stop, there is little repentance for that.

It was never too late to repent. Perhaps he did not even know what would happen would be truly horrifying even if he did some morally questionable acts (which at that time would be limited to kidnapping a child). Another interpretation of mine was that he was just a naive (but brilliant) scientist who tried to make a new Pokemon not knowing the consequences of his actions.

Certainly, if you look at the entry on September 1st, Mewtwo's vicious nature and uncontrollable power was something unanticipated. Whatever they did, they may have accidentally just predisposed Mewtwo to a more hostile nature, and naturally, being born a lab experiment would bring about the worst in it.

In any case, people do bad things even when they know they shouldn't. It doesn't mean they can't feel bad or repent later.

Originally Posted by The Outrage

Nitpick, but I don't like the phrasing which suggests that Fuji as a scientist was the inherently evil persona. Like I said earlier, I don't believe there was an actual evil persona but more like history (retroactively) repeating itself with Fuji's story following N's. I don't think Game Freak is as devoid of continuity as people think. The struggle between humans and Pokemon in BW had been alluded to in HgSs's plot, and also the Sinnoh myths which had a story outlining the close relation between the humans and Pokemon, as well as the Veilstone myth, which seems to allude to the struggle between the two species.

In either case, it was clear that Mr. Fuji had already held a doctorate and would likely have referred to himself as Dr. Fuji when he first found Mew. He was still who he was.

More likely I believe that Fuji, after his actions with Mewtwo had stepped down as a man of science due to the guilt he felt, hence no longer being referred to as Dr. Fuji.

I obviously don't mean that Fuji's scientific side was his evil side. The mere reason I referred to his bad side as 'Dr. Fuji' is because 'Mr. Fuji' as a reference is very much tied to the kind version of him that has appeared in RGBY and GSC; for convenience basically. It's certain that even the Mr. Fuji we know is a scientist, even if he doesn't practice it much anymore (or maybe he does? it doesn't matter). I also agree that Game Freak is not going OCD with continuity (and I believe this to be the right thing -- they don't have to limit their creative freedom for such reasons), but that's one thing to say -- they obviously maintain a fairly well organized universe. Unlike what many will say, I'm happy with the current Pokémon world even if there is need for making assumptions sometimes.

Don't think of this theory as literally implying that Mr. Fuji had a demon inside him controlling his actions. I'm not sure if this is the way Silktree means it, but the way I see it -- it is as if he developed in obsession which led him to do what he did -- become who he became --, uncontrolled by the true person he really was until it was too late. In a symbolical way, one could say he split himself in two pieces, especially given that his good side was aware of the actions of the evil one, but acted as if they were being done by another person (as evident from the fact that despite the fact that he took Mewtwo from Mew, he was at the same time feeling guilty for leaving, hopying that a kind person would set foot, if anyone). The person in fear of Mew's safety was the person who phychologically harmed Mew. One may attribute this "split personality" to a metaphysical factor (which would be a more rough explanation), while someone else could refer to a psychological explanation; that's mostly details. The question that lies unanswered is what was the reason this obsession, this "evil side" of him was created.

Alternate theory:

The signature does not say "Fuji" - it says "ji." In addition, the signature is left out of the international versions entirely.

Mew is the main reason that Pokemon because so insanely popular. The rumors of a hidden monster drove sales up exponentially. Therefore, Mew is arguably the most important Pokemon in meta, rivaling Pikachu.

There is someone else with "Ji" in their name that would have a reason to wish for a kind hearted person to discover Mew...

Of course the signature says "ji", the rest was too faded to read.

It ignores all the other pieces of evidence to say it wasn't the Fuji we know.

Azure Butterfly, I'm afraid I don't know who you're referring to. I doubt whoever you have in mind is a plausible option, but I'd like to know who it is.

The fact that the official translation left out "ji" merely means that Nob Ogasawara wasn't very good at his job. By the way, he actually added "ber" to the beginning of the message, implying that it was written in September, October, November or December (rather than in February as I'm suggesting). The Japanese text merely used a generic suffix that would be used at the end of any month name.

I would just like to let you know, I always found this particular story from pokemon to be quite interesting and secretly very dark.

There were a whole lot of mysterious things that happened on Cinnabar Island that to this day have never been revealed.
I'm personally waiting for the day when Game Freak decides to fully tell us what happened with the dark experiments that were done on Mewtwo and what Fuji's full role in this was.

Also from your confusion about Fuji. I always thought that the concept behind the terrible things that Fuji did to Mewtwo, was (and I know this is vague) in the name of science. Wasn't Fuji and his group of scientists trying to reproduce the perfect pokemon? If they said to themselves, "We're doing this for the good of all science and pokemon as well!" Couldn't you see how a person like that can be blinded by science? I see things happen like that all the time.

I thought Game Freak was always trying to explain that even the purest of heart can stray from their path in pursuit of power and knowledge.

Also from my understanding of the little amount of information that is actually provided in the game, but I still find interesting, is the theory that the pokemon "Ditto", was a byproduct of the Mewtwo experiments.

@Swalittle

Originally Posted by Swalittle

Also from your confusion about Fuji. I always thought that the concept behind the terrible things that Fuji did to Mewtwo, was (and I know this is vague) in the name of science. Wasn't Fuji and his group of scientists trying to reproduce the perfect pokemon? If they said to themselves, "We're doing this for the good of all science and pokemon as well!" Couldn't you see how a person like that can be blinded by science? I see things happen like that all the time.

I thought Game Freak was always trying to explain that even the purest of heart can stray from their path in pursuit of power and knowledge.

I had shared those thoughts until I realized that Mr. Fuji had most likely written the Faraway Island message before the experiment began. The fact that Fuji was so concerned for Mew makes it hard to believe that he would have later abused its baby in the name of science; there had to have been a more justifiable reason. Technically, even the anime Dr. Fuji had such a reason (bringing his daughter back to life), and he was not nearly as benelovent as Mr. Fuji is (not to mention that the anime Mewtwo was merely cloned and never underwent any physical pain).

Also from my understanding of the little amount of information that is actually provided in the game, but I still find interesting, is the theory that the pokemon "Ditto", was a byproduct of the Mewtwo experiments.

I don't think that's particularly plausible seeing as no cloning was involved in the games. You should also bear in mind that Ditto was only added to the Pokémon Mansion in Yellow, and that game was not originally going to be developed. Had Ditto been designed with the Mewtwo experiment in mind, wouldn't it have been introduced in the Pokémon Mansion?

I do subscribe to the theory that the first Ditto was originally a Mew. But I'd wager that Ditto's history is much longer than Mewtwo's, and that no scientists were responsible for turning that certain Mew into Ditto. The explanation may simply be that said Mew lost its memory upon using Transform, and when it reverted back, it was a mere blob that was only capable of using Transform. If so, it's a tragic case of a lost identity.

What's interesting to consider is that Ditto may have helped Mewtwo escape from the Pokémon Mansion. That kind of detail is something that Game Freak could have thought of later on.

This was really well written, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to create this as I really enjoyed reading it.

This is an AMAZING article. While I must admit I was a little skeptical at the Jekyll and Hyde comparison (which is most likely just due to the lack of information on Fuji himself, so an analysis on his character is much more speculation-based than Mewtwo's), it does bring up good comparisons with Mewtwo--Mewtwo can be likened to Frankenstien's monster, and both Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are considered "horror classics."

The entire article before the J & H comparison was jaw-dropping to me. I think many people's idea of Mewtwo's past is almost diluted by the movie that they don't realize that they are two completely different canons. The idea that Mew gave birth to another Mew and that Mew (named Mewtwo) was experimented on, not only explains why it would become an enraged creature, but also why Mewtwo comes before Mew in the PokeDex--Fuji was so intent on experimenting and creating Mewtwo that he didn't get all the information about Mew first!

This theory is fascinating! This is probably irrelevant but in the anime there is a character who has minimal connections to the Mews whose name is Dr. Yung but masquerades as Mr. Mirage.

From what I can come up with I think Azure Butterfly is referring to either Mr. Pokemon or Mr. Briney.

The only option that makes sense is that Fuji altered Mewtwo in order to save its life. Medical treatments, especially on a patient you know little to nothing about - would no doubt be cruel. But they might also be necessary if the baby Mew had a genetic disease - say the same sort of disease that causes Mew to degenerate into Ditto.

@Zeta That's an interesting possibility, but I don't see why Mewtwo would have to become so powerful and ruthless just to survive. Are you suggesting that it was the only way for Mewtwo's immunity system to fight off the disease?

At any rate, I certainly wouldn't say that's the only thing that could make sense. Fuji suffering from a split personality disorder would be an elegant explanation in my eyes. I think it would be interesting to find out that Fuji subconsciously used the experiment to pass his evil side onto Mewtwo. Now that we know about the Forme, Fuji could redeem himself by helping Mewtwo find its true self.

The simplest possibility is that Fuji was being forced to perform the experiment by a person we haven't seen yet, who might have threated someone special in Fuji's life (Mew or perhaps his friend Blaine). But right now I am not in favor of this possibility as it would be pretty similar to the anime story.