Regardless of age, every gamer remembers when they suffered their first save game data loss, be it a corrupted console/PC harddrive, or a PS1 memory card suddenly showing blue blocks of damaged data. Japanese gamers were reminded of these painful feelings on April 30, when actor Shinya Okada’s dramatic reaction to losing all his original Pokemon Red save data from 1996 was captured in a YouTube video. The actor’s stunned facial expressions and fans’ outpourings of sympathy even led the incident to be featured on Japanese entertainment news outlets.
A familiar face in Japanese TV dramas, 77-year-old actor Shinya Owada is also a huge Pokemon fan, regularly playing through various games from the series on his YouTube Channel “Shinya Owada’s Hideout.” Often accompanied by his trusty Squirtle plushie (that he recently took on an adorable trip to the aquarium), Owada’s warm-hearted enthusiasm for the games, plus his dramatic narration of the dialogue has earned the veteran gamer over 56.4K subscribers.
In his latest “Let’s Play” video posted on April 29, Owada’s cheerful enthusiasm to continue his Pokemon Red adventure gradually morphs into disbelief as the game asks him if he wants to start from the beginning. Owada’s startled reactions of “wait? what?” as he realizes that all the hours he has put into capturing and training Pokemon have vanished are palpable.
Owada also took to X to share his feelings on the matter in a post that quickly amassed 4.4 million views and over 200 comments: “My Pokemon Red Game Boy cartridge save data has vanished. In my remaining lifetime, I will find another adventure to embark on.” Although he had previously streamed Pokemon Red, he announced that he plans to stop playing the game for now.
【ご報告】
ゲームボーイソフト
ポケットモンスター 赤🟥の
冒険のセーブデータが
消えてしまいました^_^
人生の限られた時間の中で
また新しい旅を探します#ポケモン #ゲーム #ぬい活 pic.twitter.com/uofsbpsYDR— 大和田 伸也 (@oowadashinya) April 29, 2025
Owada’s unfortunate data loss experience attracted many sympathetic comments, with people reminiscing about the sadness they felt when they lost valuable saves when they were children, often on cartridge-based systems like the Game Boy and N64, or PS1 and PS2 memory cards. As many commenters suggested, it seems likely that the battery in Okada’s Game Boy cartridge of Pokemon Red finally died, thus deleting his precious save data. Without the benefits of cloud-based storage back-ups, it was quite easy to lose all the data on your cartridge or memory card if the contacts wore out, you took it out of the console too quickly, or even looked at the console in the wrong way (this writer swears that this is how she lost her 90 hours of Final Fantasy IX gameplay back in 2001…).
“Losing save data is also losing life,” stated one commenter on Owada’s YouTube video, drawing stark attention to the hours of effort and grinding that vanish into oblivion when you lose a save (something that all Simmers, Citybuilders, and RPG fans can attest to). Others were more philosophical: “even if save data disappears, the memories remain!” Comments also showed fans’ fondness for Owada, with one user adding: “If this happened to any other video game streamer, I would laugh at how ridiculous it is, but with Mr. Owada, it’s a different story.”
If all this has strangely inspired you to go back to Game Boy-era Pokemon games, check out IGN’s comprehensive walkthroughs for Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow.
Image credit Shinya Owada / YouTube.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
