Lugia is one of my favourite legendaries but I had no idea how sad its origin story was.
Did You Know Gaming? did a video on it and how its creator, Takeshi Shudo, wanted Lugia to be female and maternal but this was removed and Lugia became genderless (as well as some cosmetic changes being made). Due to this and a lot of obsessive and heavy working, it drove Shudo to drink and drugs until he died in 2010.
More on Lugia: a competitive history of Lugia, Aaron ‘Cybertron’ Zheng using Lugia in VGC, and some more mythology behind Lugia and Ho-Oh, it’s Gen 2 counterpart.
