Junichi Masuda is not only one of the Pokémon OGs and one of the three co-founders of Game Freak along with Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori, but as the years have passed he has become the most central figure behind the game and franchise. He is currently the Chief Creative Fellow of The Pokémon Company, and yesterday he casually mentioned a fact about the series that revealed a long-dormant Easter egg.

Masuda's July 5 tweet included an image of the building originally used by Game Freak, which was founded in 1989, and read (machine translated): "July 5, Pokemon was born in Japan and this is where Game Freak once lived.

From one angle, this is just Masuda celebrating an anniversary, perhaps the anniversary of his pitching the first capsule monster to NIntendo. But as Pokémon archivist and Youtuber LewTwo quickly discerned, it was actually in the game from the beginning as an Easter egg of sorts, revolving around the (admittedly early) most mysterious Pokémon of all: the legendary Mew.

As Lewtwo noted, the OG Pokémon games (Red/Green in Japan and Red/Blue in the rest of the world) contain a diary detailing when Mew was first discovered in the Pokémon world. The creature was discovered in Guyana on July 5. Mew is noted as the first mythical Pokémon and is said to contain the DNA of all other Pokémon in its body. Finally, Pokémon lore states that Mew was discovered by a character named Miyamoto, a reference to Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo, who authorized and oversaw the development of Pokémon (Nintendo actually turned down the initial proposal; it was not a Pokémon).

While this is not earth-shattering news, the fact that the Game Boy game still offers a little secret more than 27 years later is incredible. The fact that Mew "hides" the origins of the entire game is one of those perfect blends of lore and reality, and Miyamoto's nod (added later) is the icing on the cake. Says Lutzow: "The fact that this has been before us all along is truly insane."