New secrets about Pokémon Gold & Silver are being discovered all of the time, due to a number of leaks that have taken place since 2018. The story of Pokémon Gold & Silver was once very different, including the identity of one of the DJs in Goldenrod City.

In the retail version of Pokémon Gold & Silver, the player can visit the Goldenrod Radio Tower and meet the DJs and radio hosts that front the different programs. One of the hosts the player can encounter is DJ Mary, who works alongside Professor Oak on a show called “Professor Oak’s Pokémon Talk.”

It seems that DJ Mary was a late addition to Pokémon Gold & Silver. According to protocrystal, one of the DJs who was going to reside in the Goldenrod Radio Tower was Imakuni, who will be familiar to people who played Pokémon Trading Card Game on the Game Boy.

Tomoaki Imakuni is a real-life musician who worked on the Pokémon anime and contributed to several pieces of Pokémon media. He also created the artwork for several Pokémon cards. Imakuni is known for his eccentricities and the strange clothes he wears, which is why he looks like a ninja with Mickey Mouse ears. He is a secret opponent in Pokémon Trading Card Game and he even has cards that are based on him. If Imakuni was planned to appear in Pokémon Gold & Silver, then it explains why the devs added him to Pokémon Trading Card Game and why they designed sprites for him.

The intention was for Imakuni to be one of the DJs in the Goldenrod Radio Tower, with the same role as DJ Mary. According to the text within the game, he was replaced by a new character named Lilith, who was later turned into DJ Mary.

What’s even more interesting is that the Imakuni sprite existed to test out a following mechanic, which presumably existed for Pokémon to follow the main character, in the same way that Pikachu followed Red in Pokémon Yellow. This feature finally made its way into Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver years later.

There are a lot of mysteries about the Goldenrod Radio Tower in the Johto region. It seems that Team Rocket was once planned to be successful in their plan to contact Giovanni, as his sprite can be found in the Radio Tower in the original leak of the game. Unlike Giovanni, who never made it into Pokémon Gold & Silver, Imakuni at least had a role in Pokémon Trading Card Game and its Japan-exclusive sequel, so he remained part of the Pokémon series after the release of Pokémon Red & Blue. 

Source: protocrystal