The Pokemon Designer (Backstory)

HISTORY
Mizushima Ryo was born in the year 2682 on the Martian colony [insert Japanese name].  To his parents' despair he was born with eye defects that left him blind, a curse that his fraternal twin Rin managed to avoid.  Blindness cost him a great deal in his childhood.  He was a determined and studious young boy, inheriting his father's genius, but he required special tutoring and thus was taught at home.  He had no real friends besides his family and a pet Treecko, named Hideki, his father gave to him around the age of 4.  It took Ryo until the age of 12 to develop enough for ocular reconstruction surgery to become safe.  The first thing he saw was Hideki sitting on his chest looking concerned.  It was a new beginning.

Once he could see again Ryo attended a private school where he soared ahead of his peers, no doubt due to all that time studying material well in advance of his age.  He graduated from secondary education at the age of 16 and moved on straight to [insert university name].  Spurred on by the legacy of his father he majored in genetics.  But all throughout his schooling he had another passion: becoming a Pokemon Master.  Cliche as it was Ryo was determined to become the strongest trainer to ever live.  As he grew older, and his interest in genetics grew, there was a shift.  Gone was the immature dream of being champion of a Pokemon League.  Titles and recognition meant little, if anything.  Now there was a deep-seated desire to find - or create - the strongest Pokemon to ever exist.

While studying for his master's degree, Ryo's father was killed in a "workplace accident" while researching the methods used to create an ancient genetic-engineered monster called Mewtwo.  Most accepted his death as-is, but Ryo personally declared to himself that he was silenced for pursuing true power.  This only spurred his own research on, burning with a need to complete his father's legacy.  Still, it became clear that the way forward couldn't be found in the past.

Though further education may have had some merit, Ryo decided it was time to put his skills to practice.  He began a personal project known as the Perfect Lifeform Experiments (KSX).  By studying the methods used to reproduce artificial Pokemon he was able to recreate them, then add his own gene-splicing twists to the artificial eggs he made.  KSX1, which he named Kenichi, garnered quite a bit of attention both in the academic world and the Pokemon battling curcuit.  He rode the coattails of this success for a time.  But one day news of an ancient alien structure buried in Pluto hit the news.  A new interest piqued in his mind.  When the Solar Federation called wanting to recruit him for a cataloguing initiative, the decision was obvious.  True power would be found not in this solar system, but on alien worlds far away where biology was pushed to its limits.

FAMILY
Perhaps the most important family figure to Ryo was his father, Mizushima Katsuro.  He was a famous geneticist that made huge strides in the field, from discovering a method to resurrect fossilized Pokemon without tampering with their DNA, to refining the process used in mass-producing "artificial" Pokemon like Koffing.  He had a two-faced personality, a man of great cunning and determination hidden under the guise of being lazy and carefree.  His death is what drove Ryo so far towards his goal of creating the ultimate Pokemon.  Perhaps he feels a need to surpass his father so he won't be overshadowed by his past success.

Mizushima Rin has been a constant companion to her brother.  This was especially the case when they were young, when on occasion their parents would come home late and she'd have to watch him.  The two remained close until Ryo graduated and moved on to university, leaving her behind.  She is quite intelligent in her own right however.  Rather then going into genetics Rin studied medicine.  Currently she is attending medical school in Japan.  The two twins touch base every week or two, often discussing each other's research.  She also makes an effort to stay in touch with her mother, something Ryo fails spectacularly at.

[his mom isn't too relevant, I'll include details on her another time]