>It was the first Game Boy to have a backlit screen, which meant I could finally easily sneak and play on it in the night without alerting my parents
Actually, there was another Game Boy with backlit screen released much earlier -- just a few months before the Game Boy Color, though only in Japan. I remember said Game Boy because a friend of mine whose father traveled to Japan had brought one such Game Boy back with him for his son. It was called the Game Boy Light.
The screen was monochrome with green backlight. Pretty badass.
Also realized I made another error too: the original Game Boy Advance didn’t include an AC adapter; in fact the Game Boy Advance itself doesn’t even have a barrel connector on it to plug one in in the first place! I misremembered that the AC adapter that I have lying around for my Game Boy Advance didn’t come with it, but actually came from a third-party accessory my parents had ended up buying for me so they could stop wasting money on alkaline batteries (a controller grip similar to this¹ one that plugged into the battery compartment).
Interestingly enough, Nintendo made such an accessory²³⁴ themselves as well (although without the grip part).
Japan-only just means that there was a marketing and distribution effort by Nintendo there and nowhere else. Third-parties could still have imported the GB Light consoles to places like Germany. Could also be that the GB Light consoles you saw ended up in your area the same way my friend got one -- through family visiting Japan.
Actually, there was another Game Boy with backlit screen released much earlier -- just a few months before the Game Boy Color, though only in Japan. I remember said Game Boy because a friend of mine whose father traveled to Japan had brought one such Game Boy back with him for his son. It was called the Game Boy Light.
The screen was monochrome with green backlight. Pretty badass.
http://nintendo.wikia.com/wiki/Game_Boy_Light
http://www.computercloset.org/NintendoGameBoy.htm
http://retro-treasures.blogspot.com/2012/04/silver-nintendo-...