Remember when Pokémon was just a tv show?

[kittyray]

nah I don't remember it ever being "just" anything. my parents were pretty strict so I wasn't allowed to have video games or watch the show until a little later, but here I am in 1998 or '99 in a pikachu shirt designing my own pokemon and characters



my first introduction to it would've been either pokemon cards (biggest fad to ever sweep elementary school until it was banned because anything "for keeps" was way more trouble than it was worth), or the "pokemon handbook" which I traced all my favourites out of over and over. also it was just EVERYWHERE - I was way in well before I got my first gameboy in 2001, or whenever it was my parents finally dropped the "no TV channels with commercials" rule. definitely also saw at least two pokemon movies in theatres? that one Pokemon Go Summer (2016..?) was a cool little echo of its absolute cultural dominance when I was little haha

The Summer of Pokemon Go felt truly magical. I'd moved to New York a couple months prior and it felt like eight million of us were playing together. I feel like it was the only time where it was acceptable there to go up and start chatting with strangers because "did you see that Scyther" and some of the hotspots were just wild.

[Charmander]

The Summer of Pokemon Go felt truly magical. I'd moved to New York a couple months prior and it felt like eight million of us were playing together. I feel like it was the only time where it was acceptable there to go up and start chatting with strangers because "did you see that Scyther" and some of the hotspots were just wild.

That would have been such a neat experience. I wish when PoGo was first release I lived in a larger center like that for that experience! Now I feel that the novelty had worn off and now people just spoof (myself included). However maye that is just me and our local areas and maybe others are still bumpin

[kittyray]

That would have been such a neat experience. I wish when PoGo was first release I lived in a larger center like that for that experience! Now I feel that the novelty had worn off and now people just spoof (myself included). However maye that is just me and our local areas and maybe others are still bumpin

I haven't played much since COVID hit because I haven't gone out much, but I know stuff was pretty active up until then. I didn't play as much after moving to the Bay Area because it's a much less walkable city (seriously RIP in pieces my step count) and pokestops/gyms weren't nearly as dense. People still organized raid meetups and things like that, but I never actively participated because I felt shy. In New York, up until I moved in mid 2018, it was still going pretty strong. Parks had people doing raids regularly and lots of meetups going on, but even less organized things, too. Sometimes I'd notice a raid while just walking about so I'd find an out of the way spot to stop to try it and so would a dozen other people. At this point people were less friendly about it, but we all know what everybody was doing.

But yeah, I had no idea how much New York was the outlier as far as stop/gym densities until I went some other places for visits, so I imagine it was rough.

[Ice]

The Summer of Pokemon Go felt truly magical. I'd moved to New York a couple months prior and it felt like eight million of us were playing together. I feel like it was the only time where it was acceptable there to go up and start chatting with strangers because "did you see that Scyther" and some of the hotspots were just wild.

Oh god yeah that was honestly such a wild time - we had town centers that because it was summer people were hanging out at in DROVES and everyone had their phones out but it felt like human interaction and not truly staring at out screens because people were talking and sharing info and if someone would exclaim they caught such and such everyone would run over and cheer and celebrate with them. And it was definitely such a wide spectrum of people giving it a try too, not even just us millennials who were emotionally invested in the franchise. IDK but like what other cultural phenomenon could pull off something like that... you cannot deny the powerful impact Pokemon has had across several generations and its global appreciation. /wipes tear

[Cinnamoroll]

No, I don't remember when Pokemon was just a TV show because it was always a video game first.... lol.

I watched the English version of the anime as a kid for the first couple of seasons and they fell out of it. I liked the games more, personally /shrug

It crazy to see how far it has evolved as a franchise, though.

[DarkSkies]

I was in 2th elementary school when the show started on TV and I remember playing with a school friend to be Pokemons by saying their names (Charmander and Squirtle chapters were just out and we were just kids lol)

I was one of those kids that put Pokémon paper plastic on books and notebooks (thanks to my older sister for that!) to sadly later rip them off because the other kids started saying it was from the devil and they got me scared. Damn idiots, I should have known better to keep my printed Pokémon paper T_T

Anyway, I continue watching the show maybe until Unnova? And then on and off. Only game I did was Pokémon go at the beginning with my husband, we we're all going out first as legit players but that didn't last too much because well... Sorry I was a spoofer player haha, but I made both legit and cheater friends (and I have to say the community is pretty less toxic than the PC). I used to help legits and even got a penalty fee while driving with a friend hunting Pokémon lol

I also used bots (hey you wanna cheat then do it well haha), had my alts, pushed them all to 40, some of them died (damn Niantic lol). I was an extreme shiny collector and got the rarer ones, but I had to quit because shiny hunting was so time consuming and it was starting to affect my routine and work. So yeah, it's been like maybe 3 years I left the game and only kept 2 baby accounts that are abandoned.

Gosh I remember the Lugia and Mewtwo movie and begging my sisters to take me to the movie theater. Has it really been that many years???

[bluepen]

i was 5 when i first saw pokemon. it feels kinda amazing my son loves them too. when he's watching it and smiling, i feel like i see myself, the me 20 yrs ago

[Dark_dragonz]

I remember when Pokémon was just a show! They used to put it on TV at the worst time - I'd get halfway through an episode, and just before the epic part, I'd have to leave for school . I never bought Pokémon cards - opted for Yu-Gi-Oh cards instead. I always wanted to play the games, but I had to choose between a Nintendo or a ps2. I went with the ps2. If anyone recalls Pokémon Vortex, I played that for quite a while and then played Pokémon Go on release.

Now I feel like watching Pokémon and emulating the games haha!

[Kibba]

It was literally the best moment of my day back in the day.

They used to play it right after I got home from school and on saturdays we had 4Kids which was an international channel for my country
and they played an advanced season of all the cartoons I used to watch since they aired first in the US.

I remember being so amazed and excited every saturday even tho I didn't understand english very well at that age. But look at me now,
anime, cartoons, movies and videogames (And school) made me learn almost-perfect english written and in pronunciation. Thanks Pokemon