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Age and your various firsts when it comes to Pokémon.

Antiyonder

Overlord
I'm 38 and will be 39 next month. Got into the franchise at 17 during the summer of 99.

Registered on the forum February 2010 and was 28 going on 29.

Very first exposure to the franchise barring commercials was the Sneak Peak VHS from Nintendo Power in 98 and due to said subscription got six magazines with gameplay tips for Red/Blue and a comic based on episodes of the anime (still shot photos rather than new artwork).

Another first thanks to the magazine was my first TGC card which was E3 Pikachu. First card I got with a theatrical release was the Ancient Mew card as even though my brother and I saw the first film in theaters they ran out of cards by the time we made it there.

First episode I caught while channel surfing on 2/12/99 was The Bridge Bike Gang. Not perfect memory, but I can give the date of this rerun cause I happen to catch a premiere of Power Rangers Lost Galaxy's second episode (Quasar Quest Part 2).

First home media bit I got was the VHS "The Great Race" with The Ninja Poké-Showdown to The Kangaskhan Kid. First premiere I went out of the way to catch was Princess VS Princess featuring the holiday exclusive to the Pokémon world and obviously not from a location in the real world whatsoever;).

First game I played was Yellow. First Gen 3 game I played as I took a break from installments for a while was Fire Red and the first Gen 4 game I played was a library copy of Diamond.

Any that come to mind will just be edited in the post.
 

Antiyonder

Overlord
Not sure I get the reference if there's a reason for the bolded words. But it was a new experience though. Family moved and our then new neighborhood was the first time I had free access to a pool.

Also what really got me into watching more of the anime was my cousin putting on a tape (forgot if it was a store bought on or recorded) with Pokémon Shipwrecked and Island of the Giant Pokémon.
 

NovaBrunswick

Canada Connoisseur
I just turned 26 in February, and this year is my 21st year of being into Pokémon. I started when I was six years old in 2001 with either Yellow or Silver (can't remember which came first, so it's a sort of chicken-or-egg thing). I got Ruby three years later as a present for my ninth birthday, but I didn't get FR/LG because by then I'd kind of started becoming disinterested in Pokémon, and I missed out on D/P/Pt, B/W and B2/W2 when they first came out. I finally got back into Pokémon in the latter half of 2013, around the time when X/Y were about to come out, when I got myself a DS and a copy of Black, where my love for the fandom was officially reignited. I got B2 that Christmas, and two years later, I was finally able to get a 3DS, with X and Omega Ruby. The year after that, I got Sun for Christmas, but so far, I haven't yet played US/UM, the Let's Go games, or Sword/Shield.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
I was about 14 when the games came out. Then my friend let me borrow his copy of Red and I was playing the game and worked hard for it but then a girl in my class saw that I had Pokémon Red in it and grabbed my GB without my permission and I told her to give it back and she wouldn’t and then she accidentally did the delete all button press that you could do on those games and that really made me upset because I spent two weeks trying to get through the game without anyone’s help for the very first time and I was inside the Viridian Gym just about to battle Giovanni and I had a really good Blastoise and I think over 50 hours invested into the game and it was all gone. She tried apologizing to me but no amount of apologies could ever replace everything that was gone especially since it was my very first Pokémon play through and starting over sort of ruined the sense of excitement of discovering everything in the games as I had done most of it before. Three hours of navigating the Silph Co building during the TR takeover, four trying to figure out the Mansion ruins puzzle to get to Blaine, the Pidgey I named “Pikachu” out of frustration because I couldn’t find one in Viridian Forest and the Pikachu I called “Pidgey” after it suddenly appeared literally right after I caught and nicknamed, even the Marowak I had used the Water Gun TM on were all gone forever. My friend felt bad for what had happened that he then let me keep the game because he knew I had worked so hard trying to figure everything out without anyone’s help and it would take a long time to try to get back to where I was.
 

RedJirachi

Veteran member
Must have been a bizarre summer huh? I still remember the great days when i got into pokemon...
iS tHaT a JoJo ReFeReNcE?
 

Missingno.Fan

Well-Known Member
I’m 31 and I first got into Pokémon in the fall of ‘98. I actually watched the show first. I went to a Pokémon event with a friend before I knew much of anything. Her mom told me the time and channel Pokémon came on and I started watching it.

The anime was the only exposure I had to the franchise until Christmas of ‘99 when I got Blue.
 

Italianbaptist

Informed Casual
Nice to know I'm not the only old person on here. At first I was concerned about being on a Pokemon forum at 30 possibly chatting with a bunch of kids, propriety and all that. But oldheads unite! :)

So apparently Pokemon came to the states in 97, but I distinctly remember getting into the first generation in 98 because 3rd grade was the year we were all caught up in Pokemania. Red was my first game and Squirtle was my first Pokemon.

Picked up the cards later because everyone else had them but never really got into them that much. Also never really got into the anime because I would sleep in on Saturdays and miss it all the time. The video games were really where I planted my flag because of the layer of strategy underneath. Took a brief hiatus between 3rd and 4th gen so never went to Sinnoh, but got back in for HeartGold/SoulSilver and have been trekking on ever since.
 

Antiyonder

Overlord
Nice to know I'm not the only old person on here. At first I was concerned about being on a Pokemon forum at 30 possibly chatting with a bunch of kids, propriety and all that. But oldheads unite! :)

Hey now. Those in your age range can still play the "I got into it when I was a kid".

Those up there with me don't have that excuse as we were outside the acceptable age when it came to the US.:( We hold the title for forum freaks.
 
I'm 28 now, turning 29 this summer. Also got into the franchise during the summer of '99

Registered on the forum on the 15th of December in 2006 when I was 14 (huh, had a profile here for literally half my life now)

I don't quite remember the very first exposure to the franchise. A few kids started bringing pokemon cards to school and said there was a really good new cartoon on tv. I got some spare cards from my friends and started watching the anime as well.

First card was a base set Rattata, nothing impressive there. And I distinctly remember a base set Dragonair being among my firsts as well, which half of my classmates begged to trade to them. I still have it to this day.

First anime episode was the very first one, although I'm pretty sure it was a rerun and not the original launch of the anime in my country.

First pokemon game was Pokemon Blue, which I got for my 7th birthday, my first starter was a Squirtle, which I lost shortly after cause I couldn't read English (the games were never produced in my native tongue) and I accidentally released it, starting a new game after that.

First home media bit I got was the first Pokémon movie, later got Pokémon 2000 as well and while I've watched the 3rd and 4th movie, I've never owned any but the original two.

First spinoff game I got was Pokemon Colosseum.

First shiny I encountered was a Tangela in Gold which I didn't catch, first caught shiny was a Rapidash in FireRed.

That's about it for firsts. A lot of people on these forums are people who joined the franchise during the early days though. I haven't seen much people around who started with Sinnoh, Unova or later.
 

Spider-Phoenix

#ChespinGang
I was 10 years when the show aired in my country in the now distant year of 1999. Believe or not I just find that out now I was the the same age as Ash.

I remember watching the commercials hyping the show up as this new thing and as many kids of the time I was sucked into Pokémania.

Johto filler hell kind of made me drop after the third year. It took some years to get interest on it again. It was around the time Hoenn was arriving here I got some interest. Between watching random episodes here and there it was only with the BW series I started to watch in full again. And have been doing that since then, without stopping.

As for games, my first try was playing FireRed on emulators. Then Emerald, Diamond, Platinum, White and Heart Gold. Took some time until I got employed and started to buy the games. My first one being White. Eventually I got Black version and later White 2 as well. In the meantime, I backtracked Platinum and Soul Silver.

From generations 6 and 7 I bought both games. For gen 6 the first I played (and my main file) was Y.

LGPE was where I only got the Pikachu version (the game being Kanto-only really dissapointed me and I only got it because of Meltan. If I only knew of Dexit I wouldn't have purchase it to be honest). On generation 8 I only got Sword because of the whole Dexit thing. So technically, gen 8 is the first time I only play/buy one version of a new generation.
 

ChiVulpix

Pokémon master
I'm 14 now and I started my "Pokémon journey" at the beginning of the Black and White era.

My first exposure to the franchise was trough the Best wishes anime when it first aired on Disney XD. I got so excited when it aired, mostly because one of the lead characters was a cute, black girl. I really liked the anime and continued watching it, though I was an extremely casual fan and didn't even watch all the episodes.

I also stared reading the official Pokémon magazine around that time which led to me getting my first cards since I got free booster packs with the magazines. I remember getting a Corsola, Baltoy and a Chikorita.

In the summer of 2016, Pokémon GO was everywhere. But I didn't have a phone, so I couldn't play. But I read the strategy guides and helped people at my school with the game. I also started getting REALLY into the anime and at that point I'd acquired quite extensive knowledge of Pokémon.

I started seriously collecting the cards when I was about 12 or 13. At that time, I also started playing Pokémon Crystal on an emulator and got more and more into the franchise. It was also when I got a phone and finally started playing Pokémon GO. I also started watching various Pokémon playtroughs, fan theories and other Pokémon related content on YouTube. Eventually, I even stared my own Pokémon channel which was really cringe.

At the start of 2019 I started watching Pokémon tournaments and even started practicing VGC on Showdown as I wanted to win the next world championship. It was thar year that I managed to save up enough money to buy a Nintendo switch to play Pokémon Sword which would become my favorite game.

However, I quit VGC this year as I realized the game mentally exhausted me very quickly and that I was extremely terrible at it.

But I still continued to enjoy all other aspects of Pokémon and I've even gotten into Pokémon roleplay.
 

Rodpaco

Well-Known Member
Nice thread!

I'm 24 and I started my pokémon journey when I was 5, in 2002, when I came across a theme deck with a Bellsprout and a Kangaskhan on it.

Immediately after, I started watching the anime. It was in season 4 and the first episode I ever watched was probably Fossil Fools.
First pokémon movie I watched was Pokémon the Movie 2000, in the summer of 2006.

I got my first games (FireRed & Sapphire) in late 2005 (or maybe late 2004).
First legendary encounter was around 2005-2006, when I faced a Zapdos in FireRed! Of course, I completely f***ed it up and cried because I had previously wasted my Master Ball on a friggin' Weezing!
First legendary I actually caught was Moltres in FireRed (2006, probably).
First shiny I encountered was a Tentacool in Hoenn waters (in either Sapphire or Emerald), around 2005-2006 as well, but because I was a dumb kid at the time I just ignored it lmao
First time I ever won the pokémon league was in Emerald, probably around 2006.
First time I caught the Regis was in December 2007, in Emerald, and WITHOUT the Internet! (My family only got the Internet in 2008) Just using the braille alphabet in the game's manual. Still one of my proudest achievements as a pokémon player :)
 

Teravolt

cilan lives forever in my heart
I was first introduced to Pokémon when I was 10 (2012). I’ve been avidly interested in it since then. I’ve played all of gens 5-8, and would love to play the older games, but I don’t have the console for it (I just sold my 3DS yesterday). My first game was Y, which I played to death. I’ve never watched much of the anime. I’ve been collecting the cards for the past 8 years, as well. The first shiny I got was a shiny Mawile in Y, but I was out of Pokeballs. WORST EXPERIENCE EVER. I’ve been shiny hunting and collecting ever since.
 
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EmberFireTrainer

An anomaly
I'm 30 and a fellow Pokémon fan! I feel I've been a fan of Pokémon for a significant amount of time, or so it seems. The funny thing is I've been more into the franchise within the last 10 years then I have been when I was a kid when it first debuted! I don't really remember specifically how I even got into Pokémon. I do remember kids at school having and trading Pokémon cards during recess. I got a few cards for Christmas /my birthday but I had no idea how to play (still don't lol!) I just liked them mainly because of their design.

Kids at school also talked about playing the games. I remember as a kid, wanting to play the games and see what they were all about, but I was a poor kid back then and the only electronic entertainment I had was broadcast local TV and some VHS tapes.

Then the kids started talking about this Pokémon movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back. I really remember this, because my fellow classmates wouldn't shut up talking about it lol and so now I really had to see this really cool first Pokémon movie! I've not even watched an episode of the anime at that point, so every character, Ash and all them were completely new to me when I saw Mewtwo Strikes Back.

Haha! I talked my mom into taking me to see Pokémon and she actually fell asleep like halfway into the movie. She was glad when it over lol!

Anyway, I am more into the anime, followed by the video games. I still don't know anything about playing Pokémon cards. My little 10 year old cousin tried to teach me but I didn't get it lol. I still collection cards now for their designs. I have one volume of the Pokémon Adventures Manga with Red and Blue but other than that, not really into the manga, although the storyline is quite interesting!

I honestly can't recall when I started watching the anime. I think I was in middle school. All the years seem to blend together. I watched the original Kanto series (my first episode was Who Gets to Keep Togepi) and then I took a long break and didn't watch Pokémon until a few episodes here and there of Black and White and then by the time the XY series debuted, I was back into Pokémon more than ever, and now here I am!
 

Spider-Phoenix

#ChespinGang
I have you beaten as a 32-years old! And still watching - and worse, enjoying - japanese children's shows and games
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
The very first Pokémon game that I bought new and not used was Crystal when I was 16. Before that I was given Red by a friend and had gotten Yellow as a birthday gift and Gold and Silver used.
 

Captain Jigglypuff

Leader of Jigglypuff Army
I have you beaten as a 32-years old! And still watching - and worse, enjoying - japanese children's shows and games
I’m going to be 36 this month and I love the Pokémon games and a few different toy lines myself and enjoy them. There’s nothing wrong with being young at heart. My grandma was like that and she lived to be 99 and a half years old. My mom even loved video games and had a 3DS and DSi XL that she played regularly before her death from cancer at the age of 59.
 
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