How long have you been a Pokémon fan for?

[NovaBrunswick]

Some of us may be veterans in the Pokémon fandom, while others may only be just starting out. In celebration of the franchise's 25th anniversary, how long have you been a Pokéfan for? I've been one for 21 years (I started in 2000, when Gen 2 was in full swing).

 

[Drake Pokétrainer]

When the games released here in Europe and the pokemon craze hit full force. So that'd be since 1999. Haven't missed out on any gen since then, although game-wise I still am missing Platinum and HeartGold of the main games.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

From around 1998 after I kept seeing kids playing the game which piqued my interest. I actually thought that the back sprite of the Trainer seen before and after battles was this weird duck which isn’t too hard to see if you look at a screenshot of it and view it from a distance of three feet on a very small screen.

 

[Morax]

Mom says the first word i spoke was pikachu. So yeah....

 

[Nutter t.KK]

Pretty much as soon as Pokémon hit the UK, actually, it was before that, not my much.. but then I was aware of it even before that.. when Pokémon Stadium was announced for the N64DD in Japan..

 

[Shinruna]

Since 2004, meaning I've been a Pokémon fan for 17 years so far.

I went to elementary school at the time... and do you know what I used to do when the lessons were boring? I used to:
- take my large pencil case;
- put it on its feet;
- behind that "fence" or whatever you want to call that, turn my GBA on;
- start to play with Pokémon Ruby.
Pretty much one of my funniest memories.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I got into Pokémon while I was attending this private Christian school and one day we had a free day where we had no classes so my homeroom teacher put on this anti-pop music propaganda video mini series and I was both bored with it and not buying the so called claims that all pop music was “part of Satan’s work” to turn you into Satanists. The Cinema Snob did a series of YouTube videos where he commented his own thoughts on this propaganda. The host called Whitney Houston a tool of the devil even though her mother is a very well known gospel singer. Anyway I got so bored that I started to doodle Pokémon into my notebook and my teacher didn’t even notice that I lost interest in the nonsense she was showing us. I don’t remember exactly what I drew but I know that Pikachu and Jigglypuff were definitely there and possibly Clefairy and Poliwag.

 

[NeganTheSavior]

Since 2000 from the day I got a Gameboy Color from my uncle. God, this thread makes me feel old.

 

[Nebbygetinthebag]

Since 2006 I have been a pokemon fan. I remember watching anime and saw lots of cool looking pokemon. I have a plush of Pikachu and Pachirisu as well a Pokeball when I was a kid.

 

[janejane6178]

When I was a kid in the 199x and 200x, when it was all easier

 

[CMButch]

I picked 10-15 years. I started in 2007 when I was in elementary to play Fire Red/Leaf Green, so it was 13 soonish 14 years since I wandered into Pokemon world. I started watching Pokemon anime before( 2003/2004) that but that was only OS on TV channel and I was only a kid and I didn't basically care about Pokemon at all at that time. When I started playing Fire Red/ Leaf Green in mid-late 2007 , that's when I started caring about Pokemon.

 

[Ragnarok4]

16 years ago, in 2005, my first game was Saphire, my cousin gave me a gameboy

I used to watch OS on TV in 2003-2004

 

[Trillion]

March 2002, so 19 years

a family member that was living with us at the time got me started off watching old reruns of the kanto and orange islands anime on cartoon network. it used to come on around 8pm. at this time i only knew the first 151 pokemon, togepi, and marill

then i remember seeing the entei and unown movie and realizing there were even more pokemon. i didn't know because the cartoon network reruns never played any of the johto anime. but there was a short that played before the movie that had pichu, houndour, igglybuff, and some others. somehow i had gotten a GSC handbook with the pokedex in the back so i was able to learn about almost all the pokemon i wasn't familiar with, except for igglybuff. i guess a page was missing from the book, but it took me the longest time to figure out what that thing was lol

then i got my first pokemon game in 2003 with Ruby. and i started following the anime in real-time with the episode with Larvitar and Unown

 

[PrinceOfFacade]

I've been a fan of the Pokémon franchise since 1998, when it first dropped in the United States.

However, I didn't actually start playing the main series games until 2002, with Pokémon Silver. From that moment on, I became a dedicated fan of the Pokémon video game series, leaving the trading card game and anime series behind.

 

[NovaBrunswick]

a family member that was living with us at the time got me started off watching old reruns of the kanto and orange islands anime on cartoon network. it used to come on around 8pm. at this time i only knew the first 151 pokemon, togepi, and marill

That's pretty late for a kids' show, even on a channel that is primarly targeted to kids and which used to show a lot of anime back in the day.

 

[OwensJB]

Pretty much my entire life and I've played all the main series games. One thing that I miss from the old days was the quality of the cartoon and how fun it was. Nowadays I can't even stomach the new episodes because it's an endless cycle of repetition.

 

[Pokegirl Fan~]

The Pokemon anime from 1999-2011 technically since I stopped following the anime weekly due to all the disappointments from the BW series.
The Pokemon games 1999-present.

 

[Leonhart]

I've been playing the games since Gen I, although I did take a break from the franchise between Gen II and III since I became more interested in Digimon around that time.

 

[WishIhadaManafi5]

Been a Pokemon fan since the late 90s, got the first 3 games via a Secret Santa exchange and haven't looked back.

 

[NovaBrunswick]

The Pokemon anime from 1999-2011 technically since I stopped following the anime weekly due to all the disappointments from the BW series.

I watched pretty much all the BW series (except the Decolora Adventure arc), but I stopped following the anime around the time the XYZ series was starting. I still read episode synopses on Bulbapedia and Serebii, however.

While I didn't mind the BW series in itself, I got pretty annoyed at Iris's habit of calling Ash a "little kid", even though she's a kid herself.