This series has been such a special part of my life, there are so many memories, so as I type this, i'll write the ones I can remember, so prepare for trouble this might be long.
Being introduced to the series when it first arrived in the UK - I was first introduced to the series by my brother who bought Blue, he let me play on the game but I wasn't allowed to save, so I just had to keep starting over and over with my Bulbasaur. I remember then watching the anime, and adoring Pikachu, my little sidekick who kept reliving the first moments of the game was sidelined for my new favourite Pikachu.
Shortly after the anime came out, the card game had swept through the school. I wanted my own cards so badly, but I could never save my money to buy any. My brother was nice enough to buy me a pack though, I was thrilled to go to school with my own cards, but disappointed by the fact that I didn't have a Pikachu card. This wasn't a great memory as I remember being told by an older kid on the yard that he would trade me a Pikachu card if I gave him all of my cards, he didn't show me this so called Pikachu card, the naive young me wanted this card so much that I gave him my cards and was then told i could not have the pikachu card because he didn't actually have one. I was in a tough spot because I wanted my cards back but couldn't tell because the teachers had said if anymore happened with pokemon cards then they would be banned from school. I didn't want them banned so I had to bare with it. Luckily my sister got them back for me by threatening this boy.
After nagging my brother constantly to play the game, he managed to save up his pocket money to buy Pokemon Red and he gave me his Blue game, this meant that I could finally have my own pokemon adventure. I chose Bulbasaur and I remember being in Viridian forest for ages, I was getting frustrated that I could not find a pikachu for my team. But on a family holiday I finally came across one.
Another GEN 1 memory was watching the anime, crying over Bye Bye Butterfree, and also feeling proper down over the episode Pikachu's Goodbye, the thought that Pikachu could have left was absolutely devastating, the fact Ash would even consider leaving Pikachu was too much for me. I can remember being sad about this one for days. However, I'll always remember waking up on Saturday morning to watch SMTV: Live with Ant, Dec and Cat Deeley presenting, and introducing Pokemon each saturday morning. Plus the sketches they did based on pokemon had me in stitches, with MISTY and G-G-G-Gary! As well as their own pokerap in their Pikachu jumpers which I always wanted.
Furthermore, the time of the first movie, all of my friends were going to see it, but my mum refused to take us because we were too obsessed with the series. I was devastated when my friends in my street got to see it, and I thought I would never see it. Now luckily although I had to wait months, when the film came to video, my local youth club were doing a movies club with the big projector. I was able to see it there, which was amazing, I remember crying, when Ash was turned to stone, but I also remember when the gang were thrown off the boat into the sea and Misty sending out Staryu just being so cool, don't know why but its a memory that has stuck with me.
GEN 1 was great because of the fact that it meant that the Nintendo 64 could have its own Pikachu edition. Me, my brother and my sister put our pocket money together to buy it (I remember being able to save 3 pound to put towards it, so god knows how much my brother and sister put towards it). As you can imagine, this would have taken ages to save up for so in the meantime, we went over our neighbours to play on Stadium constantly to see our poke pals in 3D, but when we saved enough money, we bought the Pikachu edition, alongside pokemon Snap. Again we had a lot of fun with this game.
Towards the end of gen 1, Yellow arrived on the scene, for my 5th or 6th birthday, I was given the Gameboy Colour alongside Pokemon Yellow, I could have Pikachu following me, this was exciting.
I loved GEN 1 so much, all the merchandise, the thrills of having all of my friends playing the games. But then, when we had seen Movie 1, we learnt their were more pokemon to be discovered. And my brother had reached that age were it was okay for him to take me into the cinema whilst my mum waited in the lobby, so that meant we could see Pokemon 2000 and my mum didn't have to sit through it all. Lugia was one of the best pokemon I'd seen, I adore it and wanted my own.
GEN 2 was again, an amazing time with some great memories. A new favourite of mine was introduced here in the form of Cyndaquil, and the fact that I could stop it evolving was great as I could give it the Everstone, my friends in my street criticised me for not evolving it, but I didn't want my Cyndaquil any other way. I was able to have Silver, and this one I can remember completing, the first generation games I find it difficult to remember how far I got, but Silver, I know I completed. I remember being in the car on my way to my grandad's house, when I finally managed to confront Lugia, I remember pleading with my brother to fight him for me and capture him because I wanted him so badly, my brother told me no, and then explained the Master ball to me. And with that, Lugia was mine.
The anime had moved on, Ash, Misty and Brock left Tracey in Pallet and journeyed to Johto. And as if the theme song could get any more awesome, I was in love with Pokemon Johto Journeys. For me it holds a special place in my heart, "a whole new world we live in, a whole new way to see, its a whole new place, with a brand new attitude but you still gotta catch em all, and be the best that you can be!" All these new pokemon, 151 was a massive number to a 6 year old, but to have even more pokemon that was such an amazing discovery, and seeing them all burst onto screen in the opening with that music and those lyrics. And then when Movie 3 came out in the cinema, and seeing a new version of the song with 2 of my favourite pokemon, Bulbasaur and Cyndaquil battling to it, well I was one happy child after watching that film.
Unfortunately, Johto was the time when the kids around me starting growing out of pokemon, they felt they were to old for it, and I was gutted, because I loved waking up on a Sunday morning to watch it and playing Crystal, but unfortunately the kid in me wanted to stay cool, and by staying with pokemon I would lose that popularity I had in school, so I too "grew out" of the series.
Gen 3 arrived in the Uk, and I admit, seeing the boxes of the new games in my local game shop peaked my interest but I pretended I didn't care, for me I hated the series and hated Pikachu and Ash. But my brother still continued to play, he went on to buy Sapphire and kept trying to tell me about it, but I was "too old" for pokemon and thought he should grow up too as he was older than me. One day my family and our family friends went on a road trip, my brother and my friend from the other family came in my car with my parents, the 3 of us had our gameboy advances, I was playing Scooby Doo on mine, whilst my brother and my friend played Sapphire each. They were talking about it throughout the journey, they were talking about things like Brock's eyes, Pikachu being overused, and of course the new pokemon, they went on about how Marill had it pre evolution, and that peaked my interest a bit, they showed me and my interest peaked even further, I went on about how I didn't hate pokemon as much as I made out I did, but I hated Pikachu because Ash used him so much. My friend said that there were 2 new versions of Pikachu in this game, one was blue and yellow and one was red and yellow, this intrigued me, I loved all things blue, so a blue version of my favourite pokemon at one point was something I had to see. He showed me a Minun in his pokedex, and that was it, I was sold, I had to have these games, I had to have these pokemon. So a few days later, my brother said he'd help me buy Ruby, so he gave me some money and I put some of my pocket money towards it, but we still didn't have enough, so we convinced my sister to give us some money, eventually she did, and so me and my brother bought Ruby. This was it, I was hooked. I went on an adventure with Mudkip, who was later joined by a Minun, and this Minun is one of my greatest memories of Pokemon.
I never had high level pokemon back in Blue, Yellow, Silver and Crystal, my highest level pokemon was in the 50s which was Lugia, so this Minun was and still very much is special to me. It took from 2003-2005 for it to happen, but this Minun became my first ever level 100 pokemon. I spent so much time on Ruby trying to get it to level 100, but it was taking so long, eventually Fire red and Leaf green came out.
Back when RS were out, pokemon wasn't popular, no one in my school played it, but then FRLG came, and I traded all of my games from PS2 in for me and my brother to have FRLG on release day, I had the responsibility of buying them this time as he was in work, so I went with my mum and traded in about 20 games, but for us to have £60 worth of games in order for us to buy both versions, was something we didn't achieve, I was gutted luckily the £10 we needed my mum decided to give me, and so FRLG were ours. Now normally with these games my brother always chose the version, he chose Red, he chose Silver, and he chose Sapphire, so after him saying he wanted FR, theres was only one came for me to play and that was FR, I had the opportunity to choose on the sly since by the time he finished work I'd be quite far. So after he finished work, he came home and I gave him LG, he wasn't happy that's for sure, but he dealt with it. Me and Bulbasaur were reunited once more. By 2005 I was in my last year of primary school, and I had managed to actually become quite popular, so I didn't care who saw me playing my game, I took it to school with me and played it on the yard, and with that I had crowds around me watching me play, and within weeks, practically everyone in school was playing these games. I was first to complete it, and this leads me back onto the my Minun
With FR completed I traded Minun over to my new main game, this meant his had a small EXP boost, so he reached level 80 odd, but this was becoming tiresome, he was gaining such little experience and I felt that level 100 was miles away, fortunately enough for me, Pokemon Colosseum hit the scene and with that, Minun took part in the Mt. Battle challenge, and after 2 years of training, he reached level 100, my first ever level 100 pokemon, this of course made me even more popular in school because of the fact that I was the only person who had a level 100.
Me and my best friend in school were fanatics at this point, we loved pokemon, we used to go out on weekends and play it together using our imaginations, and one weekend his mum took us out, we passed a shop selling pokemon cards, so we each bought a pack, and it felt like fate, I opened the pack up and the first card in the pack was none other than Minun. My Minun obsession got to him and he decided to be my counter part, he started training his very own Plusle. His family invited me on a holiday to Spain with them, of course we were pokemon fanatics at this point, I remember both of us buying the Ultra Ball pokemon electronic toy and pokedex whilst in Spain. And there was a gashapon machine outside a shop, the pokemon available in this gashapon machine were Pikachu, Plusle, Minun, Spheal, and the Hoenn starters as well as Wynaut, we had a daily limit of money to spend, so we put all of our money in these machines hoping to get a Minun and Plusle. We got every single one of those pokemon except for Minun, but had multiple Spheal toys which annoyed us, his mum was cross that we spent all our money for that day on these toys, so we were told off. I remember burying all of the Spheal toys in the sand on the beach.
I had finished primary school and pokemon again was fading, I was trying to hold on as much as I could to the series, but my best friend had moved on, he had new friends and didn't play, and I felt alone as no one played. And eventually I fell out of the series once more.
However in late 2006 a new game arrived on the scenes in the Uk, Pokemon Ranger, I saw it in a magazine, it was like Yellow, pokemon followed you, but it wasn't just any pokemon, it was a Minun. Of course this brought me back to the series, I loved that game, but then it felt like there was no new pokemon game for ages. And my obsession began to fade, however I was able to use the internet at this point, and searched online, which is when I found Serbii, and Japan had already got hold of new games. Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. I kept following the updates for these games and my obsession began to grow. I had heard rumours that Ash had left the anime and a new character was taking over, so I was super excited about this new generation of pokemon. I looked up the pictures of the first episode of DP and saw no signs of Ash by the point I had got to page 6, I stopped looking, believing these rumours and that Dawn was our new hero.
Unfortunately for me, I lived in the UK, and by the time of April 2007, it seemed every other country other than Europe had received the new games. I was going insane waiting, I had preordered the games and the wait was killing me, I had to wait till June, I was on youtube every day watching videos and walkthroughs, and on saturday nights I'd youtube the anime episodes, i was annoyed to see Ash at the end of the first episode and found out that Dawn was a coordinator, something I hated in the odd AG episodes I had seen, but I saw a pokemon who I fell in love with in the opening sequence and in the first few minutes of the first episode who i knew would be joining the main cast, I had to stick it out and see him properly, Turtwig. And the more episodes I watched the more I enjoyed, I was hooked, and I loved the trio of Ash, Dawn and Brock. I had decided, Turtwig was one of my new favourites and was joining me in June when I could play my game.
In the run up to the release of the games, I had found 2 new best friends who actually also secretly liked pokemon, between the 3 of us we decided we were going to each pick a starter and be rivals. However, I was absolutely devastated when I found out that I wasn't even in the country on the day of the release because my family were on holiday that week. I tried pretending i was ill in the run up to the holiday because I wanted to play the games more that go away and it was worse that my friends could play it and i had to wait a little bit longer to play. Anyway I remember it was also the first holiday my brother didn't come with us, so he had his version of the game and was ringing us on holiday every day so my brother knew how he was doing, I would ask him constantly about the games and if they had arrived in the post, they had and he had already begun. After the holiday I remember anticipating coming home so badly, the 2 hour flight felt like forever, but once i got through that front door, I dashed in, picked up my copy of Pokemon Pearl from the table and was ready to begin my adventure. And from that point, I've stuck with pokemon forever, its a part of me, and I hope to pass it on to my children one day when i eventually have my own.
4th gen was my favourite gen of all so far, I followed the anime religiously so when Dawn took her place in the Grand Festival and Ash in the League I felt like a proud parent, seeing them grow as characters throughout the 4 years. I remember it being the time of my GCSE's, I was fortunate enough to have study leave at school, so I rushed home after my exams and would get home each thursday to watch the japan episodes air live, to watch Dawn in her grand festival and see how she did. This character holds a very special place in my heart for so many reasons.
4th gen also brought back my childhood favourite games of Gold and Silver, by releasing HGSS, I kept saying from the start of DP that we would see remakes of these games due to the hints so having to wait the 3/4 years felt like a lifetime but I can remember it being revealed very well, I stayed up late to watch the Pokemon Sunday episode live from Japan, and seeing that Gold and Silver crystal balls, opening up and revealing the games was such an amazing experiences and also WALKING POKEMON! These games are such special games to me.
5th gen holds some memories too, I remember BW coming out in my last year of school, and there were quite a few of us playing it in our common room, everyone in the common room who played it chose Snivy except for me, I chose Tepig but then also got hold of an Oshawott, so I was representing those starters for the school. This was great because I can remember so many common room battles that took place.
When I went to university, I kept my pokemon love quiet, but luckily I made an awesome group of friends. XY were released and I was so excited to have pokemon in 3D that my obsession was revealed to them, but now its a little joke that they like to make about me now and again.
6th gen will be special to me because its the generation in which I travelled to the home country of the series and had my own Japanese pokemon adventure.
Apologises for the long post.
