How did you get into Pokemon?

My cousins had Red and Blue and brought them over one day when I was really young. I started with Charmander and...well, the rest is history.

I actually didn't start with pokemon until Super Smash Brothers Brawl, where my sister fell in love with pikachu. First game I ever played was sapphire.

My memory is a bit hazy, but apparently it was really popular with my age group and wanting the games was apparently the reason I spent a whole summer saving up for a Game Boy Color and then I was gifted Blue version by my parents for my 9th birthday.

I got into Pokemon by watching the first episode of the first season as a kid on Kids WB and fell in love with the series. I collected the trading cards too. My cousin had the GBA and Ruby and after trying it out and picking Torchic, I immediately asked my parents to get a GBA and Sapphire and my love for Pokemon became even greater than before.

Funny story: As a child, I used to hate Pokemon. I didn't like how popular it was. Then for some reason, I started to get into the pokemon themselves. For example, I thought Squirtle was cute. Next thing I know, I'm hooked. Pikachu became my favorite of all time, and still is. That's why my first game was Pokemon Yellow. ^w^

It was the big thing at school in the 90's here, so I started to watch it and eventually played the games, starting with Blue.
I've been into it ever since.

I was purchased Pokemon Red for Christmas in 1998. I had no idea what the game was, or how it was played, but I did know that it was immensely popular and I'd be a fool not to play it. (Peer pressure.) And I'm glad I did, because Pokemon is my favorite. When Gen 2 came out it was a natural thing to buy it right away. Same with Crystal, RS, etc... To this day I continue to buy Pokemon games on release. There's simply no other option.

I was a victim of the original Pokemon phenomenon that took the world by storm.

Pokemon Red and Blue. The original trading card game.

The rest is history.

AND I JUST FOUND THESE IN MY CLOSET. The nostalgia! I can't find my first holographic out of a booster pack. It was an original Zapdos. Wherefore art thou...?

I vaguely remember it a Wendy's commercial for Pokemon plushies initially peaking my interest. I thought the design for the Dratini plushy was really cool so I started drawing it until I had it down. From there, it kind of exploded onto the elementary school scene. All the kids in my class would pass around Pokemon drawings to trace so they could get better at drawing them, after school we would all run around pretending to be Pokemon, my brother and I ended up getting Pokemon Blue and Red and watching the anime religiously with my mom. She'd let us spend our allowance from cleaning the house every week at the local card shop on Fridays to buy a new pack of cards.

I miss how popular it used to be.

whtwlf said:

I vaguely remember it a Wendy's commercial for Pokemon plushies initially peaking my interest. I thought the design for the Dratini plushy was really cool so I started drawing it until I had it down. From there, it kind of exploded onto the elementary school scene. All the kids in my class would pass around Pokemon drawings to trace so they could get better at drawing them, after school we would all run around pretending to be Pokemon, my brother and I ended up getting Pokemon Blue and Red and watching the anime religiously with my mom. She'd let us spend our allowance from cleaning the house every week at the local card shop on Fridays to buy a new pack of cards.

I miss how popular it used to be.

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Not sure about the TCG, but I'd say the franchise is as popular or even more popular at this point. That or it's so ingrained in culture that many of us who have been around the franchise for a long time (or even those who know of the franchise, but never immersed themselves in the universe) have simply come to accept it as part of society.

If you want to look at numbers, the franchise generated $38 billion from 1998 to 2013, or about $2.5 billion a year on average (obviously this varies year to year). 2014 the franchise generated over $2 billion as well so it's been pretty consistent. And despite 2014 being a crappy year for console gaming sales, Omega Ruby was still #2 in terms of sales in Japan, despite being released in November of that year (vs. the number one spot Yo-kai Watch 2, which was released four months prior). ORAS set the record for most sales in a week in 2014. It was the biggest Pokemon game launch in the UK.

If you want to talk movies (admittedly, I'm not very knowledgeable on them as I've stopped watching them since the fourth movie... and there are 17 of them now), no Pokemon film has ever finished under Top 15 in the Japanese box office since 2002. I didn't bother checking beyond that. Out of the thousands of films pushed out each year, I think that's pretty good. And keep in mind that Hollywood movies get to compete in Asian box offices as well (see how Frozen completely obliterated the Japanese box office in 2014).

Again the TCG, however, is not the juggernaut it once was. The Pokemon franchise, however, is pretty solid.

Pokémon Red/Blue + Game Boy Color.

My mom just buy me a new phone first time and I start searching games but every android game was like 100 mb or more and I had not a wi fi connection that time. I just google pokemon and here I got so many game and then download my boy and leaf green . From that time I just love pokemon.

VisualJae said:

Again the TCG, however, is not the juggernaut it once was. The Pokemon franchise, however, is pretty solid.

Click to expand...

The TCG is stronger than it was about 10 years ago (arguably its lowest point simply due to the initial craze having worn off), but nowhere near where it was when it first hit the market.

cheeeez tv!

I was a kid in the 90s so my parents bought me a game boy and got me Pokemon Red.

I visited New Jersey when I was nine years old and my three cousins were totally obsessed with Pokemon and other games at the time. That was when I watched an episode of the anime on TV. I never heard of it back home so I got quite curious about it.

Then I got a GBC and Pokemon Blue and then that started an obsessive trend. Kept buying the games, and the consoles in order to play them. Came back from school everyday to watch a double helping of the anime straight away. Good times.

I found a Magnemite toy in the sand when I was 5 years old. The day after I saw an ad for the game on TV. It was like destiny.
My dad got the game the same year and I fell in love instantly. It's really thanks to him that I got into it. My friends started playing it, everyone started playing it really- and thus my lifelong passion was born!

I don't quite remember, but it's just a thing of me. It started with Pokémon Red. Once I enjoy a game it's hard for me to put it down. And if your friends and sister also enjoy it, it's even harder.
My sister and I always had all the games together, at least up until the 3rd gen (she had Blue, I had Red, she had Silver, I had Gold, she had Sapphire, I had Ruby [also we had Yellow, Crystal and Emerald, of course]).
Since the 4th gen she quit, I continued to the 5th gen and since I don't own a 3DS I have yet to play 6th gen. Although I don't hear too much good about it from friends who played it, so I'm not sure...

Also the TCG really caught my attention. And I just took it up again a few years ago after such a long abstinence ^^

It's one of the few RGPs that gives you choice (though not much, but still). In many RPGs you have your characters set and just evolve them (Golden Sun, Fire Emblem, Dragon Age, Sacred, Infamous, etc.). So for example you are a warrior and become an even stronger warrior.
In Pokémon you choose whatever team you wish to use and how to use it.
Of course there is Azure Dreams, Monster Rancher and Dragon Quest Monsters... But Azure Dreams is quite old, Monster Rancher doesn't really get published in europe and DQM never caught my attention :o
Dark Souls (didn't play Demon Souls) and Kingdoms of Amalur - Reckoning are the only RPGs I know of, where you can really do your own thing, which is why I enjoy them so much :)

But yeah, so, it was Pokémon Red and the circumstances (being that my sister and friends also enjoyed it). And the fact, that it was different from any other game I played at that time.

90's ! remember burger king

the cartoon, then the 1st game i played was pokemon blue then i was hooked.