First Introduction to Pokemon?

I first got into Pokemon with the anime. I remember it was an original series episode with a Chimchar in it. How did you start your love of the franchise?

It's complicated.
I first was introduced into the series when I was around 7-8, collecting Pokémon cards and watching the anime as well as the movies. I was quite into it at the time! However, I treated Pokémon as a fad at the time so I started to dislike it as it was a cool thing to do. Basically, I went from franchise to franchise until I got reintroduced into the series when I was 13 when Pokémon was mentioned. And just like that, I bought the XD bundle and fell in love with the series again. While there's been a waning interest as of late (namely the rushed direction), I still do like the series today.

I first got into Pokemon with the anime and this was way back when the first episode recently got released.

When I was in first grade I'd say back in 2003 or so, I remember going to my friends house down the street and him playing Pokémon Ruby on his GBA. So then that piqued my interest because I wanted to be one of the "cool kids". So I begged my grandma to get me a GBA but I didn't get one until the SP was released years later because I was a poor kid lol.

Originally when the anime first aired in the fall of 1998, and the game for Christmas that same year with my Gameboy Color

Though originally I was too young to understand it, and it didn't really take off for me until a couple years later. But that was how I was first introduced to what we all know and love today!

My first exposure to Pokémon was when a certain magazine for kids mentioned it, and then I'm fully introduced to it when its anime was booming on the TV and VCDs.

Weeellll, my auntie introduced it to me, but I got more into it with the anime. I was introduced to it on Ant and Dec's show in the 90's.

I remember those cards, they were banned at my middle school. Kids would go into the restrooms like dealers or something, trading cards. It was crazy.

I had a friend who had Moltres, Machamp, Charizard, & all the rare stuff at that time. I can't remember what exactly was rare, because I was not into the cards. He used to show me legendaries & starter final evolution cards like everyday.

I got into Pokemon around the time Red & Blue came out. We got a Game-boy Color just for that game. The card craze was a year or 2 later at my school.

My first encounter with Pokemon was around 2008 when it was aired in a certain TV show that I liked. I just loved to see Pikachu, Ash, Misty and Brock team up to fight the likes of Jesse haha. Those were the good old days where life was all about animes and no responsibilities.

I watched the first episode of the anime on SMTV Live just before it became a global craze and decided I quite liked it. Then I got a copy of Pokemon Red for my birthday, which was about a month after it was released in this country. Then the cards and figures happened. Suddenly my entire childhood was Pokemon.

Caught the Squirtle Squad episode of the anime on TV when I was very young. Picked up Red Version shortly after.

The rest is history.

I adore threads like these; it is always so interesting to see where an interest stems from.

I believe I first saw the cards at school, and seeing how popular they were with people I instantly wanted some for myself. I think for the most part, my younger self really wanted to be involved with people and it felt that to do that, I needed to have whatever others thought was popular.
When Pokemon Yellow released, my Grandmother purchased it and a special edition yellow Gameboy Colour for my Birthday. To this day, I was never sure why she was keen on getting me video games but I really appreciate her for it. My memory is blurry but it is quite likely I showed slight interest in Pokemon via the cards and she saw the game and just went whole hog; I was spoiled significantly by my Grandparents.

A kid in my afterschool care was drawing Pikachu a lot and for weeks I thought it was just another South Park character bc the same kid was always drawing Cartman and Mr Hanky the Christmas Poo or whatever. It wasn't until some people in my actual class started talking about it and I caught it on TV (first ep was the Beedrill one, so I must have started watching pretty early after it first started airing) that I realized Pikachu was actually from a cartoon I could watch and shortly after, that original boy taught me how to draw Pikachu, lol.

My brother got a Pokemon sticker book, and I got interested in learning the names of the Pokemon. Then I shortly watched the anime after on tv. That's it, really, that's how it happened, lmfao.

My brother subscribed to Nintendo Power when it was a monthly magazine. Before R/B were released, they had Pokemon pull-out inserts in the magazine, spread out over several months. The first half was a walkthrough of the game and the other half was a comic depicting the first few episodes of the anime.

Having not played an RPG-style game before, I was intrigued by the game walkthrough, and its top-down map exploration. That honestly piqued my interest more than the Pokemon themselves. Even before getting the game, I was planning out what Pokemon I would capture and use (of course, I didn't stick to that plan once I actually had Pokemon Blue in my Game Boy lol.)

But yeah, it was Nintendo Power sometime in the 1996-1997 timeframe.

On TV. First followed the series, played the card games, Nintendo games, and now Pokemon Go

I first found out about Pokémon when I was seven and Mom bought Red version for me. I was immediately hooked, and have loved Pokémon ever since.

Btw, my first Pokémon was Charmander.

Similar to others here, the card game was how I got introduced to the franchise :) everybody in school had the cards and traded, few actually played haha.

One or two kids had the gameboys but that didn't seem very appealing to us - the cards were tangible, colorful and exciting :)

Then, the anime also rolled around and we all watched that in the mornings. But the TCG was the first!

For me it was the anime. There was just something about it that called to me. tehn in 97 my folks got me Pokemon Yellow formy birthday and I havent looked back since then. Even my kids have a slight interest in Pokemon now im hopeing will grow over time

I remember watching the anime since I was a little kid. And my first Pokemon games where Sapphire and Emerald.