So excited to have another community highlight and contest from OCD. I think that this project they’ve started is a great one. I’ve been learning about and engaging with many new people here on Hive in the process.
When I saw that the theme for this week was anime I immediately thought that this one wasn’t for me. I’ve never watched any anime or had a big interest in it. Or have I?
I quickly realized that I have watched some anime and specifically in the 90s, which is the focus of this community highlight and contest. The anime I watched has had big influence on me and has been with me for years.
It’s Pokémon. I decided this was the perfect opportunity to take a look at how discovering Pokémon through the anime one Sunday morning led me down a lifelong journey of loving Pokémon.
If you want to check out the community highlight and challenge you can do so here: OCD Community Boost Contest #3: Highlighting The Anime Realm.
Pokémon: Indigo League
I remember it as clear as it can be remembered. That first meeting with the Pokémon franchise. It was a Sunday morning and I was up early to watch the morning cartoons. The tv was basically my babysitter as my parents were sleeping in.
All the normal shows were airing until this new thing came on. Pokémon. That’s a weird name but I guess I’ll have to watch it. It’s the only thing that’s on. Oh how vividly I remember that first episode. Ash sleeping in and missing the ceremony. Almost having to leave there empty handed and with his lifelong dream crushed. Heartbreaking.
Then we suddenly meet this little yellow angry blob with red cheeks and things start to get interesting. It shoots lightning and doesn’t like balls apparently.
I was quite lucky cause that first episode had actually aired yesterday and I had missed it. I was watching the rerun and there was another episode coming up! It was when we started meeting other Pokémon that my interest was really caught and when I understood there was over 100 more. Discovering new ones each episode was so exciting.
This was back in the day when I didn’t know the clock or how time flowed in general. I would get up every single morning to put in the tv and hope that Pokémon would be airing. It seldom did and it was only in the weekends. It was a feeling of pure bliss when it finally showed up. That theme song brought huge amounts of joy with it.
Influencing the future
From this point onward I was all about Pokémon. Everything that could be bought or collected I would get. The Pokémon cards were of course the big one. We would be bringing our collections to school, even though it wasn’t allowed, and trade and play with them. I remember the general stores sold Pokeballs with candy and a plastic figure in it. We would throw them around pretending that our figures were battling.
I would later go on to discover the games for the Game Boy and this would consume much of my time for years to come.
Discovering the movies
When they started dropping movies of Pokémon I was ecstatic. Never had I pushed my parents to go to the movies like this before. Seeing Mew and MewTwo was so huge. Then later on the legendary birds, Lugia, Entei and Celebi.
When I got the movies on VHS later on I would watch them so many times that I can still remember each scene perfectly. I loved how they were really able to make legendary Pokémon fee truly legendary.
I’m still interested in Pokémon to this day although I’m quite limited to only knowing about the first three generations. I played Pokémon GO for the longest time and I played the relatively new Pokémon Let’s GO for the Switch to relive the game that introduced me to the Pokémon games.
So that’s it for my addition to this community. I’m gonna stick around here and hopefully learn a lot about anime over the next week and beyond. You’ll be seeing me around.