What was it like being a Pokemon fan in the late 90's- early 2000s?

[MediocreLee]

It. Was. Amazing.  For me at least.

My first exposure to Pokemon back in the day was my big brother showing me the episode "The School of Hard Knocks" and I immediately loved it.  Then I got a GameBoy as a present from my aunt which then spurred into me playing Red with my brother.  I remember being able to go anywhere and seeing something Pokemon related or a department stores selling Pokemon toys.  I remember Pokemon pop-tarts, fruit snacks, lollipops, gum, candy, etc.  My brother and I even entered a small tournament in a mall for Pokemon where I remember my team being Dragonite, Charizard, and Arcanine.  I believe it was some Pokemon event happening because there were stations to play Pokemon Stadium and Pokemon Snap, when it first game out, as well as the card shop being super full because the newest Pokemon cards were out.  I even remember when Burger King, I think, started dishing out the golden tablet in their Kids Meal toys or something and so many kids wanting them.  I discovered the Pokemon Adventure manga at my local library and saw the epic panel of Charmeleon slicing Arbok in half and thought it was awesome.  My and a couple of random kids even went to the library to print off 3D Pokemon images because that was such a new thing back in the day.  My cousin would bring over his N64 so we could play Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2 and Snap, to which I always looked forward to.  My cousin even had the Pokemon Master Trainer board game that I enjoyed playing as a kid, even though we didn't know what we were doing.  I still have a Pikachu watch that still works and I have worn it when I used to be a security guard.

Then when G/S/C came out, I was in utter awe.  It's funny because I was first exposed to my favorite Pokemon, Typhlosion, without even knowing it.  To kinda go on a tangent: I went to California with my family and we entered this store that sold a lot of stuff, but I saw a case filled with figurines.  At the time, Gen 2 wasn't a known thing in America but it was released in Japan, but I really loved the monsters inside.  My mom told me I can get two of them because they were pretty cheap, so I chose Typhlosion and Espeon.   I still have that Typhlosion figurine and it has been almost 2 decades.  Then I finally got to play Gen 2, Silver to be more specific, and when my Quilava became Typhlosion I was ecstatic because I didn't realize he was a Pokemon until that moment.  Afterwards, Gen 2 was just such a great time of discovery.

As you can tell...I really like Pokemon and have a lot of nostalgia for the series.  And I love discovering stuff in the newer gens, Alola was really awesome in my opinion as well as Unova.  Something I miss about Pokemon that is so hard to do now is entering a new Gen not knowing anything, specifically the Pokemon, and then being surprised.  It's hard to avoid seeing new Pokemon nowadays and I miss discovering them without knowing anything.

 

TL:DR IT WAS AWESOME BEING A FAN BACK IN THE DAY...AND IT'S STILL AWESOME BEING A FAN NOW

Edited May 10, 2017 by SHSL Ninja