I believe it was the honestly toxic mindset that once you become a teenager, like alot of people became by gen 3, you basically are an "adult lite" so you're too "grown up" and "cool" for things you did as a kid. The pokemon Fandom of gen 3 more or less replaced the old one from gens 1 and 2.
It explains alot. I remember when I use to like pokemon when I was four. I even had a birthday party that was pokemon theme. Eventually I gave up on the card game, because of yugioh. But around when I was a bit older, I kept watching the Honen league arc. Got into the video games when was I ten, then..around middle school when black and white was out, I wanted pokemon to be more mature. And they almost succeeded, even its story was a bit matured. But in high school the game series sorta died as well as the anime and the card game when I sorta came back to pokemon, in the third grade bring held back, up until my sophomore year in high school when the series went to 3d. In college, I almost did come back sorta. I am hyped for the Diamond and pearl remakes and I did play pokemon masters and pokemon go somewhat.
Not at all its just what is better and pokemania is gen 1 is better majority can get mad evidence and facts is what wins debates show me why gen 1 is not the best and only everything past that is trash work 🤔 unless someone can come up with something like the original which is standard then it's worthless you have people who are either Satanist or atheist or Christian so these debates Is nothing new
That's definitely another strong factor that helped push away the not-as-dedicated fans who only jumped on to the bandwagon while it was trendy. I remember being in middle school when generation 3 hit, and seeing how my classmates weren't talking about Pokemon anymore, and how the overall attitude was shifting to neglecting the series and being ashamed by it. I, a middle schooler who still passionately loved Pokemon and didn't want to let it go, felt the need to hide my love for the franchise or else I'd be harassed and bullied. It's as you said, some people grew older and thought Pokemon wasn't cool anymore, so they abandoned it. The ones that remained, such as myself, ended up becoming split between what was better: Older, classic Pokemon, or the new, modern approach the franchise was going through at the time (generations 3 and 4 to be specific.)
@Wyvern 0m3g4 I had some bullies in secondary school, only because Pokemon was a favourite of mine growing up (still like the franchise today), and they thought I was gay and worth mocking as a result. There are some things about being a teenager that sucked hard, but life is life.
@@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 I feel that. I recall some teens in high school who would openly mock Pokemon whenever it got brought up, and all I could think was "I'm so glad they don't know I love it. But damn it, I wish they'd stop doing this shit too." Thankfully that part of my life is far behind me now.
As someone who grew up in the 90’s and was around for the Pokemon craze it’s peak I cannot put into words how it took over every corner of the world and when the First Movie dropped it was like a global event for all of us. You don’t get that kind of cultural phenomenon anymore. Pokémon, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, etc. You don’t get things that just universally sweep the nation or world like this anymore. It was magic.
Well.... "On your left" and "Always" swept me of my feet ^^ And the Red Wedding was jaw dropping! But it is very rare and special that something so popular manages to find a way to keep on going and being loved after the intitial craze.
@@younguy978 Although the Pokemon GO thing only only really lasted weeks to a month at least in the UK. When the Pokemon craze was at it's peak in the 90's it lasted years. Not sure about the 2020 thing?
@@younguy978 yeah what was the 2020 thing? The pokemon Go craze lasted a solid two weeks here in northern VA everyone was walking outside even at midnight their would be whole squads of teens who snuck out to catch them. It died down a bit as "safety" issues arose, kids in streets, people driving while playing, people out at midnight, and schools banning it. I def will remember it as a time of world peace someone would run into a resturant and shout "Squirtle is outside around the corner!" youd have the staff and customers run outside to catch it and then go back to their food lmao. It kept for part of the year but not to that extent. Ice cream stores had pokeball inspired flavors, the local sushi place did pikachu and pokeball sushi, and the teams went hard as people fought over gyms even trying to make their favorite landmark one.
I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but around here, I really felt like we were hit a second Pokemania era when Pokémon Go launched. Never did I see so many people gather for a Pokémon event since the lines for the first movie or the mall tour that happened than that gathering at my downtown’s park. The difference is, because of those flaws of Go, it indeed fell off the wayside far quicker than the first time around (maybe 2-3 months)
Pokemon lived and died many deaths. After the zeitgeist died, it slowly came back with Diamond and Pearl and suddenly everyone in school wayyy older than you'd expect were playing Pokemon again. Then X & Y put the nail in that coffin. Then Pokemon Go revived it. Then Sword and Shield killed it again. Now Legends Arceus brought it back. BUT, Pokemon will NEVER be as big as it once was, and Gen 3 killed it.
@@ZeroX7649 nobody played black and white or the sequels in my experience in NYC, and you were still seen as kiddie if you liked Pokémon in 09/10 X/Y actually revived interest especially with its ease of multiplayer features, with GO eventually being the new golden age
To be honest, I also think the Gen 1 games thrived because of the rumours of secret Pokemon, which was backed by the likes of Missingno, Mew, and the Gen 2 Pokemon like Ho-Oh and Togepi popping up in the anime. Not to mention the unexplained placement of a truck in a place players weren't meant to be able to get to. It all just fueled speculation that the game had hidden secrets,and it drove us all crazy when we were kids. Gen 2 had it to a later extent, but nowadays the internet just debunks every rumour, and it's sucked some of the original spirit out of the games a bit.
Agreed. I remember a rumor back when Gen 2 came out, that the inaccesible small body of water in cinnabar island is where mewtwo was hiding for that Gen 😂
I was there for pokemania and it was truly something amazing and I still remember Christmas 1999 where I not only got a game boy color but also copies of Pokemon Blue and Yellow versions along with so much more Pokemon goods
Everything in that amount was dope 🎶 🎵 🪕 🎼 💿 games 🎮 Everything man that was a good tome to live in at first I didn't like pokemon but after everyone and everything was based off Pokémon I had no choice this was 4th grade for me in 97/98 year than 5th grade that year we're I'd watch the shows before school started when the bus arrived
@J-remy If a film is boring, it can make one hour feel like three or more. Being dragged into a film of such low-quality that only children will enjoy it is unfair on the parents. When rewatching a lot of Pokemon films, I find only three or four of them are good enough to potentially keep adults mildly invested. My parents often bring up their apathy towards them; they say there's hardly any story.
@@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 I put my grandparents through the first Pokemon movie no less than a hundred times to the point they could probably remember the script verbatim.
I remember my mother RIP, brought me to the second movie as my friends mom brought us to the first and my dad brought me to the third and my dad just kinda sat through it and fell asleep lol
I still think the Japanese movies are entirely different. Pokémon inspired me to learn Japanese and move here 10 years ago. Adults here still love the movies both new and old.
I was the perfect age to experience Pokemania at its height. It was glorious and so magical. I remember how awesome it was seeing Pokemon stuff all over the boardwalk or how hype it was when new Pokemon toys or sets came out. That said, the franchise has endured remarkably well through the years. It may never recapture the magic of its peak, but 25 years later, kids are still playing Pokemon. My parents assured me that my kids' generation would never like Pokemon and yet here we are and Pokemon is still a truly hot commodity. I think it says something that despite the mania dying off, Pokemon as a franchise is still probably among the healthiest media properties around.
@Lee Hayman it's weird I thought Digimon came out first or around the same time but Digimon they at least talked pokemon just made noise which was also cool
I have a clear memory of being in 6th grade (fall 2002) and a big group of kids on the playground were playing yugioh and in the corner on the bleachers were two kids playing pokemon looking at us all lonesome looking lol. Kids were literally saying pokemon was "played out" by 2003. If it weren't for Pokemon having better video games, I think it def would've died out completely. Because the cards and anime were def down in popularity compare to the first few years.
I think Tracy played a massive part in killing it. I vividly remember seeing what was then the new season as a child thinking " Who is this nobody, and where tf is Brock!?"
That along with how the plot focusing on the GS ball was dropped and the more general story progression of the anime went straight off the rails around then because of the Celabi movie.
I liked Tracey TBH then after the orange islands things went downhill afterwards, the GS ball was dropped and so much filler cluttered it, I'd stopped watching it in 2002
Personally for me, pokemon didn't really die, rather, I feel like Pokemon lost that magic it once had when Gen III finally came around. The fact that we couldn't connect pokemon ruby and sapphire with the older games like red and crystal and the show taking a different direction when ash went to hoenn kind of made pokemon more stale honestly. I still remember in the third grade when ruby and sapphire were replacing all the gbc games in Walmart. It was a rather weird time to be a pokemon fan when Gen III was still around, and some of my friends that were pokemon fans back then started to see it as childish. The same thing started to apply shows and games like yugioh, especially after the battle city arc was over and done with here in the States. It then got to the point where they started to watch shit like MYV and and other more adult like shit like South Park. Keep in mind I was still in elementary school at the time when this shit was happening. It wasn't until when late into my sixth grade year when diamond and pearl came out when it was kind of okay to be a pokemon fan again, but even then, it didn't feel the same like it did when during the late 90s and early 20000s. Nowadays, I be playing pokemon fan made hacks from gens I & III on my phone and the physical copies of the gen I games on my GBC and pokemon stadium 1 and 2 in a way that I never got to play it as a kid. Still, games like Heartgold and White 2, even though I no longer have them in my possession, I look back at them with good memories. Here's to the next generation of pokemon fans. Hope y'all keep this franchise alive!
I think it came down to people’s mindset. There are two kinds of people in the world, those who are always against anything new, and those who get excited about new things. You can see this in everything. I remember people ”hating” touch screen phones when they were rolling out because ”those are not even phones” and whatever else, and then there is people like me who are excited to explore these new things. In pokemon, Hoenn was different, different kind of region from the previous ones, anime making big changes with Ash going to Hoenn alone and meeting a new crew, the games added a lot of key elements to the world of pokemon and being so vibrant and clean compared to previous games. While people were complaining about how the new pokemon ”didn’t look like pokemon” (you know, the classic) or about the old crew leaving in the anime etc, I was excited out of my mind about the amazing new designs of Gen 3, especially the legendary trio (I loved how different they were when most legendaries were some birds up to that point, and I remember loving the mystic patterns that the weather trio had on their bodies especially for some reason). I was also super excited about the anime, the shift was not forced, the old crew had things to do and they gave Ash this little arc of shit ”what should I do now” and decided to go alone to a completely new region full of never before seen pokemon. Meeting new crew was exciting and I remember being excited even for the minor fact that Ash had new clothes for the first time. Everything was so fresh and I loved it. The games too, I loved the big graphical update, and all the small things they added to make the world alive such as puddles that reflect you and the sky, footsteps in the sand, two different bikes with different purposes, secret bases and many more. To this day gen 3 games are my favorite and the region as well. They continued to use these same tactics later with new regions, but from Johto to Hoenn it worked perfectly because it was the first time when they did it. Pokemon didn’t lose it’s magic, people just resisted the freshness and wanted it to stay the same (+the fact that growing older, the general bandwagon was that pokemon was for kids, you are not cool if you like it, making lot of people drop it just for social status, not because they didn’t like it anymore), which ironically is what Pokemon is highly critizised for nowadays: never changing and always being the same in the big picture.
'It then got to the point where they started to watch shit like MYV and and other more adult like shit like South Park' I've never heard of MYV, but South Park is anything but shit.
@@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 I meant to say MTV. Damn typo. As for South Park, I watch it every once in a while nowadays. More of a Simpsons kind of guy
@@grydon6422 I loved the Hoenn games too! They're just as vibrant as when I first played them! I guess my main issue with them was the lack of postgame content. There wasn't really much else to do after you beat the elite four, except maybe catch Rayquaza, or Latio/as depending on which game you had, and a lackluster battle tower. Used to have the physical copy of Emerald, and I remember the Battle Frontier being such a pain in the ass. It was easier to cruise through the Battle Frontier on my phone due to save states, but even then, the AI would do whatever it took to screw you over
Good 👉 ☝️ I remember back in 6th grade 00 01 that year people started loosing craze through the cards it started to get boring nobody in my neighborhood was actually collecting as much cards anymore because the johto cards were in Japanese and not yet made and than around that time they kept showing reruns if the show and tgey only had tge new ones on Sunday orange islands when kids like me had to attend church and back than we had vhs 📼 so it was kind of hard to record and than pokemon silver gold than a year later crystal 🔮 came out alot if people were bad mouthing saying pokemon is for kids this and that your not popular or weird if you still play that was when I went to junior high back in 01 but winter/spring and even summer of 01 people were still playing gold silver even though I still had red and blue because my parents somehow didn't want me and my younger brother to have it so 6th grade I made a mistake and gave all my pokemon cards away for free back around that time before junior high nobody in my neighborhood was playing the card game and than the games started to disappear around fall of 01 but you had some pokemon fans out here like me but got manipulated by fans after around 02 03 that was basically the end of my chapter
I was born in 93 so I appreciate being able to experience poké mania and the beginning of the games, the cards and the show with the movies, such a great time to just be a kid
Pokemon Mania didn't die, it evolved (pardon the pun). Rather than being a fad that went away, it became a part of culture. Along with Dragon Ball Z it ushered in anime even further into western culture. It is the highest grossing media franchise of all time, it just went beyond being a brief fad that fizzled out.
I think Pokemania returned with Pokémon Go, the real problem in early 2000's wasn't about grew up, was because first 2 Gen were debunked in the gaming canon in Gen 3. Gen 4 wanted to rescue some Johto fans with new pre evolutions and evolutions of them, but was a tech transition stupidity and they are the less sold games of al time. Gen 5 was a good new beginning but genwonners cried about it, at least is the most serious plot for a familiar franchise Gen 6 was more focused in competitive play to beat Dragon type weatherless monopoly and attract gamer girls with Fairy type. Gen 7 with Pokémon Go and a new style of league with Alola was a big win...along with Detective Pikachu. Gen 8...is the return to some base of the franchise.
Pokemania was stronger during Gen 3 than it was during Gen 2. Does anyone know if the Gen 2 handbook actually existed? My brother & I had tons of books, cards, & other merch yet hardly any of it was from Gen 2 just from Johto merch barely existing. I think Pokemon Contests & cute designs were part of what attracted the series to gamer girls. I agree that Pokemania evolved & I remember the series being insanely popular during Gens 3&4 when I was in primary school. I remember the Gen 3 equivalent of those Truck Rumors where you could go to space & get either Jirachi or Deoxys, as well as the weird rumors to make Mirage Island appear when it was just being absurdly lucky. FireRed & LeafGreen rebirthed rumors for getting Mew & Celebi.
@An actual genwunner Maybe I was part of that new generation in terms of the games themselves. I started by watching the anime of Gens 1&2 with my brother who played a couple of the older games that I was too young for. Still that doesn't explain the lack of Gen 2 Merch from 2000-2003 in America compared to Gen 1 Merch. My Brother told me how hard it was to find Gen 2 Card Packs or anything (not counting Games or Anime) for Pokémon that wasn't Gen 1 back then.
It died, I loved the original gameboy games till this day but being born in 1999 when Pokemania was at its highest in the UK, but when I was growing up no one collected the cards, we collected footy cards and didn’t watch anime cartoons. I watched the cartoon occasionally and lost interest around the age of 6
I missed out on Pokémon Mania. But, in my defense, I was born in 1998 so I didn’t really get a chance to experience that phenomenon where everyone is playing it. The first time I heard of Pokémon was during generation 3 in 2003. But growing up I never really cared much about the franchise. I knew it existed, just didn’t think much about it. I even remember like in 2012 I had Pokémon Heart Gold and ended up giving it to a friend because I had my Xbox 360 and was in high school. But that changed in late 2013, early 2014. My brother downloaded the emulator for me to play Pokémon Fire Red and I recall instantly falling in love with the games. I replayed it so much, capturing all the Pokémon, trying out various teams and exploring the world. Since I never played the game before, everything felt new to me. I was such a noob. From there I played generation 2 and my favorite gen, Hoenn. It was then when I went through my own Pokémon Mania. I bought a 3ds and played X and Y, after it came out, then Alpha Sapphire and watched the entire anime spring break of 2014. It sucks that I missed out but glad that I was able to experience something that I’ll always be fond of. Now I’m a diehard fan.
I was born in 1999 but my first Pokemon experience was a Pokemon red cart on my sisters gameboy color. Then I got a GBA SP and a copy of ruby we also had that gamecube GBA attachment so I played gameboy games on that most of the time we also had the original anime on vhs and a pikachu n64 I played Pokemon stadium. My sis is 13 years older than me so she got into the craze and was a big fan she had Pokemon gold and red and even a Pokemon vcr in her room. Eventually she had to throw away the Pokemon vcr but she gave the n64 with all of the games ( ocarina of time, mario64,mario kart64,banjoo kazooie,Pokemon stadium 1/2, starfox64, smash bros.) and the copies of pokemon red and gold along with her GC sonsole to me I play n64 practically everyday still and I take the gameboy out on ocation to play Pokemon and links awakening
After gen 6 I grew bored of pokemon cause compared to the other hand to me it was bare bones with no postgame and low new pokemon. I stoped playing at gen 7 due to the fact that they hold ur hand to much and it's very linear plus the totem challenges it's not my cup of tea. And with gen 8 I feel like they just got lazy. So I just stick to the gameboy games for now. Because even tho I played all the other gens I feel more gravitate to play gen 1 and 2
I was born during the Advanced Generation series, and I happened to have a physical copy of the first abd third Pokémon movies at home, with episode 29 ‘The Punchy Pokémon’. As a result, that was my first episode. I think I started watching Pokémon XY in 2014 on Netflix with my brother, and didn’t complete it, as XYZ wasn’t finished at the time. Then I remember going to UA-cam and typing in ‘pokemon season 10 episode 1’. Season 10 was just a random number I thought of, and I took it for granted that it happened to be the start of Diamond & Pearl (I possibly thought that all seasons were mostly self-contained and in their own regions). I barely knew anything about the anime at the time. I think that I stopped watching DP sometime in season 11, and I think it might have been because I was bored by it. I eventually watched the whole of the original series and Advanced Generation, then stopped after season 10 again. I also remember watching season 14, and skipping the rest of DP. I have no idea why I did this. I think I stopped watching BW after season 14, though. Later, I watched the first 20 episodes of SM as they came out, and have not kept up with the anime since. I’ve recently started watching the anime again, and this time, I’m determined to get all the way to season 25. I know that lots of people like DP a lot, and I want to give it another chance. Maybe I genuinely don’t like it, and don’t know it for certain. I don’t know why else I would have skipped it. If I found DP boring, why did I not have much of an issue with the Johto arc? When I get to DP again, I might realise if I like it, and why I left it. If not, at least I’ll get to fully experience the iteration of the anime that seems to be by far the most popular, apart from XY.
Wow seeing those movie reviews from back then really shows an area where anime wasn't a main popculture medium. Those reviewers had no idea what was comin.
I remember seeing Pokemon The Movie 3 as a kid with my mom. It was my first introduction into the world of Pokemon and i LOVED it. My mom and i had originally gotten tickets for another movie but this one showed instead. She wasn't a huge fan of the movie but i think that going in with a blank slate made it better for both of us
Overexposure, my older brother told me that. My older brother lived through pokemania, and he told me that by 2001, it had become too much and a few of his friends moved on, forcing him to do so too, but he never truly grew out of it, he just sidelined it for 16 years from 2003 to 2019, along with him getting deep into Harry Potter. Still, I've seen him and a few of his oldest friends jump back into Pokémon with Sword and Shield. He did buy Shield in December 2019, and god what a craze he had. He even outright cried when playing through it. As for me, I was only 2 years old when the craze died, but my older brother loved to tell me about it. Still, Gen 4 and 5 bored me, to the point I skipped BW2. I only got into Pokémon on my teens, specifically when I was 14 with Pokémon Y.
Great video, very well done! I remember when Pokemon Go had its little moment, and it brought me back to being a kid - when all of my friends were talking about Pokemon again, obsessed with catching them all around our neighbourhood lol. I enjoyed Pokemon Go even with its short-lived mainstream appeal.
Speaking of the Pokemon craze. Do you remember the South Park episode "Chinpokomon?" An episode that satirised the insane amount of hype and marketing at the time. I've been recently rewatching the show (I'm up to Season 13) and Chinpokomon is easily one of my favourite episodes especially from the first 3 seasons.
I actually re-watched it relatively recently! I think Chinpokomon is definitely in my top episodes of all time, at least of the seasons that I've seen.
Just imagine if the anime had adapted the Pokémon Adventures manga. Or at least started a separate show for it. It’d be hailed as one of the greatest Pokémon media of all time.
Pokemons major drop off was its reception when Hoenn games released Ruby and Sapphire. Many fans felt alienated in a world set apart from Kanto and Johto and did not jive with the new Pokemon. But what else was Game Freak and the Pokemon Company supposed to do? They couldnt live in the past games forever.
Looking back, it feels like things started to die down around Gen 3. I remember when everyone was playing the Gen 2 games at school. But it didn’t really seem to be the same with the GBA titles. My friends and I still played, but it didn’t seem to have the widespread appeal as before.
I think it's pretty funny that by the time Hoen came around is when people started to drop off the series but that's when I was really getting into it. Firered was my first pokemon game followed up by Emerald straight after. I was hooked on the show and watching it as much as I could when I got home from school. While there were reruns of Kanto and Johto, Hoen was my sorta official first region because I saw more of the anime in that region. Sinnoh is still by far my favorite was the first region where I bought all three games (or were bought for me cause I was in 5th-6th grade). Action replayed the hell out of them and was shocked by all the hidden events like Darkrai and was as if I discovered some secret world I wasn't supposed to find. Fell off a little bit at unova but picked back up after XY came out and gave unova another shot; and is my favorite of the 2d games now. I only really fell off the series and am a very casual fan now after Sun and Moon being pretty lackluster. Now I mostly just play the older games again and constantly complain how Colosseum and Gale of Darkness somehow look better than the current pokemon games.
We were the 2nd Wave of Pokemania, & my brother & I both noticed Pokemon seemed much more popular in Gen 3 than it was during Johto. Where was all the Gen 2 Merch? It was way easier to find Gen 1 Stuff back in 2002, Gen 3 Merch was everywhere in 2003 though. I agree Gen 5 was so much harder to like for Pokemon, & my brother didn't even buy Gen 7&8 games, although now we're getting both Scarlet & Violet.
The third gen is absolutely what killed it just IMO, as someone that was like 8 when pokemania started. People stopped playing when they found out that they couldn't send their gen 1 and 2 pokemon to the third gen. It didn't really have that much to do with the games themselves but like just the fact they cut those pokemon off and also it being on a new console at the same time made a lot of people drop the games for gen 3. Emerald is now my favorite game but I was one of those people, originally I skipped gen 3 because of that reason and picked the series back up with pearl. But by then it was in the weird middle era of pokemon between pokemania and the modern era where everyone kinda plays it again where you still would get made fun of a lot for enjoying it lol.
@@miyakogfl I was lucky that pretty much most of the guys in my school universally loved some generation of pokemon. More people(including the girls) had a ds than those that didn't. So high school was really fun since everyone was playing games, doing street pass, doing small smash tournaments during our off periods, and playing pokemon during lunch.
Me and most of my then friends were born in 1990. We were 7-8 when Pokémon took over the world. That initial almost absurd hype and collective addiction lasted until around 2001. The release of Gen II was a gigantic event, it was a cultural milestone. For months, every single boy at my school was playing those games, we were glued to our GameBoy. That hype started to dwindle by the time of Crystal's release. Being unplayable on GameBoy surely had an impact, a lot of my friends were still playing on those handhelds. By the time Gen III came out, we were either too cool, too shy to admit or too pissed off about the lack of connectivity to the previous games to continue playing. I know that I was heartbroken when I found out that I couldn't trade my beloved mons over to the GBA
I know for me personally, my enthusiasm for Pokemon stopped in the middle of watching Pokemon 3: The Movie. I remember watching The First Movie with a group of friends and a huge crowd but only my dad was willing to see 2000 with me (also a huge crowd). By the time 3 came out, only my sister and my friend watched it with me. The theater was practically empty. The mania had stopped. And while my enthusiasm was strong before the movie began, I suddenly felt bored to tears during the film. I might have actually fallen asleep. By then, the older kids were too cool for Pokemon and I was getting older too. I still liked Pokemon, but it was no longer something everyone did. It was more of a niche franchise by that point, something on par with Digimon. What really bogged me down was the constant filler anime. Nothing mattered. So much content yet no pay off. So I think you nailed it on the head. Forcing so many movies in such a short time span is bound to kill momentum. I had the audacity to continue watching the show and buying the games, but practically keeping it a secret until I became an adult. The initial marketing and Gotta Catch 'em All strategy is something that still affects me to this day. I didn't want to quit. But after they decided to change the anime voice actors, I finally called it quits. There just wasn't enough reason to dedicate myself to something I'm no longer passionate about when the people in charge aren't even going to commit to it. But I also remember Pokemon 3: The Movie just being the first time I was critical of the franchise. I hated the movie title. Why not just call it Pokemon: The Movie 3? Why focus so much time on the world transforming and not the characters? Why did they only focus on Entei and not the other 2 "dog"/tiger legendaries? Like, everyone made fun of Ash as a Pokemon trainer at the playground, but GS in the anime felt broken and the story was lost. I can only imagine how parents must have felt being dragged to the theater to watch a Pokemon movie for the 3rd time. Yu-Gi-Oh was the next thing for the younger kids and this type of shonen stuff has its limits. I wonder if these movies, essentially a marketing tool, would have prolonged the Pokemon mania had they been released slower and better quality. Or if anything with that much hype is destined to crash regardless of quality.
As someone who was a kid through all of this, I can say that your assessment is on point. The GS ball, Johto filler and the 3rd gen not being able to trade with gen 1/2 was all major reasons why I stepped away until gen 6.
Thanks for this video. I did fall out of the Pokemon games around Diamond/Pearl and the Anime around Hoenn. I came back to the games during X/Y. I really haven't gone back to the Anime in forever, but I still do re-watch the early Pokemon movies from time to time.
I enjoyed the video for summarizing the Pokemon craze of the late 90s/early 2000s. I grew up during that time in the UK and it was such a huge and memorable craze that took over my life. I don't necessarily agree that Brock's absence had any effect on movie box office but it's certainly a factor that may have reduced interest in the anime. I personally wasn't bothered by that at all, nor did I pay much attention to the GS ball story. I had forgotten about it pretty quickly actually, but my interest in the TV series did dwindle heavily during Johto. I distinctly remember it feeling like a slog with all the filler and the slow progression. Playing the games was always far more engaging and was what kept me a fan. I was briefly brought back to the anime when Ash got to the Johto league and the show transitioned to Hoenn, but Hoenn and it's Pokemon were a big turn off compared to what came before. I've since warmed up a little more to Hoenn, especially compared to the crazy designs and concepts in later regions, but there was a lot to be negative about when gen 3 rolled around, and I think the fad had mostly died by that point regardless of minor changes. People were just tired of it due to how formulaic and predictable it got, and the charm wore off for those who weren't 'nerds' per se. Also, I don't think the other 'knock-off' shows were necessarily trying to copy Pokemon, it's just that they were all from the Shonen genre in Japan, and Pokemon essentially started the first anime boom in the west, so anything we saw afterwards felt like they were copying, when in reality those types of shows were already common in Japan. Some shows definitely were capitalizing on similar themes to Pokemon though, I think Monster Rancher, Digimon and Medabots were to an extent but definitely not all of them. Yu-Gi-Oh in particular had it's own fascinating developement prior to being adapted for the West and it's author was mostly inspired by various games. 4Kids used similar marketing for both it and Pokemon when they brought them over so that's why it ended up feeling like a clone of sorts But overall, I think anime's saturation in the west was more of a factor for the decline of Pokemon along with the poor storytelling quality of the anime. The audience was growing up and quickly outgrew the stories in the anime yet the show felt like it stayed the same and in some ways even got younger in tone. It became embarassing to be associated with it and that was enough for people to move on. There were also anime alternatives that aimed at older teen audiences that felt more cool by comparison. Pokemon was the first but it failed to retain or evolve with it's audience. That being said, it did have a nostalgic resurgeance many years later.
I think a huge factor that wasn’t touched upon was that initial generation of kids that saw gen 1 and pokemania grew up and thought it was “for kids” it’s unrealistic to think that with new generations that they can maintain the same insane popularity it was always bound to happen once the first kids to see Pokémon grew up.
You’re right my dad was side eyeing us after he watched (fell asleep) during the pikachu short and the movie stuff did hurt the cool factor after a while. Some other reasons 1. Yes we became preteens and thought we were too old for it 2. Pokémon refused to give us anything indicating it was willing to cater to us getting older 3. The formula was old by ruby and sapphire and again they didn’t give us anything showing it would grow. We wanted an LoA open world style game back then and its only just starting to happen 20 years later. 4. Not being able to trade up pokemon we had been raising since red/blue was the final straw lots of people left for yugioh and by the time dbz took over pokemon was finished in comparison
You failed to mention that Infamous episode about Porygon that aired in Japan and gave many Japanese children epilepsy. The entire anime in Japan was banned for a few months following that incident.
That event single handedly changed the course of the series and is what prompted the creation of The Pokemon Company that coordinated everything thereafter. It delayed everything - the anime, Gold and Silver, the cards (the Vending Machine sets that were Japan only were basically a stop gap caused by this). It's the partly reason why the west actually caught up to the Japanese releases so quickly when it'd started years behind.
@@Skasaha_ It's also why the anime got greenlit for more seasons, iirc. By being delayed, it somehow allowed them to notice the West really, really liked Pokemon. And thus, history was born.
Amazing video! 👏🏼 Totally agree, Brock’s departure and bad choice of character with Tracy made me hate that change and stop enjoy watching the show after that. Then, Johto Journey started to air in cable. From a kid raise in middle class in Latin America, that was a hit to the stomach. You were stuck with re-runs of the Indiogo series. I just re-connected with Pokémon and started collecting games and old toys. Is crazy to think how my nephews that are almost 15yrs younger still laugh and enjoy Pokémon Indigo league in Netflix and asking me questions of how things where back in the late 90s with the whole Pokemania. Amazing video, best vibes! 🤙🏼
You certainly were right about the foreign success of Pokémon 2000. The 1st movie hadn't come out until april 2000 in Germany and Pokémon 2000 in december 2000. So the hype was still fresh for the movies. Come to think of it, we really were behing quite a lot in Europe when it comes to the initial Pokémon hype. The animé didn't air until september of 1999
Pokémon decreased in popularity after Johto in terms of being mainstream but things that came by have ramped it up to stay in the eyes of mainstream audiences like Ash getting his first Pokémon League victory, Ash becoming the World Champion, Pokémon Go when it first released, the Pokémon live action film, and the recent Pokémon card outbreak that’s been going on for a few years. Pokémon has been in and out of the mainstream audience but it never truly died, yes popularity has decreased because there are newer things that the kids are into but yeah
Also Pokémon is te highest value franchise in all time since Pokémon Go, Gen 3 was ok but kicked out GBC Gen 1 and 2 Pokedexers, Gen 4 was good but with low QoL post calculations of HP, and also Gen 5 was a "new story" to homage the late 2000s book saga movies and have a new audience, Gen 6 as the jump to 3D was intentionally easy for competitive play and mega evolutions, 2nd Place in Kalos for Ash was the best merch move and then bring him as Alola Champion and now World Champion. Also Detective Pikachu Movie is the best video game movie of all time.
the reason is pretty simple, we were kids when the craze started and then we got older. Pokemon was considered for kids, at early teenage years we had yu gi oh as a ''for older age card game'' replacing pokemon and then it was more about girls,sports and partying lol
That’s in the US but in Japan pokemon never died out It’s the way the US is everything is a craze this new craze is social media and TikTok it’ll die out just like everything else till the next thing
Was a fan up until black and white 2 from the beginning. For me it was when they had to introduce Mega Evolution. Just got tiring and slowed the battles down. Now it seems every new generation they have to introduce some flashy gimmick like Terastalizing or Dynamax. It really didn't need a new way of battling. I just want a Pokémon like Gold and Silver that allow you to go through multiple regions that make the story extra long and fleshed out. Pokémon never needed to be in a 3d environment to be honest also.
I actually heard a rumor that they were going to stop making Pokemon games but Nintendo wanted them to make more even more. I heard they were not prepared for this so it even took a longer for them to make the 3rd generation
14:00 Okay, Technically Black and White movies (the first ones with Zekrom and Reshiram) did have a limited release, mostly in the mid-atlantic (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Deleware, Maryland, etc.), but it wasn't until what you mention here (2017) that it would come back to theaters.
I think that's true for a ton of manias MLP, transformers, magic the gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh ect While those franchise are all still super popular and you can bet the people who are working on them to this day won't go hungry or homeless. They probably will never reach their peak again or at least not in a long time (especially with how complicated Yu-Gi-Oh has gotten)
I was another person there to experience Pokemania being at the right age to experience it (born in 91) and it was just insane how Pokemon was everywhere. It's not a surprise that Pokemon was a worldwide phenomenon back in the mid-late 90s. Video Game? Check. TV show? Check. Lots of Merchandise like Toys, Keychains, Plushes, & Figures? Check. Trading Card Game? Check. A theatrical release of a movie? Check. Pokemon just covered so many basis and like you said, the marketing was genius and was able to ensnare most us who were kids during that time LOL But yeah I still remember back in elementary around 1998 when Pokemon Red & Blue were released and many kids were playing the game. I would watch in awe and was hoping that for Christmas I'd get my own copy of Pokemon Red which sure enough, I did haha. Didn't beat the game unfortunately as I only got as far as up to the seventh gym and then lost my game in a move but I remember being so wrapped into the game but even more, especially the anime. I know that people like to punk on 4Kids but while they did muck up Pokemon with the censorship, the way they went about dubbing the show by giving us great Voice Actors and a very nice pop-inspired OST with Pikachu's Jukebox, it was arguably the best adaptation the company ever done despite the censoring. And then the first movie, oh man was the hype huge for it. I think I saw it on Friday the week it came out and I remember loving it so much. It was interesting to hear what those critics said about it essentially saying that it was overrated crap because honestly, I feel that it was love letter to the fans because so many kids watched the anime and got to see Ash and the characters grow (this was before we knew how Pokemon would refuse to keep character development for Ash of course lol) so yeah, not surprised they didn't like it if they weren't fans of the anime. But unfortunately you're right. I was one of the fans who did stick around at least all the way up to the 3rd Generation of Pokemon. Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire and then Emerald and Fire Red/Leaf Green were the final points of Pokemon I experienced before I dropped out of the series. I was moving further into Middle school (Secondary school for non-Americans) and I was getting interested in other video games and yep, I totally got ensnared in Yu-Gi-Oh! as well haha but what you said about the Pokmeon anime having way too many fillers? Yeah that definitely hurt the series. I'm pretty sure I did watch Johto as much as I could though I did miss some episodes here and there but I started missing even more around the Hoenn Arc and fell off the map entirely. Just too many filler episodes and I even wasn't caring as much about the movies, I didn't even Pokemon 4Ever or Pokemon Heroes when they first debuted. Anyway I could ramble on and on about this kinda thing but one thing I can say is that I'm glad I got to experience the Pokemania of the 1990s. It truly was a time like no other and I don't think Pokemon will ever have a phenomenon like that again. It was just the right place at the right time when not many video games went above and beyond to market itself the way Pokemon did at the time. Couple that with how video games were still seen as somewhat taboo and not a mainstream hobby (yet) definitely helped.
Gen 3 incompatibilty problems was the breaking point in the series for me. -If you was a Dex player or completist one catch Celebi or Jirachi even in GameShark was a battery game save suicide. -Stupid Villain teams with some slash/yaoi good couple for fujoshi and fudanshi -Too much water? yes -Abilities was ok for competitive play, well, Swampert,Tyranitar,Metagross and Salamance were the top 4
@@barbieblues7639 "Taboo" was probably not the best word but I remember hearing about how there was a stigma towards gamer nerds who loved to devote a lot of time to video games. I think "socially unacceptable" might be a better phrase.
I was invested in Pokémon as a kid and excited for the third generation, but quit after getting a copy of Pokémon Sapphire because none of the old generation Pokemon (which I had grown so attached to) were in it. The anime had also grown increasingly alienating for the same reason as they removed old characters.
i think it's worth mentioning that the voice actor changes in the english dub were also a factor, and wasn't received as positively as similar va changes (dbz, sailor moon).
The 90's and very early 2000's a golden era for the franchise. Still a big time collector, but lost my collection from the 90's due to constant moves. But made up for it over the years.
I remember getting gold version for Christmas when I was 8. I had blue for a while and loved it but 2nd gen was just amazing and the music is literally engrained in my mind. Ecruteak city and National Park themes bring up so much nostalgia I feel like I have the heart of my 8 year old self again and it’s overwhelming. So much good times with all my friends playing and trading, collecting cards, playing Pokémon stadium. I got sapphire when I was 10 and my brother got Ruby that’s by far the most time I’ve ever put in any video game and I had every single Pokémon except one, fkn Kingdra. I loved that game too. The show was so good and the rap at the end is so 90s I love it. I don’t know if there’s a single 90s boy that doesn’t know the intro word for word by heart. Pokémon and Dragonball Z were the 2 biggest animated shows of my childhood by far. So thankful for being a 90s baby.
Misty leaving the anime was the death of the original Pokemon. However something about those Pocket Monsters themselves being closer to animals then all the other monster-type shows and it being open world I think has allowed it to endure where others haven't. BTW Yu-Gi-Oh started out as a Managa the same year Pokemon as a game was released, though its kid friendly reboot likely was inspired by Pokemon.
If Pokémon came around today, it most likely would not be as successful as it was back then, because there is far more competition today than there was back in 1999
A lot pf people have nostalgia for the games nowadays but when I was a kid, barely anyone in my area played the games. Everyone watched and talked about the anime though so yes, it's safe to say that the anime was much bigger than the games. TV just always had a larger audience than video games, even more so back then. As for the Poké mania ending, it was all about the sheep following trends. Those who liked Pokémon because it was popular who then got into the next thing, shunning the real fans who still loved the series, even more so during their teenage years.
I was a kid caught up in Poke Mania. What killed it for me were the below: 1. Ruby and Sapphire didn't let you transfer Pokemon. This is the biggest one and sucked me right out of the experience. To this day these are my least favorite. 2. Pokemon Movie 3 - I know some people liked it. I didn't. Anime movies in the US weren't all that big, and a movie mostly revolving around a little girl that had nothing to do with our main cast was not what we wanted to see. 3. Anime stagnation - The anime moves at an absolute snails pace even to this day. It caused burn out and eventually quitting of the show.
1.That's my main argument: Gen 3 incompatibiltiy destroyed your adventure and pokedexing strategies with Cable Link, until some hex editor had the solution 20 years later 2.I think Movie 3 was good but came in the worst time. 3.Misty and Brock leaving some anime sagas was also a stupidity.
One of the issues that I remember with the anime calling off is some providers dropping the WB network in the middle of the Johto anime. Where I lived, there wasn't a single channel on my provider that carried the anime from the middle of Master Quest all the way through to the latter portion of the Advanced Battle season, when Cartoon Network picked it up.
In my childhood being this time period in the late 90s and early 2000s and dead center of Pokémon's heyday, Although Pokémon's time on top of the world was short-lived, it was quite the spectacle when it was. A level of popularity that we have never seen before and have never seen since.
I saw pokemon the movie 1,2 & 3 in cinema the first two it was packed to the roof , for the 3th one we where 10 peoples when i saw it friday opening and my theater did not have the card what a scam lol
Misty being replaced with May was another part of what made the transition to Hoenn weird. And the firing of the original English voice cast was a final nail in the coffin.
I remember waiting desperately for a GBA pokemon game, but in 2003 my GBA was stolen, and didnt play any of the games until platinum. I still replayed the other games over and over though.
It always amazes me how successful and lucrative the TCG still is to this day. I can understand rare vintage packs and 1st edition Charizards. But at least within my school, everyone played the videogames, most loved the Anime, and at most people collected the cards, but I never knew ANYONE who played it.
Most people didn't really play any of the card games. 9/10, if they did, they didn't bother learning any of the rules & just did a streamlined version of it that bother player agreed upon beforehand. Only places the game was actually played, for real, was in the licensed tournaments.
It's quite simple.. those of us who were with Gen 1 and Gen 2 we just grew up and grew out of it for the most part.. Plus I remember around mid-late 2000 is when Dragon Ball Z was really starting to take off in the US and most kids who were already growing up at that point started drifting over to the more adult orientated shows and lifestyles.
Thanks, UA-cam algorithms for recommending me a year old video. Then again I've been recommended older videos lol! Anyway, as a kid all I ever did was watch the anime, I didn't even care about the mainline games besides the spin-offs. But when I decided to try out Pokemon Sword and Shield I've been hooked since! Also, not trying to be perverted, but am I the only who noticed the woman in the background at 17:24 who practically exposed herself?😂👌
I’m 32 I was there for the original hype of Pokémon absolutely was obsessed with it but around gen 3 I felt I was too old for Pokémon but that changed in 2016 with GO brought a fresh look at it and fully got me to the Pokéman I am today love the series love the games brings me back to a simpler time.
Great work your due for more subscribers!!! Remember me I followed you at 827 so when your at 100k I’m gonna say that to you … cheers to you and happy holidays
The 3rd movie came out as I was starting and college and working, the audience was just getting older and they hadn't grabbed the newer audience exclusively.
My mom took me to see the first movie when I was a kid and hated it so much she bribed me, yes bribed a little kid, with 100 dollars to leave. I said no and now my mom has a grudge against pikachu
It's the fact that many that were into Pokemon hardcore at It's moment, lost intrest in it once the year 2002 came. In least for me at that time, Pokemon (the anime) wasn't interesting to me anymore, while Wizards of the coast were still making amazing cards, i just didn't care for Pokémon anymore. At the same time, i became a 6 grader, Dragon Ball Z was on the rise of popularity in the US and brand new episodes of DBZ (the Buu Saga) were every Thursday at 5pm every week on Cartoon Network. Not to mention they were coming out with many DBZ movies directly on VHS/DVD and Burger King coming out with toys because of the movies, also Yu Gi Oh was hitting strong and i loved Transformers Armada. So most of my classmates that were once hardcore Pokémon fanatics, switched to Dragon ball z and Yu Gi Oh.
My dad tried to buy the rest of the 1st gen cards so I would stop wanting to buy them. He bought a charizard for 50$ and a holo Clefairy for 80$. At the time I didn't know why the Clairy was so expensive and thought we got ripped off, but now 34 still have the card and realized its a 600$~ Because is a First edition shadoless. Also the Charizard card is also worth alot too.
Do you have a link to the list of event only episodes? I felt like growing up, the games stuck with me longer then the anime or the card game. I always remember the anime being on Saturday mornings and having to wake up way earlier then I wanted to to try to watch it or tape it then go back to sleep. It also didn't help that if I stayed at a friends house Friday night, we would be up all night playing games or watching movies, that waking up early on a Saturday just didn't happen. Even if I stayed at home, Friday was a chance to finally stay up late. So Saturdays were usually for sleeping in or going to play sports. Where the game was something I remember always being played by friends, even late into high school when we had all left the cards and anime behind for other activities. It was just another RPG game, where the card players had moved on to Magic or D&D, and the anime watchers had moved onto more mature anime.
Loved hearing your experience growing up with Pokemon! Here's the link to the Google Doc containing all of the episodes that progress the plot in the Pokemon anime: docs.google.com/document/d/1Ex6vaULDu-cyFrRNfw1mKxnavS1ED0tRwngzI_Kt6Ko/edit?usp=sharing That Doc has basically everything covered to the end of Alola. It also has all of the films slotted in at the correct time to watch it in the timeline.
WTP Productions thank you! I went looking for one after posting and I think I stumbled upon an old reddit post of yours with the list, but it wasn’t this complete. Thank you again! I look forward to rewatching these and listen to the podcast.
For me, there were a number of reasons why I somewhat left Pokemon: 1. I didn’t have a GBA, so I never got into Gen 3 after Gen 2. And even if I did, my friends didn’t have it themselves so there was no incentive to want to play it. Also, I had read that you couldn’t go back to previous regions like in G&S so it seemed like a downgrade to me. 2. The anime was getting stale to me by the time Johto hit its 2nd season. The formula became repetitive, and it lost a lot of its slapstick humor and charm that Kanto had. 3. Yugioh was starting to grab my attention. It definitely seemed like a step up from Pokemon with the monsters and storyline being more mature. Pokémon just seemed tame in comparison. 4. A lot of my friends had moved on from Pokemon so I didn’t really have anyone to talk to about it. This has changed in recent years now since my brother-in-law has started to collect the cards again, but once I got into high school everybody moved onto other animes.
I was 4/5 years old In 99/2000, and Pokemon was the first thing I really got into (besides Barney and rugrats, lol). I had the first movie on VHS and carried my talking Pikachu plush toy everywhere. I even had the Pikachu and Meowth walkie talkies when I was like 3 or 4.
So as a Gen1er I will share my thoughts. When pokemon was at it's hight I was heading into middle school and was into the Game, the Cards, and the show. But, the show was quickly loosing favor for me as it always felt like it was for a younger audience. Once the cards were banned, while many of us still traded that also started to quell things down, but what added to it was how many more cards were added. What once felt like a limited collection that kids could keep track of keep growing while our trading capabilities decreased because of school bans. Finally came the games. As you mentioned the gap between Gen 2 and 3 was wide. By the time Ruby and Saphire came out, not only did I feel "too old" for Pokemon, I was also more into Consoles than handheld games. Had Ruby and Saphire come out on the Gamecube, I would have more likely purchased it. However I did not get the game boy advance because I didn't want handhelds anymore. At my age I had my own TV in my room and so console gaming was the ideal. As such, this is why I did not get back into Pokemon until it arrived on the Switch, which I exclusively play on my TV and not in handheld. In conclusion, Pokemon did not grow with it's fanbase. It just tried to keep appealing to little kids, and it was not until later gens that tried to grab older players with Nostalgia that it has brought back a lot of people.
Pokemon Colosseum & XD Gale of Darkness were RPGs for GameCube. Why did you overlook them? Maybe it's because I'm a girl who was born in 1997 that I stayed into Pokemon, while also enjoying plenty of other anime series.
After Generation 2 that was around the time the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime was released in the States so without notice, I swapped over from one franchise to another. Throughout the years, I'd play Silver on an emulator and finally complete the game, but X and Y and it's jump to 3 dimensional models was what pulled me back in as an adult, also allowing me to play the 3rd Generation with the remake on the 3DS. I personally think even with the time gap between the 2nd and 3rd, the hype was bound to go away and if anything, maybe that gap, with sales decreasing across the board and the loss of interest from the first wave of fans, is why we have products like Scarlet and Violet in the current state that they are, not only the potential lack of sales if a product isn't being released every year , but the lack of interest. For all we know, that gap is a lot bigger of a deal than we might commonly think it is.
Human beings happened to poke mania. All manias will pass over time. So many people care about fitting in and trends and this is still very true today.
Quite nostalgic for me listening to this, since I got into Pokémon during its initial explosion into the west. I enjoyed those days of the mainstream popularity. But, I never dropped off. In spite of Pokémon becoming a little repeatitive and losing its charm a little, I still love it, in spite of its flaws. Also, I love that old footage u found. Not just the old anime and movie stuff, but even tv commercials. I remember the one for the Ruby and Sapphire games that you played.
Nothing "KiLLeD!!1!1!!1!" it. The franchise came to the west over 2.5 years after it started in Japan, and we got those two-and-a-half years' worth of media dropped on us in the course of a few months (games, anime, TCG, and general merchandise). Of course that's going to cause a frenzy, and of course the frenzy won't last forever once everything normalizes and catches up, but the franchise was never in existential danger or obscure or anything after that point. When the first Mario and Zelda games came out in the US they had a similar situation - TV shows, breakfast cereals, etc. but nobody acts like those series died or something afterward. People have such a bizarre concept of Pokémon somehow forever being a "fad" when it's the second-most successful video game franchise of all time and the single biggest multimedia franchise ever. Among people who know nothing about it, still gets judged by weird content like moral panics, old Pop-Tarts promotions, and filler episodes of the anime. It's like people have no object permanence or think that the opinion of the other kids in the playground somehow means anything about the franchise's success, it's so weird.
I think you missed the most important reason. Those of us who watched the kanto series were expecting Ash to become a Pokémon master, you know, the very best like no one ever was. This is the expectation that they conditioned us to and once we realised that was never going to happen coz Ash just gives away, releases or neglects his best Pokémon, we just could no be bothered watching any more.
always felt bad for Johto, always felt like it was the in between child of the overhyped Gen1 and the radically different direction the series would take from Gen3 onwards
People forget that it wasn’t the games that made Pokémon so popular at its peak - it was the show! When Pokémon switched from Kanto to Johto, the popularity of the show took a major hit. There were several factors as discussed in this video, but I believe the largest factor was the shows shift from gen 1 to new pokémon.
Yeah, that's a gen wunner viewpoint, the very first episode of the anime ends with Ash and Pikachu seeing a Gen 2 legendary Pokemon, Ho-oh, also several other gen 2 Pokemon made thier on screen debut before Ash and crew set out for Johto
@@Sheriff_Curtis I specifically meant replacing the main lineup guys like Squirtle, Bulbasaur, Charizard etc. As a kid I didn't have exposure to the games yet so I wasn't prepared for this swap out or excited about it. To me it was almost like if Spongebob swapped out Squidward, Patrick, and Sandy for new friends after the first couple super popular seasons - those pokemon seemed like main characters. You gotta remember the brain of a 7-10 year old to feel me here lmao
No that’s wrong. Johto was a HUGE deal when it came out. It was during generation 2 that it died down and it had cooled or leveled off (but still popular) by the time RS came out. Anime died when 4Kids cast was fired.
@@christopherwaits7852 we might be disagreeing over a difference of months anyway tbh. But if you were alive in the 90s as I was, I'm sure we'd both agree that Pokemons popularity here was frontloaded. Pokemon is still plenty popular today too don't get me wrong, but when I was a kid it legit felt like Pikachu was more popular than Mickey Mouse for a bit
@@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 honestly the japanese version is even worse than the american one, at least the american version had some messaged and some jokes
@Kirby Fazendo um Moonwalk The English Dub's message makes no sense in the context of the series, and feels like a desperate attempt at shutting parents up. I honestly can't remember a single joke in the film, either because there weren't any or they were forgettable.
@@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 it actualy makes because they say Fighting is Wrong, Not battling, and still amazes me how so much people never got Something so simple
I believe it was the honestly toxic mindset that once you become a teenager, like alot of people became by gen 3, you basically are an "adult lite" so you're too "grown up" and "cool" for things you did as a kid. The pokemon Fandom of gen 3 more or less replaced the old one from gens 1 and 2.
It explains alot. I remember when I use to like pokemon when I was four. I even had a birthday party that was pokemon theme.
Eventually I gave up on the card game, because of yugioh. But around when I was a bit older, I kept watching the Honen league arc. Got into the video games when was I ten, then..around middle school when black and white was out, I wanted pokemon to be more mature. And they almost succeeded, even its story was a bit matured.
But in high school the game series sorta died as well as the anime and the card game when I sorta came back to pokemon, in the third grade bring held back, up until my sophomore year in high school when the series went to 3d.
In college, I almost did come back sorta. I am hyped for the Diamond and pearl remakes and I did play pokemon masters and pokemon go somewhat.
Not at all its just what is better and pokemania is gen 1 is better majority can get mad evidence and facts is what wins debates show me why gen 1 is not the best and only everything past that is trash work 🤔 unless someone can come up with something like the original which is standard then it's worthless you have people who are either Satanist or atheist or Christian so these debates Is nothing new
That's definitely another strong factor that helped push away the not-as-dedicated fans who only jumped on to the bandwagon while it was trendy. I remember being in middle school when generation 3 hit, and seeing how my classmates weren't talking about Pokemon anymore, and how the overall attitude was shifting to neglecting the series and being ashamed by it. I, a middle schooler who still passionately loved Pokemon and didn't want to let it go, felt the need to hide my love for the franchise or else I'd be harassed and bullied. It's as you said, some people grew older and thought Pokemon wasn't cool anymore, so they abandoned it. The ones that remained, such as myself, ended up becoming split between what was better: Older, classic Pokemon, or the new, modern approach the franchise was going through at the time (generations 3 and 4 to be specific.)
@Wyvern 0m3g4
I had some bullies in secondary school, only because Pokemon was a favourite of mine growing up (still like the franchise today), and they thought I was gay and worth mocking as a result. There are some things about being a teenager that sucked hard, but life is life.
@@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 I feel that. I recall some teens in high school who would openly mock Pokemon whenever it got brought up, and all I could think was "I'm so glad they don't know I love it. But damn it, I wish they'd stop doing this shit too." Thankfully that part of my life is far behind me now.
My dad had no complaints when he took me and my brothers to the first Pokémon movie. He slept through the whole thing
My dad did the same thing 😂😂😂😂😂
My dad ‘went to get popcorn’ and just sat in the lobby the whole movie 😂
A friend & I had the entire auditorium to ourselves when we went to see the 2nd movie.
Sad how reality gets like this. People need to accept that we are all dorks who are fans of something or fans of nothing
i got dropped off and picked up as a 11 year old lol
As someone who grew up in the 90’s and was around for the Pokemon craze it’s peak I cannot put into words how it took over every corner of the world and when the First Movie dropped it was like a global event for all of us. You don’t get that kind of cultural phenomenon anymore. Pokémon, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, etc. You don’t get things that just universally sweep the nation or world like this anymore. It was magic.
They did it again in 2016 Pokémon go! Then again in 2020!
Well.... "On your left" and "Always" swept me of my feet ^^ And the Red Wedding was jaw dropping! But it is very rare and special that something so popular manages to find a way to keep on going and being loved after the intitial craze.
@@younguy978 Although the Pokemon GO thing only only really lasted weeks to a month at least in the UK. When the Pokemon craze was at it's peak in the 90's it lasted years. Not sure about the 2020 thing?
@@nuke2099 everyone at home rediscovering childhood hobby’s and Pokémon 25th anniversary.
@@younguy978 yeah what was the 2020 thing? The pokemon Go craze lasted a solid two weeks here in northern VA everyone was walking outside even at midnight their would be whole squads of teens who snuck out to catch them. It died down a bit as "safety" issues arose, kids in streets, people driving while playing, people out at midnight, and schools banning it. I def will remember it as a time of world peace someone would run into a resturant and shout "Squirtle is outside around the corner!" youd have the staff and customers run outside to catch it and then go back to their food lmao. It kept for part of the year but not to that extent. Ice cream stores had pokeball inspired flavors, the local sushi place did pikachu and pokeball sushi, and the teams went hard as people fought over gyms even trying to make their favorite landmark one.
I remember my dad bought me an $80.00 holographic Mew card when I was 9. Still have it at 31. 💗
That's wassup keep it probably 💯 it's going to be in a museum soon as well and Wirth more
80.00 fucking dollars....
@@eLite-Tiss91 yeah lol.
Hard to believe any Pokémon card was worth that much in the 90s lol he got scammed bad
@@one.2622 now though ? If it’s mint condition it’s probably worth what, hundreds? Thousands? More if he waits
Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z, the childhood of almost any boy growing up in the 90’s/early 2000’s. What a glorious time it was.
Yes
Sorry I was spending my free time in the 90’s usually having sex with all the most beautiful women, so I had no extra time for Pokémon
@@JamesChessman Whatever you say, chief.
Absolute facts
Plus Power Rangers and Sailor Moon (the latter mostly for girls)
I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but around here, I really felt like we were hit a second Pokemania era when Pokémon Go launched. Never did I see so many people gather for a Pokémon event since the lines for the first movie or the mall tour that happened than that gathering at my downtown’s park. The difference is, because of those flaws of Go, it indeed fell off the wayside far quicker than the first time around (maybe 2-3 months)
It was the trend for the summer and by the time Gen 2 were released it was Winter and no one was really going out and about
Pokemon lived and died many deaths. After the zeitgeist died, it slowly came back with Diamond and Pearl and suddenly everyone in school wayyy older than you'd expect were playing Pokemon again. Then X & Y put the nail in that coffin. Then Pokemon Go revived it. Then Sword and Shield killed it again. Now Legends Arceus brought it back.
BUT, Pokemon will NEVER be as big as it once was, and Gen 3 killed it.
@@ZeroX7649 nobody played black and white or the sequels in my experience in NYC, and you were still seen as kiddie if you liked Pokémon in 09/10
X/Y actually revived interest especially with its ease of multiplayer features, with GO eventually being the new golden age
When the pandemic first hit I could tell the majority of the people walking around gyms or raids were on their phone and probably playing Go
I'm waiting for a third pokemania. Think there'll be one? What sort of game would prompt such a thing? The thought has me excited.
To be honest, I also think the Gen 1 games thrived because of the rumours of secret Pokemon, which was backed by the likes of Missingno, Mew, and the Gen 2 Pokemon like Ho-Oh and Togepi popping up in the anime. Not to mention the unexplained placement of a truck in a place players weren't meant to be able to get to. It all just fueled speculation that the game had hidden secrets,and it drove us all crazy when we were kids. Gen 2 had it to a later extent, but nowadays the internet just debunks every rumour, and it's sucked some of the original spirit out of the games a bit.
Of course, Pokemon was new..
The internet was part of what allowed those rumors to spread
@@DuskLegend Early internet, yeah
@@chrisschurke4151 it was a better time
Agreed. I remember a rumor back when Gen 2 came out, that the inaccesible small body of water in cinnabar island is where mewtwo was hiding for that Gen 😂
I'll never forget me, my brother and a cinema full of 100 kids all crying at Ash dying, and my poor grandad bless him fast asleep and snoring
I was there for pokemania and it was truly something amazing and I still remember Christmas 1999 where I not only got a game boy color but also copies of Pokemon Blue and Yellow versions along with so much more Pokemon goods
It was a great time bro !
good ol xmas '99
Everything in that amount was dope 🎶 🎵 🪕 🎼 💿 games 🎮 Everything man that was a good tome to live in at first I didn't like pokemon but after everyone and everything was based off Pokémon I had no choice this was 4th grade for me in 97/98 year than 5th grade that year we're I'd watch the shows before school started when the bus arrived
Omg me too. I also got sonic adventure
why blue and yellow and not red ?
My mother took me to see the first three movies. She watched the Pikachu shorts, then read a book the rest of the time. I appreciate that sacrifice.
Who reads a book in a movie theater? Couldn't these 90s parents just suck it up and watch an hour long kids movie? Good grief.
@J-remy
If a film is boring, it can make one hour feel like three or more. Being dragged into a film of such low-quality that only children will enjoy it is unfair on the parents. When rewatching a lot of Pokemon films, I find only three or four of them are good enough to potentially keep adults mildly invested. My parents often bring up their apathy towards them; they say there's hardly any story.
@@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 I put my grandparents through the first Pokemon movie no less than a hundred times to the point they could probably remember the script verbatim.
I remember my mother RIP, brought me to the second movie as my friends mom brought us to the first and my dad brought me to the third and my dad just kinda sat through it and fell asleep lol
I still think the Japanese movies are entirely different. Pokémon inspired me to learn Japanese and move here 10 years ago. Adults here still love the movies both new and old.
I was the perfect age to experience Pokemania at its height. It was glorious and so magical. I remember how awesome it was seeing Pokemon stuff all over the boardwalk or how hype it was when new Pokemon toys or sets came out.
That said, the franchise has endured remarkably well through the years. It may never recapture the magic of its peak, but 25 years later, kids are still playing Pokemon. My parents assured me that my kids' generation would never like Pokemon and yet here we are and Pokemon is still a truly hot commodity. I think it says something that despite the mania dying off, Pokemon as a franchise is still probably among the healthiest media properties around.
Yugioh and Beyblades pulled me from Pokémon. 20 years later I’m collecting Pokémon cards again :)
Yeah, I remember Yugioh being popular, too.
Beyblade and Dragon Ball Z were more popular than Yugioh, in my school anyway
Yugioh took me away from Pokémon as well. I attribute me getting out to right around when Misty left the show. Once she was gone, I lost interest.
@Lee Hayman it's weird I thought Digimon came out first or around the same time but Digimon they at least talked pokemon just made noise which was also cool
I have a clear memory of being in 6th grade (fall 2002) and a big group of kids on the playground were playing yugioh and in the corner on the bleachers were two kids playing pokemon looking at us all lonesome looking lol. Kids were literally saying pokemon was "played out" by 2003. If it weren't for Pokemon having better video games, I think it def would've died out completely. Because the cards and anime were def down in popularity compare to the first few years.
I think Tracy played a massive part in killing it. I vividly remember seeing what was then the new season as a child thinking " Who is this nobody, and where tf is Brock!?"
That along with how the plot focusing on the GS ball was dropped and the more general story progression of the anime went straight off the rails around then because of the Celabi movie.
I liked Tracey TBH then after the orange islands things went downhill afterwards, the GS ball was dropped and so much filler cluttered it, I'd stopped watching it in 2002
Tracy is alright
Personally for me, pokemon didn't really die, rather, I feel like Pokemon lost that magic it once had when Gen III finally came around. The fact that we couldn't connect pokemon ruby and sapphire with the older games like red and crystal and the show taking a different direction when ash went to hoenn kind of made pokemon more stale honestly. I still remember in the third grade when ruby and sapphire were replacing all the gbc games in Walmart. It was a rather weird time to be a pokemon fan when Gen III was still around, and some of my friends that were pokemon fans back then started to see it as childish. The same thing started to apply shows and games like yugioh, especially after the battle city arc was over and done with here in the States.
It then got to the point where they started to watch shit like MYV and and other more adult like shit like South Park. Keep in mind I was still in elementary school at the time when this shit was happening.
It wasn't until when late into my sixth grade year when diamond and pearl came out when it was kind of okay to be a pokemon fan again, but even then, it didn't feel the same like it did when during the late 90s and early 20000s.
Nowadays, I be playing pokemon fan made hacks from gens I & III on my phone and the physical copies of the gen I games on my GBC and pokemon stadium 1 and 2 in a way that I never got to play it as a kid. Still, games like Heartgold and White 2, even though I no longer have them in my possession, I look back at them with good memories.
Here's to the next generation of pokemon fans. Hope y'all keep this franchise alive!
I think it came down to people’s mindset. There are two kinds of people in the world, those who are always against anything new, and those who get excited about new things. You can see this in everything. I remember people ”hating” touch screen phones when they were rolling out because ”those are not even phones” and whatever else, and then there is people like me who are excited to explore these new things.
In pokemon, Hoenn was different, different kind of region from the previous ones, anime making big changes with Ash going to Hoenn alone and meeting a new crew, the games added a lot of key elements to the world of pokemon and being so vibrant and clean compared to previous games.
While people were complaining about how the new pokemon ”didn’t look like pokemon” (you know, the classic) or about the old crew leaving in the anime etc, I was excited out of my mind about the amazing new designs of Gen 3, especially the legendary trio (I loved how different they were when most legendaries were some birds up to that point, and I remember loving the mystic patterns that the weather trio had on their bodies especially for some reason). I was also super excited about the anime, the shift was not forced, the old crew had things to do and they gave Ash this little arc of shit ”what should I do now” and decided to go alone to a completely new region full of never before seen pokemon. Meeting new crew was exciting and I remember being excited even for the minor fact that Ash had new clothes for the first time. Everything was so fresh and I loved it. The games too, I loved the big graphical update, and all the small things they added to make the world alive such as puddles that reflect you and the sky, footsteps in the sand, two different bikes with different purposes, secret bases and many more. To this day gen 3 games are my favorite and the region as well.
They continued to use these same tactics later with new regions, but from Johto to Hoenn it worked perfectly because it was the first time when they did it.
Pokemon didn’t lose it’s magic, people just resisted the freshness and wanted it to stay the same (+the fact that growing older, the general bandwagon was that pokemon was for kids, you are not cool if you like it, making lot of people drop it just for social status, not because they didn’t like it anymore), which ironically is what Pokemon is highly critizised for nowadays: never changing and always being the same in the big picture.
'It then got to the point where they started to watch shit like MYV and and other more adult like shit like South Park'
I've never heard of MYV, but South Park is anything but shit.
@@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 I meant to say MTV. Damn typo. As for South Park, I watch it every once in a while nowadays. More of a Simpsons kind of guy
@@grydon6422 I loved the Hoenn games too! They're just as vibrant as when I first played them! I guess my main issue with them was the lack of postgame content. There wasn't really much else to do after you beat the elite four, except maybe catch Rayquaza, or Latio/as depending on which game you had, and a lackluster battle tower. Used to have the physical copy of Emerald, and I remember the Battle Frontier being such a pain in the ass. It was easier to cruise through the Battle Frontier on my phone due to save states, but even then, the AI would do whatever it took to screw you over
Good 👉 ☝️ I remember back in 6th grade 00 01 that year people started loosing craze through the cards it started to get boring nobody in my neighborhood was actually collecting as much cards anymore because the johto cards were in Japanese and not yet made and than around that time they kept showing reruns if the show and tgey only had tge new ones on Sunday orange islands when kids like me had to attend church and back than we had vhs 📼 so it was kind of hard to record and than pokemon silver gold than a year later crystal 🔮 came out alot if people were bad mouthing saying pokemon is for kids this and that your not popular or weird if you still play that was when I went to junior high back in 01 but winter/spring and even summer of 01 people were still playing gold silver even though I still had red and blue because my parents somehow didn't want me and my younger brother to have it so 6th grade I made a mistake and gave all my pokemon cards away for free back around that time before junior high nobody in my neighborhood was playing the card game and than the games started to disappear around fall of 01 but you had some pokemon fans out here like me but got manipulated by fans after around 02 03 that was basically the end of my chapter
I was born in 93 so I appreciate being able to experience poké mania and the beginning of the games, the cards and the show with the movies, such a great time to just be a kid
Pokemon Mania didn't die, it evolved (pardon the pun). Rather than being a fad that went away, it became a part of culture. Along with Dragon Ball Z it ushered in anime even further into western culture. It is the highest grossing media franchise of all time, it just went beyond being a brief fad that fizzled out.
I think Pokemania returned with Pokémon Go, the real problem in early 2000's wasn't about grew up, was because first 2 Gen were debunked in the gaming canon in Gen 3.
Gen 4 wanted to rescue some Johto fans with new pre evolutions and evolutions of them, but was a tech transition stupidity and they are the less sold games of al time.
Gen 5 was a good new beginning but genwonners cried about it, at least is the most serious plot for a familiar franchise
Gen 6 was more focused in competitive play to beat Dragon type weatherless monopoly and attract gamer girls with Fairy type.
Gen 7 with Pokémon Go and a new style of league with Alola was a big win...along with Detective Pikachu.
Gen 8...is the return to some base of the franchise.
Pokemania was stronger during Gen 3 than it was during Gen 2. Does anyone know if the Gen 2 handbook actually existed? My brother & I had tons of books, cards, & other merch yet hardly any of it was from Gen 2 just from Johto merch barely existing. I think Pokemon Contests & cute designs were part of what attracted the series to gamer girls. I agree that Pokemania evolved & I remember the series being insanely popular during Gens 3&4 when I was in primary school. I remember the Gen 3 equivalent of those Truck Rumors where you could go to space & get either Jirachi or Deoxys, as well as the weird rumors to make Mirage Island appear when it was just being absurdly lucky. FireRed & LeafGreen rebirthed rumors for getting Mew & Celebi.
@An actual genwunner Maybe I was part of that new generation in terms of the games themselves. I started by watching the anime of Gens 1&2 with my brother who played a couple of the older games that I was too young for.
Still that doesn't explain the lack of Gen 2 Merch from 2000-2003 in America compared to Gen 1 Merch. My Brother told me how hard it was to find Gen 2 Card Packs or anything (not counting Games or Anime) for Pokémon that wasn't Gen 1 back then.
It died, I loved the original gameboy games till this day but being born in 1999 when Pokemania was at its highest in the UK, but when I was growing up no one collected the cards, we collected footy cards and didn’t watch anime cartoons. I watched the cartoon occasionally and lost interest around the age of 6
I missed out on Pokémon Mania. But, in my defense, I was born in 1998 so I didn’t really get a chance to experience that phenomenon where everyone is playing it. The first time I heard of Pokémon was during generation 3 in 2003. But growing up I never really cared much about the franchise. I knew it existed, just didn’t think much about it. I even remember like in 2012 I had Pokémon Heart Gold and ended up giving it to a friend because I had my Xbox 360 and was in high school.
But that changed in late 2013, early 2014. My brother downloaded the emulator for me to play Pokémon Fire Red and I recall instantly falling in love with the games. I replayed it so much, capturing all the Pokémon, trying out various teams and exploring the world. Since I never played the game before, everything felt new to me. I was such a noob.
From there I played generation 2 and my favorite gen, Hoenn. It was then when I went through my own Pokémon Mania. I bought a 3ds and played X and Y, after it came out, then Alpha Sapphire and watched the entire anime spring break of 2014.
It sucks that I missed out but glad that I was able to experience something that I’ll always be fond of. Now I’m a diehard fan.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I always love hearing about how people who started with later generations got into the franchise.
I was born in 1999 but my first Pokemon experience was a Pokemon red cart on my sisters gameboy color. Then I got a GBA SP and a copy of ruby we also had that gamecube GBA attachment so I played gameboy games on that most of the time we also had the original anime on vhs and a pikachu n64 I played Pokemon stadium. My sis is 13 years older than me so she got into the craze and was a big fan she had Pokemon gold and red and even a Pokemon vcr in her room. Eventually she had to throw away the Pokemon vcr but she gave the n64 with all of the games ( ocarina of time, mario64,mario kart64,banjoo kazooie,Pokemon stadium 1/2, starfox64, smash bros.) and the copies of pokemon red and gold along with her GC sonsole to me I play n64 practically everyday still and I take the gameboy out on ocation to play Pokemon and links awakening
After gen 6 I grew bored of pokemon cause compared to the other hand to me it was bare bones with no postgame and low new pokemon. I stoped playing at gen 7 due to the fact that they hold ur hand to much and it's very linear plus the totem challenges it's not my cup of tea. And with gen 8 I feel like they just got lazy. So I just stick to the gameboy games for now. Because even tho I played all the other gens I feel more gravitate to play gen 1 and 2
I was born during the Advanced Generation series, and I happened to have a physical copy of the first abd third Pokémon movies at home, with episode 29 ‘The Punchy Pokémon’. As a result, that was my first episode.
I think I started watching Pokémon XY in 2014 on Netflix with my brother, and didn’t complete it, as XYZ wasn’t finished at the time. Then I remember going to UA-cam and typing in ‘pokemon season 10 episode 1’. Season 10 was just a random number I thought of, and I took it for granted that it happened to be the start of Diamond & Pearl (I possibly thought that all seasons were mostly self-contained and in their own regions). I barely knew anything about the anime at the time.
I think that I stopped watching DP sometime in season 11, and I think it might have been because I was bored by it. I eventually watched the whole of the original series and Advanced Generation, then stopped after season 10 again. I also remember watching season 14, and skipping the rest of DP. I have no idea why I did this. I think I stopped watching BW after season 14, though. Later, I watched the first 20 episodes of SM as they came out, and have not kept up with the anime since.
I’ve recently started watching the anime again, and this time, I’m determined to get all the way to season 25. I know that lots of people like DP a lot, and I want to give it another chance.
Maybe I genuinely don’t like it, and don’t know it for certain. I don’t know why else I would have skipped it. If I found DP boring, why did I not have much of an issue with the Johto arc?
When I get to DP again, I might realise if I like it, and why I left it. If not, at least I’ll get to fully experience the iteration of the anime that seems to be by far the most popular, apart from XY.
I'm the same as you, except it was my friend who introduced it to me in High School. I'm now more of a Pokemon nerd than him.
Wow seeing those movie reviews from back then really shows an area where anime wasn't a main popculture medium. Those reviewers had no idea what was comin.
Just imagine if they had seen end of evangelion
yea those complaints about "choppy" animation like yea Mr. Critic, welcome to Anime
Akira (which is probably the first anime movie most people remember) did release in the US in 1988, but it was more of a cult hit
Imagine kids back then seeing any Legendary from gens 3 onward. They would probably have a heart attack.
I fell in love with gen 3 legends instantly
especially the megas, we would have called them pokegods at the time
I remember back in Emerald it took me 1 week to catch Rayquaza because I was to little to understand weakening Pokemon makes it easier to catch.😂😂
This happened and the reaction was 'they look like Digimon.'
Bowser, Shamu, and Fug are lovable! 😇
I remember seeing Pokemon The Movie 3 as a kid with my mom. It was my first introduction into the world of Pokemon and i LOVED it. My mom and i had originally gotten tickets for another movie but this one showed instead. She wasn't a huge fan of the movie but i think that going in with a blank slate made it better for both of us
Overexposure, my older brother told me that.
My older brother lived through pokemania, and he told me that by 2001, it had become too much and a few of his friends moved on, forcing him to do so too, but he never truly grew out of it, he just sidelined it for 16 years from 2003 to 2019, along with him getting deep into Harry Potter.
Still, I've seen him and a few of his oldest friends jump back into Pokémon with Sword and Shield. He did buy Shield in December 2019, and god what a craze he had. He even outright cried when playing through it.
As for me, I was only 2 years old when the craze died, but my older brother loved to tell me about it. Still, Gen 4 and 5 bored me, to the point I skipped BW2. I only got into Pokémon on my teens, specifically when I was 14 with Pokémon Y.
Great video, very well done! I remember when Pokemon Go had its little moment, and it brought me back to being a kid - when all of my friends were talking about Pokemon again, obsessed with catching them all around our neighbourhood lol. I enjoyed Pokemon Go even with its short-lived mainstream appeal.
Speaking of the Pokemon craze. Do you remember the South Park episode "Chinpokomon?" An episode that satirised the insane amount of hype and marketing at the time. I've been recently rewatching the show (I'm up to Season 13) and Chinpokomon is easily one of my favourite episodes especially from the first 3 seasons.
I actually re-watched it relatively recently! I think Chinpokomon is definitely in my top episodes of all time, at least of the seasons that I've seen.
That South Park crap is fucking stupid.
Too many Pokémon to keep track of and the kids that got hit with the first wave in the late 90s were growing up.
Just imagine if the anime had adapted the Pokémon Adventures manga. Or at least started a separate show for it. It’d be hailed as one of the greatest Pokémon media of all time.
It’s not too late for them to start
Pokemons major drop off was its reception when Hoenn games released Ruby and Sapphire. Many fans felt alienated in a world set apart from Kanto and Johto and did not jive with the new Pokemon. But what else was Game Freak and the Pokemon Company supposed to do? They couldnt live in the past games forever.
Fair but unfortunately that's when the majority of us 90s kids left after Gold/Silver/Crystal. A worthy sequel and conclusion to the 90s pokemania
Looking back, it feels like things started to die down around Gen 3. I remember when everyone was playing the Gen 2 games at school. But it didn’t really seem to be the same with the GBA titles. My friends and I still played, but it didn’t seem to have the widespread appeal as before.
I think it's pretty funny that by the time Hoen came around is when people started to drop off the series but that's when I was really getting into it. Firered was my first pokemon game followed up by Emerald straight after. I was hooked on the show and watching it as much as I could when I got home from school. While there were reruns of Kanto and Johto, Hoen was my sorta official first region because I saw more of the anime in that region. Sinnoh is still by far my favorite was the first region where I bought all three games (or were bought for me cause I was in 5th-6th grade). Action replayed the hell out of them and was shocked by all the hidden events like Darkrai and was as if I discovered some secret world I wasn't supposed to find. Fell off a little bit at unova but picked back up after XY came out and gave unova another shot; and is my favorite of the 2d games now. I only really fell off the series and am a very casual fan now after Sun and Moon being pretty lackluster. Now I mostly just play the older games again and constantly complain how Colosseum and Gale of Darkness somehow look better than the current pokemon games.
Bruhhhhh, this is literally the same experience I had
We were the 2nd Wave of Pokemania, & my brother & I both noticed Pokemon seemed much more popular in Gen 3 than it was during Johto. Where was all the Gen 2 Merch? It was way easier to find Gen 1 Stuff back in 2002, Gen 3 Merch was everywhere in 2003 though. I agree Gen 5 was so much harder to like for Pokemon, & my brother didn't even buy Gen 7&8 games, although now we're getting both Scarlet & Violet.
The third gen is absolutely what killed it just IMO, as someone that was like 8 when pokemania started. People stopped playing when they found out that they couldn't send their gen 1 and 2 pokemon to the third gen. It didn't really have that much to do with the games themselves but like just the fact they cut those pokemon off and also it being on a new console at the same time made a lot of people drop the games for gen 3.
Emerald is now my favorite game but I was one of those people, originally I skipped gen 3 because of that reason and picked the series back up with pearl. But by then it was in the weird middle era of pokemon between pokemania and the modern era where everyone kinda plays it again where you still would get made fun of a lot for enjoying it lol.
@@miyakogfl I was lucky that pretty much most of the guys in my school universally loved some generation of pokemon. More people(including the girls) had a ds than those that didn't. So high school was really fun since everyone was playing games, doing street pass, doing small smash tournaments during our off periods, and playing pokemon during lunch.
First movie bad animation? What kind of crack were they on? It was peak 90s animation right there. I wish movies had that nowadays
Me and most of my then friends were born in 1990.
We were 7-8 when Pokémon took over the world.
That initial almost absurd hype and collective addiction lasted until around 2001.
The release of Gen II was a gigantic event, it was a cultural milestone.
For months, every single boy at my school was playing those games, we were glued to our GameBoy.
That hype started to dwindle by the time of Crystal's release.
Being unplayable on GameBoy surely had an impact, a lot of my friends were still playing on those handhelds.
By the time Gen III came out, we were either too cool, too shy to admit or too pissed off about the lack of connectivity to the previous games to continue playing.
I know that I was heartbroken when I found out that I couldn't trade my beloved mons over to the GBA
I know for me personally, my enthusiasm for Pokemon stopped in the middle of watching Pokemon 3: The Movie. I remember watching The First Movie with a group of friends and a huge crowd but only my dad was willing to see 2000 with me (also a huge crowd). By the time 3 came out, only my sister and my friend watched it with me. The theater was practically empty. The mania had stopped. And while my enthusiasm was strong before the movie began, I suddenly felt bored to tears during the film. I might have actually fallen asleep.
By then, the older kids were too cool for Pokemon and I was getting older too. I still liked Pokemon, but it was no longer something everyone did. It was more of a niche franchise by that point, something on par with Digimon. What really bogged me down was the constant filler anime. Nothing mattered. So much content yet no pay off. So I think you nailed it on the head. Forcing so many movies in such a short time span is bound to kill momentum.
I had the audacity to continue watching the show and buying the games, but practically keeping it a secret until I became an adult. The initial marketing and Gotta Catch 'em All strategy is something that still affects me to this day. I didn't want to quit. But after they decided to change the anime voice actors, I finally called it quits. There just wasn't enough reason to dedicate myself to something I'm no longer passionate about when the people in charge aren't even going to commit to it.
But I also remember Pokemon 3: The Movie just being the first time I was critical of the franchise. I hated the movie title. Why not just call it Pokemon: The Movie 3? Why focus so much time on the world transforming and not the characters? Why did they only focus on Entei and not the other 2 "dog"/tiger legendaries? Like, everyone made fun of Ash as a Pokemon trainer at the playground, but GS in the anime felt broken and the story was lost.
I can only imagine how parents must have felt being dragged to the theater to watch a Pokemon movie for the 3rd time. Yu-Gi-Oh was the next thing for the younger kids and this type of shonen stuff has its limits. I wonder if these movies, essentially a marketing tool, would have prolonged the Pokemon mania had they been released slower and better quality. Or if anything with that much hype is destined to crash regardless of quality.
As someone who was a kid through all of this, I can say that your assessment is on point. The GS ball, Johto filler and the 3rd gen not being able to trade with gen 1/2 was all major reasons why I stepped away until gen 6.
Wrestling, Pokémon, Dbz, The Simpsons and King of the hill was popping in the late 90’s early 00’s good times
Thanks for this video. I did fall out of the Pokemon games around Diamond/Pearl and the Anime around Hoenn. I came back to the games during X/Y. I really haven't gone back to the Anime in forever, but I still do re-watch the early Pokemon movies from time to time.
I enjoyed the video for summarizing the Pokemon craze of the late 90s/early 2000s. I grew up during that time in the UK and it was such a huge and memorable craze that took over my life. I don't necessarily agree that Brock's absence had any effect on movie box office but it's certainly a factor that may have reduced interest in the anime. I personally wasn't bothered by that at all, nor did I pay much attention to the GS ball story. I had forgotten about it pretty quickly actually, but my interest in the TV series did dwindle heavily during Johto. I distinctly remember it feeling like a slog with all the filler and the slow progression. Playing the games was always far more engaging and was what kept me a fan.
I was briefly brought back to the anime when Ash got to the Johto league and the show transitioned to Hoenn, but Hoenn and it's Pokemon were a big turn off compared to what came before. I've since warmed up a little more to Hoenn, especially compared to the crazy designs and concepts in later regions, but there was a lot to be negative about when gen 3 rolled around, and I think the fad had mostly died by that point regardless of minor changes. People were just tired of it due to how formulaic and predictable it got, and the charm wore off for those who weren't 'nerds' per se.
Also, I don't think the other 'knock-off' shows were necessarily trying to copy Pokemon, it's just that they were all from the Shonen genre in Japan, and Pokemon essentially started the first anime boom in the west, so anything we saw afterwards felt like they were copying, when in reality those types of shows were already common in Japan. Some shows definitely were capitalizing on similar themes to Pokemon though, I think Monster Rancher, Digimon and Medabots were to an extent but definitely not all of them. Yu-Gi-Oh in particular had it's own fascinating developement prior to being adapted for the West and it's author was mostly inspired by various games. 4Kids used similar marketing for both it and Pokemon when they brought them over so that's why it ended up feeling like a clone of sorts
But overall, I think anime's saturation in the west was more of a factor for the decline of Pokemon along with the poor storytelling quality of the anime. The audience was growing up and quickly outgrew the stories in the anime yet the show felt like it stayed the same and in some ways even got younger in tone. It became embarassing to be associated with it and that was enough for people to move on. There were also anime alternatives that aimed at older teen audiences that felt more cool by comparison. Pokemon was the first but it failed to retain or evolve with it's audience. That being said, it did have a nostalgic resurgeance many years later.
I think a huge factor that wasn’t touched upon was that initial generation of kids that saw gen 1 and pokemania grew up and thought it was “for kids” it’s unrealistic to think that with new generations that they can maintain the same insane popularity it was always bound to happen once the first kids to see Pokémon grew up.
I want Pokémon to become hype again because for me nostalgia
You’re right my dad was side eyeing us after he watched (fell asleep) during the pikachu short and the movie stuff did hurt the cool factor after a while.
Some other reasons
1. Yes we became preteens and thought we were too old for it
2. Pokémon refused to give us anything indicating it was willing to cater to us getting older
3. The formula was old by ruby and sapphire and again they didn’t give us anything showing it would grow. We wanted an LoA open world style game back then and its only just starting to happen 20 years later.
4. Not being able to trade up pokemon we had been raising since red/blue was the final straw lots of people left for yugioh and by the time dbz took over pokemon was finished in comparison
What the fuck is LoA
WOW this really put me in the mood to make more Pokemon videos!
This video brought me back to so many memories /= i miss being a kid
You failed to mention that Infamous episode about Porygon that aired in Japan and gave many Japanese children epilepsy. The entire anime in Japan was banned for a few months following that incident.
That event single handedly changed the course of the series and is what prompted the creation of The Pokemon Company that coordinated everything thereafter. It delayed everything - the anime, Gold and Silver, the cards (the Vending Machine sets that were Japan only were basically a stop gap caused by this). It's the partly reason why the west actually caught up to the Japanese releases so quickly when it'd started years behind.
@@Skasaha_ It's also why the anime got greenlit for more seasons, iirc. By being delayed, it somehow allowed them to notice the West really, really liked Pokemon. And thus, history was born.
Also that turned as an excuse to religious people to think Pokemon was from the devil
Amazing video! 👏🏼
Totally agree, Brock’s departure and bad choice of character with Tracy made me hate that change and stop enjoy watching the show after that. Then, Johto Journey started to air in cable. From a kid raise in middle class in Latin America, that was a hit to the stomach. You were stuck with re-runs of the Indiogo series. I just re-connected with Pokémon and started collecting games and old toys. Is crazy to think how my nephews that are almost 15yrs younger still laugh and enjoy Pokémon Indigo league in Netflix and asking me questions of how things where back in the late 90s with the whole Pokemania.
Amazing video, best vibes! 🤙🏼
I didnt get into the games until gen 4, but I remember being obsessed with pokemon 2000 as a kid
You certainly were right about the foreign success of Pokémon 2000.
The 1st movie hadn't come out until april 2000 in Germany and Pokémon 2000 in december 2000.
So the hype was still fresh for the movies.
Come to think of it, we really were behing quite a lot in Europe when it comes to the initial Pokémon hype.
The animé didn't air until september of 1999
Pokémon decreased in popularity after Johto in terms of being mainstream but things that came by have ramped it up to stay in the eyes of mainstream audiences like Ash getting his first Pokémon League victory, Ash becoming the World Champion, Pokémon Go when it first released, the Pokémon live action film, and the recent Pokémon card outbreak that’s been going on for a few years. Pokémon has been in and out of the mainstream audience but it never truly died, yes popularity has decreased because there are newer things that the kids are into but yeah
Also Pokémon is te highest value franchise in all time since Pokémon Go, Gen 3 was ok but kicked out GBC Gen 1 and 2 Pokedexers, Gen 4 was good but with low QoL post calculations of HP, and also Gen 5 was a "new story" to homage the late 2000s book saga movies and have a new audience, Gen 6 as the jump to 3D was intentionally easy for competitive play and mega evolutions, 2nd Place in Kalos for Ash was the best merch move and then bring him as Alola Champion and now World Champion.
Also Detective Pikachu Movie is the best video game movie of all time.
We are still here
the reason is pretty simple, we were kids when the craze started and then we got older. Pokemon was considered for kids, at early teenage years we had yu gi oh as a ''for older age card game'' replacing pokemon and then it was more about girls,sports and partying lol
That's facts
The dub probably added more fuel to the fire
That’s in the US but in Japan pokemon never died out
It’s the way the US is everything is a craze this new craze is social media and TikTok it’ll die out just like everything else till the next thing
Was a fan up until black and white 2 from the beginning. For me it was when they had to introduce Mega Evolution. Just got tiring and slowed the battles down. Now it seems every new generation they have to introduce some flashy gimmick like Terastalizing or Dynamax. It really didn't need a new way of battling. I just want a Pokémon like Gold and Silver that allow you to go through multiple regions that make the story extra long and fleshed out. Pokémon never needed to be in a 3d environment to be honest also.
I actually heard a rumor that they were going to stop making Pokemon games but Nintendo wanted them to make more even more. I heard they were not prepared for this so it even took a longer for them to make the 3rd generation
Lol the upbeat music of Pokémon Johto over the tense scene of Grandpa getting his soul taken in the Yu-Gi-Oh! op is immaculate
Trading Pokemon cards back then in school was the best time of my life !!
14:00 Okay, Technically Black and White movies (the first ones with Zekrom and Reshiram) did have a limited release, mostly in the mid-atlantic (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Deleware, Maryland, etc.), but it wasn't until what you mention here (2017) that it would come back to theaters.
I think that's true for a ton of manias
MLP, transformers, magic the gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh ect
While those franchise are all still super popular and you can bet the people who are working on them to this day won't go hungry or homeless. They probably will never reach their peak again or at least not in a long time (especially with how complicated Yu-Gi-Oh has gotten)
I was another person there to experience Pokemania being at the right age to experience it (born in 91) and it was just insane how Pokemon was everywhere. It's not a surprise that Pokemon was a worldwide phenomenon back in the mid-late 90s. Video Game? Check. TV show? Check. Lots of Merchandise like Toys, Keychains, Plushes, & Figures? Check. Trading Card Game? Check. A theatrical release of a movie? Check. Pokemon just covered so many basis and like you said, the marketing was genius and was able to ensnare most us who were kids during that time LOL
But yeah I still remember back in elementary around 1998 when Pokemon Red & Blue were released and many kids were playing the game. I would watch in awe and was hoping that for Christmas I'd get my own copy of Pokemon Red which sure enough, I did haha. Didn't beat the game unfortunately as I only got as far as up to the seventh gym and then lost my game in a move but I remember being so wrapped into the game but even more, especially the anime. I know that people like to punk on 4Kids but while they did muck up Pokemon with the censorship, the way they went about dubbing the show by giving us great Voice Actors and a very nice pop-inspired OST with Pikachu's Jukebox, it was arguably the best adaptation the company ever done despite the censoring.
And then the first movie, oh man was the hype huge for it. I think I saw it on Friday the week it came out and I remember loving it so much. It was interesting to hear what those critics said about it essentially saying that it was overrated crap because honestly, I feel that it was love letter to the fans because so many kids watched the anime and got to see Ash and the characters grow
(this was before we knew how Pokemon would refuse to keep character development for Ash of course lol) so yeah, not surprised they didn't like it if they weren't fans of the anime.
But unfortunately you're right. I was one of the fans who did stick around at least all the way up to the 3rd Generation of Pokemon. Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire and then Emerald and Fire Red/Leaf Green were the final points of Pokemon I experienced before I dropped out of the series. I was moving further into Middle school (Secondary school for non-Americans) and I was getting interested in other video games and yep, I totally got ensnared in Yu-Gi-Oh! as well haha but what you said about the Pokmeon anime having way too many fillers? Yeah that definitely hurt the series. I'm pretty sure I did watch Johto as much as I could though I did miss some episodes here and there but I started missing even more around the Hoenn Arc and fell off the map entirely. Just too many filler episodes and I even wasn't caring as much about the movies, I didn't even Pokemon 4Ever or Pokemon Heroes when they first debuted.
Anyway I could ramble on and on about this kinda thing but one thing I can say is that I'm glad I got to experience the Pokemania of the 1990s. It truly was a time like no other and I don't think Pokemon will ever have a phenomenon like that again. It was just the right place at the right time when not many video games went above and beyond to market itself the way Pokemon did at the time. Couple that with how video games were still seen as somewhat taboo and not a mainstream hobby (yet) definitely helped.
Gen 3 incompatibilty problems was the breaking point in the series for me.
-If you was a Dex player or completist one catch Celebi or Jirachi even in GameShark was a battery game save suicide.
-Stupid Villain teams with some slash/yaoi good couple for fujoshi and fudanshi
-Too much water? yes
-Abilities was ok for competitive play, well, Swampert,Tyranitar,Metagross and Salamance were the top 4
I was born in 1988 and video games were never "taboo", it's just that not everyone had parents who could afford them...
@@barbieblues7639 "Taboo" was probably not the best word but I remember hearing about how there was a stigma towards gamer nerds who loved to devote a lot of time to video games. I think "socially unacceptable" might be a better phrase.
I was invested in Pokémon as a kid and excited for the third generation, but quit after getting a copy of Pokémon Sapphire because none of the old generation Pokemon (which I had grown so attached to) were in it. The anime had also grown increasingly alienating for the same reason as they removed old characters.
It hit hard and it hit fast. That much sudden hype over something new almost never lasts forever.
Pokemon is still around...
i think it's worth mentioning that the voice actor changes in the english dub were also a factor, and wasn't received as positively as similar va changes (dbz, sailor moon).
I think they should have did the voice change when they switched to Sinton or Generation 4 Games
Some people like the change
@@davidlewis5189 no
@@dwainsimmons3447no they fucking didn’t
@@davidlewis5189or you know, never changed the voices at all. The originals were done so dirty. Fuck TPCI
I’m another OG fan from those days. I got Pokémon Red for Christmas in 1998 and started with Charmander; still here with Charizard in 2022.
The 90's and very early 2000's a golden era for the franchise. Still a big time collector, but lost my collection from the 90's due to constant moves. But made up for it over the years.
I remember getting gold version for Christmas when I was 8. I had blue for a while and loved it but 2nd gen was just amazing and the music is literally engrained in my mind. Ecruteak city and National Park themes bring up so much nostalgia I feel like I have the heart of my 8 year old self again and it’s overwhelming. So much good times with all my friends playing and trading, collecting cards, playing Pokémon stadium. I got sapphire when I was 10 and my brother got Ruby that’s by far the most time I’ve ever put in any video game and I had every single Pokémon except one, fkn Kingdra. I loved that game too. The show was so good and the rap at the end is so 90s I love it. I don’t know if there’s a single 90s boy that doesn’t know the intro word for word by heart. Pokémon and Dragonball Z were the 2 biggest animated shows of my childhood by far. So thankful for being a 90s baby.
Misty leaving the anime was the death of the original Pokemon.
However something about those Pocket Monsters themselves being closer to animals then all the other monster-type shows and it being open world I think has allowed it to endure where others haven't. BTW Yu-Gi-Oh started out as a Managa the same year Pokemon as a game was released, though its kid friendly reboot likely was inspired by Pokemon.
If Pokémon came around today, it most likely would not be as successful as it was back then, because there is far more competition today than there was back in 1999
A lot pf people have nostalgia for the games nowadays but when I was a kid, barely anyone in my area played the games. Everyone watched and talked about the anime though so yes, it's safe to say that the anime was much bigger than the games. TV just always had a larger audience than video games, even more so back then. As for the Poké mania ending, it was all about the sheep following trends. Those who liked Pokémon because it was popular who then got into the next thing, shunning the real fans who still loved the series, even more so during their teenage years.
To me, the peak of the PokeMania craze was easily the movie.
I was a kid caught up in Poke Mania. What killed it for me were the below:
1. Ruby and Sapphire didn't let you transfer Pokemon. This is the biggest one and sucked me right out of the experience. To this day these are my least favorite.
2. Pokemon Movie 3 - I know some people liked it. I didn't. Anime movies in the US weren't all that big, and a movie mostly revolving around a little girl that had nothing to do with our main cast was not what we wanted to see.
3. Anime stagnation - The anime moves at an absolute snails pace even to this day. It caused burn out and eventually quitting of the show.
1.That's my main argument: Gen 3 incompatibiltiy destroyed your adventure and pokedexing strategies with Cable Link, until some hex editor had the solution 20 years later
2.I think Movie 3 was good but came in the worst time.
3.Misty and Brock leaving some anime sagas was also a stupidity.
@@HanzoHimemiya the dubs may have added more fuel to the fire.
One of the issues that I remember with the anime calling off is some providers dropping the WB network in the middle of the Johto anime.
Where I lived, there wasn't a single channel on my provider that carried the anime from the middle of Master Quest all the way through to the latter portion of the Advanced Battle season, when Cartoon Network picked it up.
Yeah, I can see that one being a issue, too.
In my childhood being this time period in the late 90s and early 2000s and dead center of Pokémon's heyday,
Although Pokémon's time on top of the world was short-lived, it was quite the spectacle when it was.
A level of popularity that we have never seen before and have never seen since.
I saw pokemon the movie 1,2 & 3 in cinema the first two it was packed to the roof , for the 3th one we where 10 peoples when i saw it friday opening and my theater did not have the card what a scam lol
I remember being 15 and crying to Entei exploding
Nothing can stay that high forever. The staying power it has had is pretty darn good compared to a lot of trends
Misty being replaced with May was another part of what made the transition to Hoenn weird. And the firing of the original English voice cast was a final nail in the coffin.
I remember waiting desperately for a GBA pokemon game, but in 2003 my GBA was stolen, and didnt play any of the games until platinum.
I still replayed the other games over and over though.
Lmao that boy tried to scam real fast. 3:20
It always amazes me how successful and lucrative the TCG still is to this day. I can understand rare vintage packs and 1st edition Charizards.
But at least within my school, everyone played the videogames, most loved the Anime, and at most people collected the cards, but I never knew ANYONE who played it.
Most people didn't really play any of the card games. 9/10, if they did, they didn't bother learning any of the rules & just did a streamlined version of it that bother player agreed upon beforehand. Only places the game was actually played, for real, was in the licensed tournaments.
It's quite simple.. those of us who were with Gen 1 and Gen 2 we just grew up and grew out of it for the most part.. Plus I remember around mid-late 2000 is when Dragon Ball Z was really starting to take off in the US and most kids who were already growing up at that point started drifting over to the more adult orientated shows and lifestyles.
Exactly after gen 3 i gave it up till u grew up
Thanks, UA-cam algorithms for recommending me a year old video. Then again I've been recommended older videos lol!
Anyway, as a kid all I ever did was watch the anime, I didn't even care about the mainline games besides the spin-offs. But when I decided to try out Pokemon Sword and Shield I've been hooked since!
Also, not trying to be perverted, but am I the only who noticed the woman in the background at 17:24 who practically exposed herself?😂👌
I’m 32 I was there for the original hype of Pokémon absolutely was obsessed with it but around gen 3 I felt I was too old for Pokémon but that changed in 2016 with GO brought a fresh look at it and fully got me to the Pokéman I am today love the series love the games brings me back to a simpler time.
Great work your due for more subscribers!!! Remember me I followed you at 827 so when your at 100k I’m gonna say that to you … cheers to you and happy holidays
Reviews from 2019 are not "reviews from critics at the time" when the movie came out 20 years earlier.
The 3rd movie came out as I was starting and college and working, the audience was just getting older and they hadn't grabbed the newer audience exclusively.
Diamond and pearl is when everything became soft and more cutesy to appeal to girls also
My mom took me to see the first movie when I was a kid and hated it so much she bribed me, yes bribed a little kid, with 100 dollars to leave. I said no and now my mom has a grudge against pikachu
Ironically it was hoen series that got me into Pokémon. It was a sort of reboot that I think the anime really needed. Like a second wind.
While the games have always been popular, it feels like the Pokemon Anime was far more popular in the early days
Damn just found this channel and its awesome, what happened?
It's the fact that many that were into Pokemon hardcore at It's moment, lost intrest in it once the year 2002 came. In least for me at that time, Pokemon (the anime) wasn't interesting to me anymore, while Wizards of the coast were still making amazing cards, i just didn't care for Pokémon anymore. At the same time, i became a 6 grader, Dragon Ball Z was on the rise of popularity in the US and brand new episodes of DBZ (the Buu Saga) were every Thursday at 5pm every week on Cartoon Network. Not to mention they were coming out with many DBZ movies directly on VHS/DVD and Burger King coming out with toys because of the movies, also Yu Gi Oh was hitting strong and i loved Transformers Armada. So most of my classmates that were once hardcore Pokémon fanatics, switched to Dragon ball z and Yu Gi Oh.
My dad tried to buy the rest of the 1st gen cards so I would stop wanting to buy them. He bought a charizard for 50$ and a holo Clefairy for 80$. At the time I didn't know why the Clairy was so expensive and thought we got ripped off, but now 34 still have the card and realized its a 600$~ Because is a First edition shadoless. Also the Charizard card is also worth alot too.
Do you have a link to the list of event only episodes?
I felt like growing up, the games stuck with me longer then the anime or the card game. I always remember the anime being on Saturday mornings and having to wake up way earlier then I wanted to to try to watch it or tape it then go back to sleep. It also didn't help that if I stayed at a friends house Friday night, we would be up all night playing games or watching movies, that waking up early on a Saturday just didn't happen. Even if I stayed at home, Friday was a chance to finally stay up late. So Saturdays were usually for sleeping in or going to play sports.
Where the game was something I remember always being played by friends, even late into high school when we had all left the cards and anime behind for other activities. It was just another RPG game, where the card players had moved on to Magic or D&D, and the anime watchers had moved onto more mature anime.
Loved hearing your experience growing up with Pokemon!
Here's the link to the Google Doc containing all of the episodes that progress the plot in the Pokemon anime: docs.google.com/document/d/1Ex6vaULDu-cyFrRNfw1mKxnavS1ED0tRwngzI_Kt6Ko/edit?usp=sharing
That Doc has basically everything covered to the end of Alola. It also has all of the films slotted in at the correct time to watch it in the timeline.
WTP Productions thank you! I went looking for one after posting and I think I stumbled upon an old reddit post of yours with the list, but it wasn’t this complete. Thank you again! I look forward to rewatching these and listen to the podcast.
For me, there were a number of reasons why I somewhat left Pokemon:
1. I didn’t have a GBA, so I never got into Gen 3 after Gen 2. And even if I did, my friends didn’t have it themselves so there was no incentive to want to play it. Also, I had read that you couldn’t go back to previous regions like in G&S so it seemed like a downgrade to me.
2. The anime was getting stale to me by the time Johto hit its 2nd season. The formula became repetitive, and it lost a lot of its slapstick humor and charm that Kanto had.
3. Yugioh was starting to grab my attention. It definitely seemed like a step up from Pokemon with the monsters and storyline being more mature. Pokémon just seemed tame in comparison.
4. A lot of my friends had moved on from Pokemon so I didn’t really have anyone to talk to about it. This has changed in recent years now since my brother-in-law has started to collect the cards again, but once I got into high school everybody moved onto other animes.
I was 4/5 years old In 99/2000, and Pokemon was the first thing I really got into (besides Barney and rugrats, lol). I had the first movie on VHS and carried my talking Pikachu plush toy everywhere. I even had the Pikachu and Meowth walkie talkies when I was like 3 or 4.
So glad I grew up with Pokemon during its prime, I left when Generation 4 started, but still returned for Soul Silver.
So as a Gen1er I will share my thoughts. When pokemon was at it's hight I was heading into middle school and was into the Game, the Cards, and the show. But, the show was quickly loosing favor for me as it always felt like it was for a younger audience. Once the cards were banned, while many of us still traded that also started to quell things down, but what added to it was how many more cards were added. What once felt like a limited collection that kids could keep track of keep growing while our trading capabilities decreased because of school bans. Finally came the games. As you mentioned the gap between Gen 2 and 3 was wide. By the time Ruby and Saphire came out, not only did I feel "too old" for Pokemon, I was also more into Consoles than handheld games. Had Ruby and Saphire come out on the Gamecube, I would have more likely purchased it. However I did not get the game boy advance because I didn't want handhelds anymore. At my age I had my own TV in my room and so console gaming was the ideal. As such, this is why I did not get back into Pokemon until it arrived on the Switch, which I exclusively play on my TV and not in handheld.
In conclusion, Pokemon did not grow with it's fanbase. It just tried to keep appealing to little kids, and it was not until later gens that tried to grab older players with Nostalgia that it has brought back a lot of people.
Pokemon Colosseum & XD Gale of Darkness were RPGs for GameCube. Why did you overlook them? Maybe it's because I'm a girl who was born in 1997 that I stayed into Pokemon, while also enjoying plenty of other anime series.
After Generation 2 that was around the time the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime was released in the States so without notice, I swapped over from one franchise to another. Throughout the years, I'd play Silver on an emulator and finally complete the game, but X and Y and it's jump to 3 dimensional models was what pulled me back in as an adult, also allowing me to play the 3rd Generation with the remake on the 3DS.
I personally think even with the time gap between the 2nd and 3rd, the hype was bound to go away and if anything, maybe that gap, with sales decreasing across the board and the loss of interest from the first wave of fans, is why we have products like Scarlet and Violet in the current state that they are, not only the potential lack of sales if a product isn't being released every year , but the lack of interest. For all we know, that gap is a lot bigger of a deal than we might commonly think it is.
Human beings happened to poke mania. All manias will pass over time. So many people care about fitting in and trends and this is still very true today.
Quite nostalgic for me listening to this, since I got into Pokémon during its initial explosion into the west. I enjoyed those days of the mainstream popularity. But, I never dropped off. In spite of Pokémon becoming a little repeatitive and losing its charm a little, I still love it, in spite of its flaws.
Also, I love that old footage u found. Not just the old anime and movie stuff, but even tv commercials. I remember the one for the Ruby and Sapphire games that you played.
Nothing "KiLLeD!!1!1!!1!" it. The franchise came to the west over 2.5 years after it started in Japan, and we got those two-and-a-half years' worth of media dropped on us in the course of a few months (games, anime, TCG, and general merchandise). Of course that's going to cause a frenzy, and of course the frenzy won't last forever once everything normalizes and catches up, but the franchise was never in existential danger or obscure or anything after that point.
When the first Mario and Zelda games came out in the US they had a similar situation - TV shows, breakfast cereals, etc. but nobody acts like those series died or something afterward. People have such a bizarre concept of Pokémon somehow forever being a "fad" when it's the second-most successful video game franchise of all time and the single biggest multimedia franchise ever. Among people who know nothing about it, still gets judged by weird content like moral panics, old Pop-Tarts promotions, and filler episodes of the anime. It's like people have no object permanence or think that the opinion of the other kids in the playground somehow means anything about the franchise's success, it's so weird.
I think you missed the most important reason. Those of us who watched the kanto series were expecting Ash to become a Pokémon master, you know, the very best like no one ever was. This is the expectation that they conditioned us to and once we realised that was never going to happen coz Ash just gives away, releases or neglects his best Pokémon, we just could no be bothered watching any more.
John would have been the perfect opportunity to have Ash win a league and wrap up his story...
Sorry that they kept giving you more the show you enjoyed. How dare they
Pokémon is for everyone. There are so many Pokemon you can have.
always felt bad for Johto, always felt like it was the in between child of the overhyped Gen1 and the radically different direction the series would take from Gen3 onwards
It felt like they didn't know how to progress the story, when it came to Gen II in both the anime and games..
People forget that it wasn’t the games that made Pokémon so popular at its peak - it was the show!
When Pokémon switched from Kanto to Johto, the popularity of the show took a major hit. There were several factors as discussed in this video, but I believe the largest factor was the shows shift from gen 1 to new pokémon.
Yeah, that's a gen wunner viewpoint, the very first episode of the anime ends with Ash and Pikachu seeing a Gen 2 legendary Pokemon, Ho-oh, also several other gen 2 Pokemon made thier on screen debut before Ash and crew set out for Johto
@@Sheriff_Curtis I specifically meant replacing the main lineup guys like Squirtle, Bulbasaur, Charizard etc.
As a kid I didn't have exposure to the games yet so I wasn't prepared for this swap out or excited about it. To me it was almost like if Spongebob swapped out Squidward, Patrick, and Sandy for new friends after the first couple super popular seasons - those pokemon seemed like main characters.
You gotta remember the brain of a 7-10 year old to feel me here lmao
No that’s wrong. Johto was a HUGE deal when it came out.
It was during generation 2 that it died down and it had cooled or leveled off (but still popular) by the time RS came out.
Anime died when 4Kids cast was fired.
@@christopherwaits7852 we might be disagreeing over a difference of months anyway tbh. But if you were alive in the 90s as I was, I'm sure we'd both agree that Pokemons popularity here was frontloaded. Pokemon is still plenty popular today too don't get me wrong, but when I was a kid it legit felt like Pikachu was more popular than Mickey Mouse for a bit
As a 90s kid I loved Pokémon, but as an adult going back to watch Pokemon the first movie is pretty bad and boring.
In all seriousness, the Japanese version is actually alright. Not a masterpiece, but it has proper redeeming qualities that the English Dub lacks.
i same for me but the second and 3rd movies i still think are good the first one is just boring now that i look back
@@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 honestly the japanese version is even worse than the american one, at least the american version had some messaged and some jokes
@Kirby Fazendo um Moonwalk
The English Dub's message makes no sense in the context of the series, and feels like a desperate attempt at shutting parents up. I honestly can't remember a single joke in the film, either because there weren't any or they were forgettable.
@@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 it actualy makes because they say Fighting is Wrong, Not battling, and still amazes me how so much people never got Something so simple