How did you get introduced to Pokemon and how did you became a fan?

[The_Ideal_Dragon]

In second grade, there was a guy on my school bus named Savion, and he was 4 years older. He gave he exactly 6 Pokemon trading cards. I remember what they are to this day: Slowpoke, Roselia, Kakuna, Staryu, Kricketot, and the trainer card Switch.Then, a few months later when Gen 5 was coming out, I got the Zekrom Battle Box(the holofoil card and figure that came with it are in my room on a display stand). After that, I started watching the show on Netflix, and soon became a full-time fan. I have yet to convince my parents to let me buy a DS, though, so I am as close to everybody else as I can get. To this day, I remain the second-best at the TGC in my grade, and Zekrom still is, and always will be, my favorite Pokemon.

 

[DracoMan]

I was with the show since Season 1, though my first games were Gold and Silver.

 

[Zexy]

I got a Game Boy Advance SP and Pokemon Sapphire in my birthday. I don't remember which one, but the most probable one is the 7th considering when the SP was released and that I was born in 1997.

 

[Guzma]

I remember catching one of the first episodes of the anime when I was a six-year-old back in '98, saying "Oh man, this is SO COOL!" and when I learned about the video games, I had my parents buy me a Game Boy Pocket and a copy of Pokemon Blue. I stuck with Pokemon, even after GSC, although for a long time it was just another game for me and it wasn't the "big thing" in my life it was when it first came out... At least, until Gen V. Gen V floored me with how much BETTER it was than previous Gens. The story, the characters, the Pokemon designs (including "lame" ones like Garbodor) grabbed me, and I never looked back. To this day, I barely find myself playing my home consoles, and whenever I get a new game for my 3DS I eventually go back to Omega Ruby. Pokemon's become my absolute favorite video game franchise ever, and that title formerly belonged to Zelda.

Also, some of you guys are making me feel old

 

[Trainer Gabriel]

I was introduced to it by a friend who used to live in the same street as I, and who showed me his Pokémon cards collection, which got me interested in collecting them. Then I started watching the anime series, sometimes even with him in his house, and then getting hooked to the game series, starting with Blue when I finally got a Game Boy Color in early 2000. And I've been a fan ever since.

 

[Revenge of the Boyega]

My two big brothers used to rent the Pokemon anime, collect the mechendise and play Pokemon Stadium. I loved it, but never really got into it. Then I turned eleven and all of a sudden I was nuts about it! I got toys, Pokemon Black and joined Pokecommunity. Those were the awesome days. I'm so in love with it and the day that Gamefreak stops making Pokemon is the day I die.

 

[Life]

My friend introduced me to the TCG when I was young and I started to become a fanatic card collector (despite not even playing the game properly). Since we were already big into other card games, it wasn't long until I became as equally as interested in Pokemon.

From there it grew to an interest in the video games and anime.

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

I was first introduced to Pokémon around 1999-ish when my parents got me a Game Boy Color with Pokémon Yellow. I don't remember a lot of the details of that time (I was still very young then), but I do remember that the GBC was the first game system I ever owned, which meant that Yellow was both the first Pokémon game I ever played and the first video game I ever played! So it was an important milestone of my childhood life.

At some point after that I began watching the anime. When exactly, and how often, I don't remember; everything's somewhat of a blur when it came to the show way back then. But I certainly watched enough to continue watching it long after that. I will say that I do remember even back then recognizing the games and the anime as two distinct and very different entities; the games were just that: video games, while the anime was just another cartoon that - while also involving Pokémon - generally did its own thing. Another thing I do remember: I loved the movies, specifically the first three back when Pokémon was everywhere. The anime was, again, just another cartoon, but the movies - having deeper and more "epic" stories - were serious business, and just sparked my imagination and admiration for Pokémon as a whole more. Needless to say, they all got heavy rotation on the VHS and DVD players when they came out on video, but I never actually remember seeing them in theaters, strangely enough.

Although I can definitely say that I was a big fan of Pokémon back then, I was never a complete Pokémon fan. I never really cared about the trading card game, for instance, and I honestly never took the games themselves that seriously until around the time Gold and Silver came out, at which point I was old enough to actually appreciate the gameplay. That said, my experience with Pokémon in the past definitely helped establish me as a long-time fan!

 

[MachDragonX]

A friend of mine got me into the series via the Trading Card Game in 1999, when I was in the 5th grade. He was actually the person responsible for introducing not just the TCG, but the entire franchise to everyone in our class. I was one of a handful of students who held back from getting into the craze for what seemed like a long time (in reality it was probably only a few weeks at most) before I finally caved in and started buying TCG packs and trading individual cards with everyone else.

Soon after that happened, I got into the anime series and video games. About a year later, Pokemon started getting a bad reputation among my classmates, who viewed it as uncool. But I stuck with the franchise for a long time after that – until I was midway through high school – even though I was teased a ton for doing so. I no longer collected the Trading Card Game, but I continued to watch the anime until about halfway through Hoenn (Advanced Battle), and continued to play the video games until Emerald.

I took a long break from the franchise during my junior and senior years of high school and all four years of college, but during grad school my interest in Pokemon began to grow again and I started reading about the many developments that had occurred during Generations 4 and 5. In 2013 I got a chance to play HeartGold and Platinum, and later that year I bought X and Y, which marked my full return to the franchise. I'm more into competitive battling now than anything, but I still very much enjoy the main series video games, and I will occasionally watch an anime episode once in a while.

 

[TwinklingCupcake]

In third grade I had a guy classmate who was near-obsessed with Pokemon. All his school projects were about it, he wore the clothes to school, brought the trading cards to class...That was my first exposure to it, though I didn't really get it. The creatures were cute, but I didn't know what it was actually about.

Fast forward to summer vacation, and my dad and grandpa are driving back from a wedding two states over, me in the backseat. I'm very quiet for half the trip, then finally I sigh that I'm bored. Dad reaches into his bag and pulls out a GameBoy Color, with Pokemon Yellow - which had just come out - already inside. He tossed it back to me, saying "Happy birthday!" and then faced forward. I'd never played Pokemon before, of course, and barely knew what it even was, but I didn't want to be rude and say that. So I just turned the game on.

Ten minutes in and I'm already hooked. I played the game the entire ride back to grandpa's house (I was staying with him for summer), played a little after dinner or between outings, and finally got fresh batteries to play on the plane. By the time I came home, I was en route to Vermillion City (I barely knew what I was doing and had no strategy guide, gimme a break =p). Eventually I beat the Elite Four, aaand then my friends started whispering about Gold and Silver coming out. I remember yelling "There's MORE?!" and begging my parents for a new game - they got me Gold a few weeks later, and when Crystal came out my step-father and I played it together.
(Ruby though, has the most nostalgic value for me, but my getting Ruby is a whole other story.)

After that, I got to play a lot more often, and different games. I didn't get all of them, of course, and some I enjoyed way more than others, but that was my first step into Pokemon.

 

[ocelotlrama jaguar]

My first exposure to Pokemon was a commercial that played in the states months before Red and Blue's release. I can't find this particular commercial anywhere, but what I remember of it was a few Pokemon getting sucked into a vacuum cleaner, I guess as a way of saying "You Gotta Catch 'em All!" At first I thought it looked silly and it didn't pique my interest.

The second commercial was what got me to really pay attention. I'm talking about that disturbing one with the live-action bus driver who crushes the bus full of Pokemon into a small Game Boy. Charizard was in this commercial and when I saw him, I was like, "Holy smokes! What an awesome looking dragon! You can catch and use these creatures to battle? I want that dragon!" To see that dragon on the box art got me interested even more. Pokemon was eventually released that September of 1998 in the US. I remember my parents taking me to Toys R Us to get a present for a friend for their birthday but I immediately wanted to look at the video game section of the store to look at the Pokemon game guides to see more of that dragon. I opened that book to see more cool-looking monsters, but was so fixated on the orange dragon that I knew I wanted to play this game just to know more! I remember asking my parents for Pokemon Red, but they told me I didn't even have a Game Boy so I had to wait for my birthday, which was not for another 8 or 9 months (can't remember those particular details). I was disappointed because I wanted that dragon so bad!

It happened earlier than expected, but that Christmas of 1998, my parents really surprised me by getting me not only a Game Boy but also a copy of Pokemon Red while my brother got the Blue version! It was the start of something I began obsessing over well into the present day, playing it constantly without any breaks. Instant Pokemon fan I became, and to this day Charizard has managed to become one of my personal favorite Pokemon. Yes, he's super popular in the fandom already, but it was Charizard that got me into playing the games in the first place. Not only that, it was the first game I have ever played on a Game Boy. I played the hell out of Red and unfortunately, the internal battery has ceased sometime back.

Pokemon is a huge part of my life and I hope to one day own every single game (core and spin-offs with the Pokemon name in it). I've played every single game, but many games I used to own either got sold off or they just died due to the internal battery. I must change that!

 

[BorgyDudeMan]

I got into Pokémon when I was around 6 years old. I was introduced to the franchise via the anime (the diamond and pearl anime) and it became my favorite show. Sadly it was just some random DVD since we don't have a cable. Years later, when I discovered the video games, since I don't have any handheld consoles, I watched some let's plays on YouTube. It wasn't until I discovered emulators and as a result, I started playing the games on my laptop [but the 3ds games since Citra doesn't support 32-bit computers :-( ]. As of now I play HeartGold on my laptop grinding so that I can beat Chuck.

 

[KaylaBaraonda]

I watched the Advanced Generation series as a kid when it was the current generation. Then in middle school I got even more into Pokémon through the Internet (mostly Animal Crossing, MySims, and general anime forums) and the first Pokémon game I played was Pokémon Diamond (although by then Platinum had already been released) and one of the first Pokémon episodes I have clear memories of watching was AG095, I've watched some snippets of other episodes before that, but don't remember much.