How does the Pokémon anime manifest in your daily life?

terashards

terashards

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might be a weird title, but i'm finding it hard to summarize my question in a snappy way... what i mean is, since anipoke is constantly ongoing and more or less has been airing weekly for decades, it can become a staple/constant in daily life. personally, ever since getting more into anipoke via horizons, it's added a weekly routine where i watch new episodes with my girlfriend on saturdays, which is such a nice comforting thing to look forward to every week. it feels strange when we're on a break week (like right now, which is probably why i thought about making this thread haha). additionally, horizons has majorly impacted my creative side... as a fan, i engage in making art of it and i have dabbled in writing because of it too - actually, getting into horizons is what got me back into writing at all, since i had dropped it as a hobby for so long. it's made me closer with people, introduced me to new friends, and i'm not ashamed to admit that a piece of my life revolves around it. it even has gotten me back into learning japanese because i want to communicate with the japanese fans i know better! and understand the source material a little more, as a subtitles watcher.

do you have any sort of episode watching routine that you look forward to? has anipoke impacted your real life in any real, tangible way? i know i'm talking about horizons since i'm a horizons fan but i would love to hear about your "IRL" relationship with any aspect of anipoke. fan stories, childhood experiences, etc etc... i love hearing about this sort of thing.
 
I've ALWAYS loved Pokemon, and bought merch drawn things etc. because it brought me joy. But ever since Horizons(or HZ, PM2023, whatever you like to call it) first released, I feel like I've been CATAPULTED, headfirst into the deep end of the fandom. I've felt more comfortable talking about Pokemon, and showing my own work, and expressing my opinions on Anipoke and Pokemon as a whole. I feel like the anime has changed my relationship with the franchise for the better, and is honest one of the main things I feel keeps me attached and committed to the series. I have a true passion for Pokemon and Anipoke, and I think it's impacted my artistic/creative life for the better!
 
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da man/man said:
I feel like the anime has changed my relationship with the franchise for the better, and is honest one of the main things I feel keeps me attached and committed to the series. I have a true passion for Pokemon and Anipoke, and I think it's impacted my artistic/creative life for the better!
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i could not agree more. i've always loved pokemon and i've been into it since i was 4 years old but horizons has made generation 9 as a whole the best pokemon fan experience i've had since i was a child. and it totally changed how i think about my art as well!! i love hearing that it's made you more confident to express your opinions, especially because in my totally-not-biased opinion, i like your contributions to discussions :bulbaLove:
 
terashards said:
i could not agree more. i've always loved pokemon and i've been into it since i was 4 years old but horizons has made generation 9 as a whole the best pokemon fan experience i've had since i was a child. and it totally changed how i think about my art as well!! i love hearing that it's made you more confident to express your opinions, especially because in my totally-not-biased opinion, i like your contributions to discussions :bulbaLove:
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Thank you :bulbaLove:! And honestly, to expand on what I said earlier I actually had an incredibly special time with the Scarlet/Violet games in particular, and then Horizons came out, which actually made me start talking more freely about Pokemon for the first time (previously I'd feel very passionate on the inside, while on the outside remain, quite flat and frugal). If the gen 9 wave as a whole (games, anime and all) didn't come when and how it did, I likely wouldn't speak about it much, and not to mention how my art would just be sitting in a private folder, completely unseen, which is almost never good for an artist. All in all, I'd say Anipoke has definitely expanded my comfort zone and, confidence in my own work and opinions, it's honestly had a HUGE impact on the artistic/creative side of my life! :bulbaLove:
 
i'm girlfriend... and the pokemon anime has had a pretty big impact on my life. for a lot of reasons honestly. horizons entered my life at a time when i was really struggling a lot with my mental health for a lot of awful reasons, and i massively enjoyed being able to watch it with my partner. it was a light in my life when i didn't feel like there really was one. we were watching multiple times a week to get caught up, and then once we were caught up, we watched every week consistently because it was everything to me and such a grounding force during one of the roughest times of my life.

and then because of that, i also met my girlfriend. my partner and i joined a discord server in september of 2024 and made friends with someone in it who i am now dating. also it's terashards who started this thread. obviously there's a lot more to horizons than that but it let me meet someone who's so dear to my heart and it's been such an amazing source of connection for me. idk where i would be without horizons. it means a lot to me.

also, much simpler, but horizons has gotten me into writing one shots a lot more consistently than i would otherwise. i'm long fic royalty, but i don't do one shots as often as i should. 60 minute likodot within the horizons fandom has changed that. shoutout again to girlfriend. i'm so normal about pokemon horizons. i enjoyed the other seasons of the anime, but none of them quite had the impact on my life that horizons has.
 
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digitaldreams said:
and then because of that, i also met my girlfriend.
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i am unsure how i brought up that we watch this show every week without mentioning that this show is also literally how i met you LOL. i am so thankful for horizons for that even if the overlap was incidental
 
Pokemon Horizons is the reason I actually tried to join a fandom for the first time in my life(by joining here), and the thing that motivated me to try and restart art and better it and try to share it with others in ways that feel safe to me.
I totally have a routine too around watching, it is going to feel weird on break.
Pokemon horizons is also currently the only anime my tired brain can handle watching, I had to drop everything else because of, let's just say Health Issues and leave it at that.
It is something I look forward to, and the main thing that keeps me alive nowadays.
 
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NumberOneSpinelApologist said:
and the thing that motivated me to try and restart art and better it and try to share it with others in ways that feel safe to me.
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i'm so glad cause your art is awesome!! (and i'm glad the show is keeping you going/giving you something to look forward to!)
 
Absolutely, ever since joining in on watching anipoke every week as it airs in 2019 near the end of Sun & Moon, it's been an integral part of my identity.
Though it has shifted to becoming a general anime watcher at the start of 2024 with anipoke still always holding the top spot in my anime heart no matter what other great anime comes around.

And the thing which of course attaches me tightly to anipoke is the editing and transcription of its credits for Bulbapedia since May 2022 and other anime staff databases (such as KeyFrame Staff List).
 
DomiDsLP said:
And the thing which of course attaches me tightly to anipoke is the editing and transcription of its credits for Bulbapedia since May 2022 and other anime staff databases (such as KeyFrame Staff List).
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wait that’s awesome, thank you for that! i access those lists sometimes and i had no idea you worked on them :0
 
In terms of routines...
-Japanese new episodes I used to watch with my brother but eventually he lost interest in Horizons so I watch them alone, and not all, only those who sound critical to the plot. I watch them Saturday evening or Sunday morning when subs are ready.
-Latin American new episodes I watch them as soon as they are available on Netflix, between 0-2 per day until the batch is over, usually on the evenings.
-Latin American old episodes I watch them between batches of new episodes. I have a blog where I review episodes, and I alternate between my current project (this year's was Orange Islands) and seasons from exactly 10 years ago (XY). I watch them in the evenings too.

So in average I watch 30 Japanese episodes and 80 Latin American Spanish episodes per year. I watch a few episodes per year "for fun" outside my projects but they aren't that many. And I think a lot about the episodes I watch before writing the respective entries for the blog.

As for how the anime has impacted my whole life...I could write an entire essay of how every series has affected me, it has been there since the beginning, I have fond memories of each series even my attitude towards each one can change, and has never left me. I love the games but this is the part of the franchise I like the most and whose news impact me more. A recent example is that after Ash's final episode aired I felt into a very weird grief and a feeling of insatisfaction that took like a week to heal.
 
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