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How have your interests in the franchise changed over time?

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Just got to thinking about how my own interests have changed over time despite still being involved in the fandom, and was wondering if anyone else was similar.

For instance, I got introduced to the series through the TGC and my friends and I would (with our own rules, of course) play cards. Then it become more about playing the games and watching the anime, to really just playing the games until I stopped altogether for a bit. Picked it back up with the games, got really into the anime again and read a little bit of Adventures before trying out competitive battling and fan fiction. Now I mostly keep it to playing the games and discussing on forums like these, with reading + writing a bit of fan fiction on the side. ^^
 
I got into it through the TCG too, but never actually played it until a year ago. My involvement with the franchise was condemned by my mom, so whenever I saw Mew and Mewtwo flying across the TV the channel got changed. I don't really regret watching it from what I've seen though. Never had the chance to play the games until 6th grade. Someone who rode my bus found a copy of Blue Rescue Team in the snow (and gave it to me), and since then I always found ways to get my hands on them.
 
I got into it because of the anime and loved collecting the trading cards. When gen III started my interest waned a bit I guess until I was finally able to get my first game, which was Diamond. Since then I've bought every new game, which I mostly played casually (I stopped after finishing the main game). Now I also do breeding, shiny hunting and play competitively in GL competitions sometimes and am more invested in it in general, like discussing stuff on these forums.
 
I first started off by watching the anime OS series. 1~2 years later I realized this anime was based off a game series, so I go search out the original source game, and got hooked to it. Then a few years later doesn't know the reason behind, but anime series stopped to broadcast in my country somewhere in the middle of AG, and there around that period my house installed the internet connection, I then tried to search the internet in order to get hold of the progression of anime series, where that is the time I found out the existence of Pokemon Special manga series. Seeing a complete different story-writing approach of the manga, it wowed me about how much potential the Pokemon series as a whole had in producing different story, there I started to dig into fan-fiction. As my viewpoint scope expanded by studying story-writing techniques and literature knowledges, also during that time get to know more about many other Pokemon game/manga/fanworks, and additionally that is around the period BW anime aired and got heavily bashed in fanbase, I somehow got interested in the metas and production of Pokemon anime, how did the staffs work in the anime project, and wondered how come the anime will got the status quo it had in today.

So as you can see, my interest regarding on the Pokemon franchise developed very significantly over time. Nowadays, I expanded my scope even further to look at Pokemon anime in terms of the entire Japanese anime culture, the Pokemon game series in terms of video game history, and the Pokemon franchise in terms of a fictional character franchise within the Japanese and international market. Sometimes I even wondered myself, would my viewpoint expanded further to cover the entire universe, including another dimension? (Well, probably already partially true, because I'm writing a crossover fanfic. Yeah yeah......)
 
First experience was watching the anime as a toddler with my older siblings, though that was in secret. I played my siblings pokemon games a bit as a child, watched the anime a bit more in secret. in my early teens I made up stories and roleplayed as Pokemon professions, students, and pokemon. My interest dropped gradually to yugioh. During my teenagehood I sporadically played Pokemon in intense bursts, only game I technically owned and played that was not on an emulator was Pokemon White but I lost it. I played intensively on my sister's Pokemon Y version as well, though she didn't like that. Now I buy Pokemon merchandise and am trying to get back into casual roleplaying and making up stories again. I would like to buy a 3ds as well but I don't think I have the time or money as of yet to play. I wouldn't mind reading the manga(s) and watching the english dub anime but it's not very high on my to do list. On that note I have a bunch of Pokemon cards I need to sell :p
 
I got caught up in the 90's pokemon craze.
that. s**t. was. EVERYWHERE.
I remember my friends being really into it, kids where trading cards at school, the anime was airing on TV, the first movie had just come out, BK was getting toys for their kids' meals. You just couldn't get away from it.
One of my friends had gotten pokemon cards imported from Japan, when the Gym leader sets were still new, and I think that's when I was hooked in. So I started collecting cards, then I got Pokemon Yellow and a Gameboy for my birthday that same year. After that, I started watching the anime weekly, and I would go and pick up the Pokemon graphic novels from the library (they had Adventures, Electric Tale of Pikachu, and Magical Journey's (I think was the name).

I didn't get Gold or Silver, I don't remember why, but instead I went straight from yellow to Crystal. Blockbuster, at the time, rented out gameboy games so I'd pick up different versions from time to time just to play around with. My friend had an N64, which we played stadium together a bunch. I can also distinctly remember getting the first information for pokemon ruby and sapphire out of any of my friends, from a Japanese website (I was CLEARLY the coolest kid around :) ).

After the Ruby and Sapphire thing, that's when I started keeping up with the series regularly, because at that point the internet had become more mainstream so I no longer had to get info via word of mouth. And that brings me to today, I've been playing all the games day one, since then. I go in and out of the TCG, I quit after the later EX sets started coming out, got back into during the HGSS series, and fell back out after my deck had been cycled out of the format. The anime, also, I stopped watching shortly after the DP series began (although I kept up with the movies.)

Wow, that was nostalgic, great post OP :)
 
I was with the series in late 2000, I watched the show and played the games since then. Going into gen 3 I still liked it even though I was knowing the repeititiveness of even the show by then, but still pulled through. Going into gen 4 I started to like the games and show even more because it was such a huge improvement from back then and figured that things were to look more mature and interesting. now gen 5... this was where I stopped because the show got cringey IMO and was a shame that things turned the way they did in that time, I still like the games and even more so that because of how story-filled it was and how much more mature things were like back in gen 4. gen 6 is where I really got back into things, the show was more fun and interesting, the games were advancing into 3-d and the characters were so much more enjoyable even though I still have issues with them it was still a fun time. so my interest with the franchise has definitely got stronger with gen 6 and especially with gen 7 coming out I think we are all in good hands.
 
I got into Pokemon thanks to the anime, back when it was THE big thing on Kids WB and was super popular in the US. I was in roughly 1st grade then, and I remember playing pretend Pokemon at recess, playing with the toys in my house, getting casually into the TCG, and eventually getting Pokemon Yellow (with Blue not long after). Gen II actually made me even more of a fan of the games, because G/S really clicked with me and I love them to pieces. Crystal was even better, and to this day, gen II is the only generation that I got all three main games of (I usually just get 2/3 now). On the other hand, the Johto seasons of the anime made my attention wane, and despite the fact that I still enjoyed some later seasons of the anime greatly (namely, the DP seasons), I never got back into the anime as much as I was during the Indigo League and some of Orange Islands.

Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire were talked about a lot at my elementary school before they came out. And when they did, I really enjoyed Ruby version, but it didn't come close to surpassing G/S/C for me. By that point, the anime had kinda lost me, though I did later on enjoy watching through some of Advanced. I stopped the TCG entirely though, since I think that was around when it started to make old cards obsolete (which really annoys me with the Pokemon TCG compared to things like Yu-Gi-Oh!, which at least let you keep using old cards even if they aren't effective).

Fast forward to Diamond and Pearl's release, and I played a LOT of Pearl version. Yet despite the immense playtime I put into it, it was my least favorite (at the time; that dishonor goes to B2/W2 now) main series game. Thankfully, Platinum fixed all my issues with it and I absolutely adore Platinum to this day. Also, HG/SS were incredible. Then Black and White came, and initially I enjoyed the total lack of old Pokemon in the game, but honestly, it isn't one of my favorites by any means, and unlike a lot of people, I don't care about the plot in B/W nor do I really want a plot-intensive Pokemon game to begin with. I actually got a little back into the anime for the B/W 1st season (which started very strong imo), but it started to drag around episode 50-ish and I never went back to it aside from a handful of episodes with N. At this point, I just prefer reading PokeSpe if I want Pokemon with plot.

Come Black 2/White 2, I started to fear I was done with Pokemon. I hated those games, the first ones in the main series that I truly did not enjoy in the slightest. I can't even explain why, it just never clicked with me no matter how many times I tried to play. Maybe its because I feel no attachment to Unova as a region or its characters or even many of the Pokemon introduced in that generation (though I love the Litwick and Mienfoo lines). But then the X/Y hype started up not too long after, and I was so happy to realize that I still was into the Pokemon games. I LOVE Y version. It is hands-down the best non-remake game since Platinum. Everything about it - with the exception of the lack of post-game content after the Looker story and Kiloude City stuff - is perfect to me. So good, that I don't even mind so much that OR/AS was a kinda "meh" remake in my opinion.

TL;DR: My interest in the anime decreased over time, my TCG interest is completely gone, but my interest in the games returned with a passion in Gen. VI with Y version, so I hope that keeps up with Sun and Moon! oops didn't mean to write an essay here about my interest in the franchise haha
 
I got into it because of the anime. I actually think it was in kindergarten (I am now 22). Also, everyone at school was into the trading cards, and I ended up accumulating a decent amount. I also had one of those Pokemon handbooks which helped indulge my obsession when I wasn't watching the show. I've actually only played the TCG twice, despite having a bunch of cards.

I got into the video games when I was about 11 or 12. I temporarily stopped watching the anime when I started high school, because I had cross country practice at the time I would usually watch Pokemon. That was about the time when I started getting into fan fiction and fan art, as well as the online world of Pokemon. Then I kinda vanished off the face of the earth, and haven't been super active since, just because I've been really busy.

Now, it's really about the same as it was in the past. I still watch the anime, although now I watch it online and I am extremely far behind. I think I'm actually going to start watching it from the beginning, as well as watching the XY season - maybe alternate episodes each week. I still occasionally buy cards, not too often though. I love the games, but I am really slow at playing through them right now because college is crazy, and I haven't gotten X or Y yet. I haven't gotten to my fan fiction in a while either, but I suspect I'll get back into it soon. I'm just trying to balance everything that's going on in my life right now, and I want to make a solid return to the community once I've achieved that. I also want to start reading the manga and maybe even doing competitive battling.

But yeah. Pokemon for life. There's no way I'm ever stopping. Like someone above me said, Pokemon definitely has a solid future and I am excited for it. The imaginative universe it's brought to us is awesome, and I hope it never stops lol.
 
As a kid I loved the anime and playing the games, but my favorite thing to do was pretend I lived in the pokemon world and studied at pokemon school.

Now as an adult I love playing the games (anime lost me, though XY from what little I've watched so far is getting me back). But my favorite thing to do is pretend I live in the pokemon world and pretend I'm a professor type person studying pokemon.

So basically I'm exactly the same except I've graduated from pokemon school. lol
 
When I was a kid, I loved the anime. I played the games, but I never paid much attention to the lores or dex explanations or stuff.
When I was a teen, I loved the games. The anime lost its appeal to me temporarily.
When I became an adult, I started loving both the anime and the games.

I'm glad I'm still into Pokemon.
 
The thing that got me into the series were the games and advertisements, all thanks to a commercial that had Charizard in it. Not much has changed other than I don't watch the cartoon religiously like I did during 1998-2001. I played a little bit of the TCG in that same time period but never really got into it (didn't help that the only places near me to hold TCG events had a high douchebag ratio). If anything, I am a lot more involved than I was back then since I started collecing my favorite Pokemon's merchandise in 2010. Still play the games on their release day, I'll watch the cartoon from time to time, I am always super excited for spin-offs... yeah, not much has changed. :X3:
 
The only thing that has changed is that I don't watch the cartoon as much as I used to. I'll watch it again every once in a while, other than that I'm still very into the games (except the side games) as for the TCG I just collect the cards, I don't play the card game at all. Now I'm more into the lore of Pokemon than I used to be.

So the only thing that really changed is I lost interest in the cartoon, and gained interest into the lore.
 
I was first introduced to Pokemon through the games, as I first played Crystal when I was four. I'd seen the anime before, but it was mostly background noise while I did other stuff. From there I started collecting cards and playing more of the games, and I eventually got into the manga and competitive battling. I've also looked into the lore and started roleplaying on Tumblr.
 
I'm from the 90's craziness too. My classmates out of nothing started to freak out with the anime, how it was awesome, everyone was speaking about it, the teacher put Pokemon on the tests for the kids feel interested lol So i watched the anime, it was funny, and I used to role play as pokemon trainer with my 8 years friends and we fought over who would catch the Ponyta wtf

My cousin used to play Red on Japanese, I was so "wow, I can be Ash Ketchum, so nicee" I did not understand anything but tried to play secretly. He found and fought with me because I started a new game, and he was in the victory road lol So I asked my parents my own GBA and a Pokemon Game. So I got from birthday Gold. Later I asked the other Pokemon game, I had RGBY on mind but my parents had no idea so I got Crystal :D Though Red was my first contact with the games, I consider GSC my first adventure. Oh I played that games thousand of times. On III gen I had lost my interest, don't remeber why. Sometimes i saw the new pokemons on internet and had a slight interest on try the new generation, but always spent my money on others things. And the anime stopped airing on Brazil, and at that point it was too childish for me...

After a gap of more or less 10 years, I got back again into Pokemon about four years ago. BW took me back into the franchise , it was when I discovered the manga, that Red was not Ash, all the fandom, how great was Pokemon as a franchise and that was much more than the anime. So I revisited Johto, and played Sinnoh, Hoenn, and later Kalos. That moment was between BW2 and XY releases, and all that spectatives and speculations about the new generation was really exciting.

my rapprochement with the franchise is echoed by the below post:

クリスタル said:
I first started off by watching the anime OS series. 1~2 years later I realized this anime was based off a game series, so I go search out the original source game, and got hooked to it. Then a few years later doesn't know the reason behind, but anime series stopped to broadcast in my country somewhere in the middle of AG, and there around that period my house installed the internet connection, I then tried to search the internet in order to get hold of the progression of anime series, where that is the time I found out the existence of Pokemon Special manga series. Seeing a complete different story-writing approach of the manga, it wowed me about how much potential the Pokemon series as a whole had in producing different story, there I started to dig into fan-fiction. As my viewpoint scope expanded by studying story-writing techniques and literature knowledges, also during that time get to know more about many other Pokemon game/manga/fanworks, and additionally that is around the period BW anime aired and got heavily bashed in fanbase, I somehow got interested in the metas and production of Pokemon anime, how did the staffs work in the anime project, and wondered how come the anime will got the status quo it had in today.

So as you can see, my interest regarding on the Pokemon franchise developed very significantly over time. Nowadays, I expanded my scope even further to look at Pokemon anime in terms of the entire Japanese anime culture, the Pokemon game series in terms of video game history, and the Pokemon franchise in terms of a fictional character franchise within the Japanese and international market. Sometimes I even wondered myself, would my viewpoint expanded further to cover the entire universe, including another dimension? (Well, probably already partially true, because I'm writing a crossover fanfic. Yeah yeah......)
Click to expand...
 
From '99 - '02 my parents bought cards fairly regularly. Around that time, my siblings fell out of Pokemon (at least any newer versions), so the cards stopped coming. After so long my interest in them has certainly waned. Having to rely on my own finances, I bought just a few packs and tins since '09. The last time I bought cards, or got any for that matter, was April 1st, 2014 (I remember that because I had to hunt down my dog who was in neighbors' yards). Basically I'd like to get back into it (and other TCGs), but for me buying the cards (with whom I've no one to play) would be a waste. Now every time I go to a walmart, target, or game store and I see packs and tins, I stop and fight the urge to get them because I know I won't do anything with them.
However, TCGO is much more convenient albeit a bit tedious to get the cards, and I have been playing a bit recently. So I think that's a good option for me. But as far as getting that same feeling I had as a kid? Probably never again.


My interest in the franchise overall did dwindle a bit back around '05 - '08. I didn't get Emerald, Diamond, or Pearl (mostly because I lacked a DS) and I just stopped watching the show. I still played FireRed, and Ruby and Sapphire though.
 
I originally got into the anime when I was about 4 or 5, and I watched it until some time in high school when it was just getting too bad for me. Now I only vaguely keep up with what's going on in the show (still not really impressed but eh, at leas the animation is better) but of course I still play the games. I went a long time hating the competitive scene, but once I discovered Pokemon Online and Showdown I took quite a liking to trying to balance teams and movesets and stats and such. I found it can be really fun when you don't have to go through the process of breeding and grinding. :p
 
My interest is jumping from Anime, Collectibles *TGC never been a hit here*, Manga, then Games.

Currently I only play the games with my youngest brother.
 
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