Original Series

[SONICバリヤ]

Hi all, I have a question.

When I was little, I used to watch the original Pokemon series on VHS. Since then, I've wanted to watch the whole series but never could due to limitations.

About three and a half years ago I started studying Japanese, and now I have an urge to watch the original series in Japanese. The only problem with this is that it is practically impossible to find a place where I can watch or purchase the episodes.

Can someone please point me in the right direction?

 

[Dogasu]

Unfortunately, the entire series has not been made available on DVD in Japan yet. The best you can do is look for the random episodes that have appeared here and there.

For Kanto, check out the "Pocket Monsters Best Wishes! TV Animation Collection DVD" (ポケットモンスター ベストウィッシュ ポケモンTVアニメコレクションDVD) series. There are four 8-disc sets that have one original series episode and one Best Wishes! episode each, but the problem is that they're mostly out of print now.

Here's a breakdown of what's on each disc.

Here are some Amazon Japan links *anyway*. You can take a look at the boxes and hopefully be able to use the information on these pages to check other sites.

"Pokemon Battle" on Amazon Japan

"Waku-Waku! Doki-Doki!" on Amazon Japan

"Aim to be a Pokemon Master" on Amazon Japan

If you want anything Orange Islands...too bad. The only Orange Islands episodes released on DVD in Japan went on sale like ten years ago and are pretty much impossible to find these days. I live in Japan and *I've* never seen them around.

The first 20 episodes of the Jouto region were released on DVD and you do see these discs on sale a bit more regularly than the "Best Collection" DVDs, so maybe you'll have more luck there?

The Japanese Hulu site has most of the series streaming, but you have to be in Japan to access it.

Those are unfortunately all the legal options you have right now. I wish there was some super awesome box sets I could point you to that has all the episodes you need, but those do not exist at the moment.

 

[Adamant]

While it's not the series you were asking for, it's also worth mentioning that everything from mid-Advanced Generation and up is available on reasonably cheap bilingual (Chinese and Japanese) DVD sets in Taiwan. These should be obtainable through online stores.

Check here for a complete list of these releases.

Kanto and Orange are also available in their entirety on VHS in Japan, you might want to look into those.

 

[SONICバリヤ]

Okay, thanks guys. Are reruns still aired in Japan?

 

[PockyAddict]

I think a channel called "kids station" airs reruns if I can recall correctly. But I think they pick random eps or something.

 

[Adamant]

Kids Station airs the different series in chronological order. They have a whole bunch of programming blocks all airing different series, or the same series at a different point. I believe they have 3 blocks airing BW episodes at the moment.

 

[SlimeStack]

Random idea - you could try Hulu Japan. I forget what it was called, but there was supposed to be a legal way of bypassing the region lock on sites (virtual something?). If you can get through that you'll have access to every single episode in Japanese (I am extremely jealous of them for that :/ ).

 

[Dogasu]

Not quite...there is no free version of Hulu in Japan, so you'd have to give them your credit card information to access their library.

 

[Satoshi_Pikachu]

But if you pay for it, can you watch them from outside Japan?

 

[SlimeStack]

Well does the CC info have to have a Japanese address on it? If not then paying for it won't be a huge issue. The region lock is the true barrier otherwise.