Happy Pokemon Day, everyone! Pokemon Red and Green released exactly 21 years ago in Japan!

 

 

The Pokemon series means a lot to me, and I know there are a lot of other fans on here. Let's celebrate the anniversary of one of the most legendary franchises of all time!

Congratulations. You can now go to Vegas and play the slots.

Congratulations. You can now go to Vegas and play the slots.

 

Don't you mean Celadon City? Oh wait, we've always been able to do that!

Happy Birthday, Pokemon!

 

Dang, 21 years! The franchise has become a legal adult now! Get it? Cuz, ya know, 21? Lol, never mind, I suck at jokes.

 

But anyways, 21 years is truly a testament to the popularity that Pokemon has gotten ever since its inception in 1996! The continued success of this franchise gladdens me, and I hope that it lasts for many more years to come!

 

Currently playing Pokemon Sun, yay!

I still remember the first time I discovered Pokemon back in the late 90s and as I mentioned in previous posts,it wasn't through the anime or the commercials,it was through Smash Bros on the N64(it all ties back to the Based Sakurai after all ^_^) where I saw Pikachu,Jigglypuff and the other Pokemon available in the game and I wondered where do they come from.And just a week after I got Smash Bros the anime started airing in my country with a sort of sub-par Arabian dub but I got hooked to it(up until Hoenn at least)and a little bit later I got both Pokemon Stadium and Pokemon Yellow and the rest is history......sort of.

I completely missed out on Gen 3 on the GBA for reasons I've mentioned to some of my friends here so I won't delve deeper into it but it involves the accusation Pokemon got from multiple religious organizations at the time in the early 2000s that resulted for Pokemon being banned from my country up until 2006 and the beginning of Gen 4 and the only Pokemon game I managed to get after Gen 2 was Pokemon Colosseum on the GameCube but other than that I didn't manage to come back into the series until the release of HeartGold & Soul Silver which I picked up but didn't manage to beat it until later in 2013 cuz at the time I was busy with Final Fantasy(ughhh).

It's thanks to SomeCallMeJohnny's month of Pokemon in 2012,JWittz and the hype for Pokemon X&Y in 2013 that not only I managed to fully come back to the series and be even a much bigger fan of it than before,but I also managed to get into competitive play both in Smogon and VGC and while I'm still nowhere near as good as the current top players of each formula I still can provide a decent challenge to those who battle me.I also got the Gen 5 games(got Black 1 and White 2) which to this day is still my favorite generation and I love Gen 6 to death especially the remakes for OmegaRuby & Alpha Sapphire which not only made me experience the one gen that I completely missed out on,but also made me love a lot of Gen 3 Pokemon especially Gardevoir.......then I discovered the Pokemon Adventure manga,learned a lot of Pokemon trivia,discovered awesome Poketubers like The Dex,J.Wittz,TamashiiHiroka,ShaddyPenguin,KingNappy,LumioseStation, The Silver League,JustinFlynn and some VGC competitive players like AaronZheng and Alex Ogloza......etc the list goes on.
I owe a lot to Pokemon,for me it's more than just a video game,or an anime or a manga or a card game or a line of merchandises.....it has become a part of my life from 1999 up to this day

It actually helped me learn the English Language tremendously back when our schools didn't bother to teach it to Elementary schools,it made me fall in love with the JRPG genre which to this day is my favorite genre of video games heck it kickstarted my love for the Mon collecting sub-genre of RPGs which would lead me to discover the equally amazing Shin Megami Tensei franchise(especially the main series and Persona).It has one of the few gaming communities out there that I legitimately had fun with and met a lot of awesome people through online battles who helped me build and adjust my teams,and while sure it still has some bad apples but it's one of the few communities that I had a 95% positive time with then compared to the negative 5% of bad time that I had
And finally,it's thanks to Pokemon that I'm even here alive today.....I'm not even kidding.It helped me through depression,loneliness and sadness more times than I can even count,it helped me meet new friends than I never thought I'd ever have,it taught me more than just a language,it taught me even some life lessons that most people think you can't learn from something like this.It helped me be what I'm today and can't imagine where I would've been now if it wasn't for it.
It might have it's missteps,it might be cliche sometimes and the anime might not be that good.......but I will still love it and adore it for as long as I live.
Thank you Pokémon for the awesome memories you gave me for two decades of my life,Happy 21th anniversary and here to more 20 years of Catching them all ^_^

Damn, I grew up with Diamond and Pearl and Platinum! Happy anniversary