Pokemon Classic

Hello. People call me Pocket. I'd really appreciate you reading this whole thing before you decide to follow. I'm not going to be super nice and friendly to everyone who follows and just assumes I'm going to cater to them. It wouldn't kill you to check out the FAQ either. This is an appreciation blog for the early years of the Pokemon series. Not just the games, TCG, manga and anime, but the whole context of the era when pokemon was new, and you would see it in newspapers, cereal boxes, fast food commercials, movie theaters, and so on. Pokemon is still a popular series today, but nothing has ever compared to the initial boom when the series was launched. This isn't something a "genwunner" says to uplift old pokemon, it was absolutely crazy popular, everybody was talking about it, not just fans. I will refer to this time period as the Poke Boom. The only thing that has even come close to that is the initial launch of Pokemon Go, but that quieted down after just a year. Yes, many still play the game, but it's not making headlines and you don't see people trying to profit from pokemon go players anymore. This blog was originally meant to prove that you can favor classic Pokemon without being totally pessimistic against modern Pokemon, but I did make this blog in 2015, and things have changed a lot since then. I have very strong opinions about the state of the franchise, the people making the games, and the fans that defend them, and i'm not going to keep my mouth shut about that when I feel like it. If you can't respect that, then I would rather you don't follow me... or you can make a snarky comment on one of my text posts so I can block you, either way works for me. I'm not going to tolerate apologists. If you want a blogger who's more willing to come to the defense of the multi billion dollar media franchise, the highest grossing media franchise IN THE WORLD mind you, i'm sure you can find many of them. But you won't find it here. I would like to say I don't hold it against any of you who are okay with the current state of the franchise and continue buying the games, but truthfully, I will be a little resentful toward those who continue to support The Pokemon Company's shoddy products and predatory business practices. But I can at least be polite if i'm offered the same courtesy. The reality is, Pokemon is always going to be successful, and i've made peace with that. So I will continue to enjoy the franchise as I remembered it in better times, and will continue showing interest in the occasional pokemon product that looks appealing. This blog will cover mostly gen 1 pokemon but gen 2 will appear too, as the gen 2 pokemon game was actually a true sequel to gen 1, had a similar style and tone, and the popularity of pokemon was still crazy high at the time and didn't really start slowing down until the third generation. I will cover the first set of remakes, but not the Pokemon Let's Go series. I may occasionally post the odd indie game project or art if it gives me strong "early Pokemon vibes", as well as a rare post about pokemon's competitors that came out of the wood work and were shameless about their approach. Think Telefang. Pokemon anime will be covered up to the end of Johto but most of the stuff I reblog will come from the Indigo League. I will not reblog anything from the "Pokemon I choose you" series of movies. Pokemon TCG will show up but i'm really not up to date on the cards, so I may post the occasional modern trading card, but only if it's a gen 1 or 2 pokemon with no modern pokemon on it. The thing I treasure most are odd news reports about weird shit that happened during the poke boom, like the priest ripping up a pikachu doll with a sword in a church, just things that encapsulates the era. But those can be hard to come across. Please submit them if you know any! And of course, lots and lots, and lots of fan art of gen 1 and 2 pokemon and the human characters. If you like the fan art, do visit the artist's blog and check out the rest of their stuff! I go out of my way to avoid reblogging things if I can't be sure they're not reposts. If you see fan art re-posted without permission, please message me and I will remove the reblog. If you want to talk about something unrelated to pokemon, check out my Personal Blog, though im mostly on Twitter these days. If pokemon isn't the only thing you got nostalgia for and you also dig the old school top down Legend of Zelda games, check out my Zelda Blog, which is dedicated all the games in the "Downfall Timeline" Starting at Ocarina of Time. ...I've given the keys to this blog to someone else though, so keep in mind it's not me. I have a General Nintendo blog, as well. I don't post any pokemon there, not because of my strong feelings about the state of the series, but because I feel Pokemon has an unfortunate ability to overshadow other Nintendo games. And lastly, if you like that OTHER monster taming franchise that ends in -Mon, well guess what? I have a Digimon Blog, but be warned, this blog is light on content related to the anime, it's a lot more focused on the Digimon Virtual pets, and maybe the video games... plus general Digimon fan art. But i'm not avoiding the anime altogether.

[kanto-jhoto]

You are now reading the pinned post of my Pokemon blog, hello there.

This blog's aim is to celebrate the golden age of pokemon, which this blog refers to as "The Poke' Boom", this blog's aim was not meant to say things were better back then, just that they were different in ways beyond what one can understand simply by playing the original games or their remakes in the modern day and watching the indigo league on Netflix.

The Pokeboom was an insanely exciting time, and while Pokemon is popular even still today, it cannot compare to the mania it caused during those first few years. EVERYONE was talking about it, not just the fans. Pokemon was in headlines, magazine stands, cereal boxes, commercials for waffles and spaghettios, late night talk shows, it was parodied, there were live musical story driven concerts, the voice actors did sketches with other cartoon characters between commercials, it was nuts. The only recent event that came even close to that was that first year of Pokemon Go, but that still doesn't compare to the real Pokeboom.

Now, while this blog did not originally exist with the purpose of saying "old pokemon better", this blog was made around 2015, and things were a little different back then. I don't have the same respect and admiration for this series I used to have, as I feel like the quality of what they have been releasing has fallen drastically from gen six onward. And I will from time to time voice my displeasure with The state of the franchise. So fanboys, ye be warned. I don't complain to be a "Big fat toxic meanie poopie head" I do it because Pokemon used to be very important to me and I would like for it to be important to me again. That doesn't mean being gen 1/2 again, try to remember that I loved this series up until gen 5.

Feel free to send asks, but please keep it on the topic of this blog. Direct anything unrelated to my main @always-thirsty-pocket or if it's about video games, direct it to @game-boy-pocket, Digimon is acceptable in relation to pokemon but if you just want to shoot the shit about Digimon, hit up my Digimon blog @digi-egg-in-your-pocket

I will occasionally post non pokemon stuff but it will still be tangentially related in a way, like it was a competitor that emerged in reponse to pokemon such as all the various monster taming games like telefang and monster rancher. But those sort of posts will be rare and tagged with #not Pokemon

I can't be bothered to tag much more than that, so follow at your own risk.

If you enjoy anything i've done, be it art, or the original posts i've made on this blog, consider giving me a little tip on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/A057359G So far my ko-fi is dedicated to my virtual pet artwork project alone but it may become a little more in time. Obviously I don't WANT the dex cut, and I don't WANT the games to be bad, but without the national dex, I'm not buying pokemon games out of a sense of obligation anymore.

[laserwalnut]

Was reminded of this beauty I made in dec 2023

[shelgon]

[meteor-falls]

Guardian of the Seas

[sugarsylvie]

Eevee finally accepts the cone!

[neogeopet]

lucky dragonair charm 💙🦋🌟🌼💗☘️🦋☁️

[stickyswords]

Little guys in a line

[kanto-jhoto]

When did the "gen 1 bad" narrative start?

I am not claiming to be the best record keeper here, but I feel like the seeds were planted as early as gen 2 because you had a lot of people who said "Meh, only the first 150 count, they didn't need to add any more pokemon" even way back when Johto Pokemon first started appearing in the anime. Heck, even Mew got caught in the wrath since a lot of people were ignorant to the fact that Mew really did exist in the first game.

Naturally, people who liked gen 2 kind of resented those people ( who, lets be real here, are fake fans if they really just jumped on for the initial pokeboom hype and dropped the series ) and what do you do when you resent someone? You attack what they love. Gen 1. It wasn't too common back then. Mostly because internet was still not very mainstream yet.

I don't remember too much of it in Gen 3 either but to be fair, my attention was not really on pokemon during gen 3. I wasn't thrilled with Ruby/Sapphire and Sonic the Hedgehog games on Gamecube kind of monopolized my time during those years.

If I had to take a guess as to when "Gen 1 Bad" discourse really started to take off, it'd be gen 4, where competitive pokemon itself really started taking off, with more people being able to play thanks to the DS having online capabilities, and the physical special split having a huge impact on the games. Arguably even bigger than the addition of abilities.

This is also around the time when I started noticing much trash talk around gen 1 and image macros like "The Problem with gen 1" floating around. Not to mention this is also around the time 4chan got it's new Pokemon board and a new community dedicated to tearing down "casual" fans, which a lot of old school fans are made of, took off.

I think it came to a boil with generation six since that generation paid a lot of fan service to gen 1, on top of pokemon Go launching only with pokemon from Kanto, Pokemon Gen 1 releasing on virtual console, and the Pokemon red/green games being given a special anime OVA. Resentment from fans of other games in the series was at an all time high. But as I said, the seeds were planted as far back as gen 2 and started budding in gen 4.

So yeah, TL;DR, I can't give you an accurat answer, but my guess is around generation 4, specifically Heart Gold/Soul Silver.

[meow286]

[pokemonarchive]

025 Pikachu (2022) Illustrator: HYOGONOSUKE

[n64retro]

Photo by crtgaming. Source: Reddit

[yoshis]

[jisuto]

[jively]

07/02/2026

[pkmn-ruby]

pokémon: the johto journeys, ep 124 - flower power

[retrogamingblog2]

[kanto-jhoto]

Well I knew it was going to happen eventually but Pokemon Champions is becoming more difficult to get a win even in the lower ranks. I'm guessing casual players are losing interest. That or the influx of phone players have something to do with it.