Blog: Pokemon, I Still Choose You

While most people my age spent the recent snow days texting or sledding, I was in my basement watching Pokemon (the first, and best, season) and playing Pokemon HeartGold on my Gameboy DS. Classic day off.

Before Pokemon was popular my dad bought my brother and me Pokemon action figures that he had purchased while in L.A. Little did he know that Pokemon would capture our young hearts and grip us for so long.

As the popularity of Pokemon grew so did my love for little Pikachu and Charmander (my favorite starter Pokemon). But it didn’t stop at action figures. Pretty soon the pre-pubescent voice of Ask Ketchum was ringing through our home via the TV and the theme song was constantly sung by my brother and me. Every Saturday my brother and I would try to wake up early enough to catch the 4Kids! Saturday morning cartoons. These included Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh and, most importantly, Pokemon.

Everything changed when my brother got an original Gameboy Color for Christmas, along with the game Pokemon Red. I was beyond jealous, but I knew my time would come so I waited patiently until my birthday when I received the same thing. Next thing you know I was raising my very own Pikachu and having wild adventures in the land of Kanto. Maybe it wasn’t the same as actually owning a Pokemon but it was as close as I was going to get.

Now, most people would say this is dorky. And that may be true but what else should I do? Would playing Call of Duty be any better? And what is so wrong with wanting to hold on to a bit of my childhood?

Years have gone by and Poke-generations have come and gone but I remain faithful as others have given up. But my faith in Pokemon only extends so far. When I saw the monstrosity of the new Generation Four Pokemon I was disturbed, to say the least. Where were the Caterpies and Cubones? What happened to Brock? And who is this Dawn character? The Pokemon world had changed forever. So while others are playing the new Pokemon Black and White on their 3DS this spring I will be sticking to the classics: Gen 3, 2 and 1 only.

Throughout my life I have seen Pokemon change from 8-bit terrible graphics to the up-coming 3DS, from Pikachu to Oshawatt, yet my love has remained the same. I still spend snow-days lounging by the fire with my Cyndaquil, I still Poke-Battle my brother and sometimes I even sing the Pokemon theme song but most importantly I still hope to someday catch them all.