Oh fuck where do I even begin; probably myself. I was such a diehard fan of pokemon as a kid that when I was in the JCC (jewish community center) afterschool as a kid, they were collecting paper prayers to be sent to be put in the western wall:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_WallThis is an incredibly holy place in judiasm (and islam apprently) for being the last standing wall of a temple that was built in 20BC but destroyed by the romans in 70AD.
You aren't even supposed to face your back to the wall after putting a prayer in it, you have to walk backwards.
Long story short, I put "I wish pokemon were real" this was in the 1999, so I was 7, and Red/blue came out in '96, very much the height of pokemania, i mean for god sake EVERYBODY was into pokemon.
I like to think the release of Pokemon GO in 2016 was the manifestation of that wish. God must take 17 years to answer even the most ridiculous of prayers lol but yeah I haven't seen that level of pokehype since.