>>30594030Chilean here.
Pretty much the same here, but the fever took started somewhere in 1999 here, mostly due the anime. Getting an original Game Boy and a game cartridge was really hard those days. That's why most people here still think of Pokemon more as a cartoon than a videogame series.
2000 and 2001 were the golden years indeed. My 10 year old self was overjoyed with the newly arrived Johto merchandise.
2002 came and people returned to Dragon Ball. Pokemon was still a pop culture icon, while around 2006 appeared some "urban tribe" who called themselves the "Pokemon", because some lame pun. It was fun how journalists tried to unsuccessfully make the mental connections between Emo+Reggaeton and Pokemon.
Pokemon X/Y revived the Pokemania here in some extent. Many of my friends bought a 3DS to experience Pokemon again. Then GO revived it again. You could see any kind of people with their smartphones try to catch Pokemon in the streets.
It was always alive in the niche though. Latin Americans -at least Mexicans, Colombians, Peruvians, Argentinians and Chileans- have some kind of predisposition for this kind of things, specially Dragon Ball and Pokemon.
Pic related - Chilefags will remember.
