>>43803517I was about a year or two too young to experience Pokemania when it was in full-swing, but I got to see the tail-end of the first wave, right when the fad-level hype had begun to die down, but Pokemon was still huge, and being the only 'oldest' kid while it was going on, my parents were clueless at first.
I remember my older sister visiting back home, and our family went out for Burger King, and while I was strapped in my car seat, having my food handed to me, I could see the bag had a ton of cool looking monsters on it, which was during the second movie's campaign. I didn't really find out about it after I accidentally saw the anime and a few months after a friend that was moving gave me her copy of Blue because neither of us could read and she couldn't figure it out; I couldn't either, but that didn't stop me from trying.
When I was a little older, all my friends got RSE. Everything was banned from school, so we'd pretend to play Pokemon during recess or read the strategy guides together. We'd meet up after school, trade each other Pokemon and battle, and just have fun.
By the time DPP happened, I knew a lot of people that bought it and we'd talk about it, but if you overtly obvious you were a fan of Pokemon, people made fun of you. We'd still have fun on the weekends, battling each other in PBR, or trading secrets. I remember a friend wouldn't let me look at their guide to figure out what Pokemon I needed to unlock the National Dex, but don't know why I didn't just look online.
By the time BW happened, nobody really played it in my area. Not that they weren't interested in Pokemon, just that they had no interest in BW until years down the line. It wasn't even Pokemon, because it started to get really popular again out of nowhere in my high school, but nobody talked about BW. We'd even still have DPP tournies.
When XY came out around my senior year though, it re-kicked everyone's interest, and a little magic was gone, but it was still fun.
