E-mail me at:
cod@compusmart.ab.ca

How did I discover Pokemon? Well, it all started when I went to the Electronic Entertainment Exposition in Atlanta, GA, in May 1998. At the time I was working for Compuserve's Video Gaming Central, so I attended the show as a member of the press, which means I was able to go to Nintendo's press conference.

After yawning through Nintendo's N64 previews (I don't have an N64, so why bother?), I looked up when I saw anime rolling on their huge 50-foot screen. Then I nearly choked on a strawberry candy that I had just popped in my mouth when I saw what it was from. "Pokemon?", I thought, "Isn't that the seizures series?" I was very skeptical about its success, despite Nintendo's President's claims that the marketing pitch would be huge, with the release of two versions of the Game Boy game, the TV series and a little electronic virtual pet featuring the series' "mascot". Actually, I didn't care at the time. After the press conference, I tried to get one of Nintendo's press kits, which consisted of folders with info on Nintendo's upcoming games and a vinyl backpack (which is what I really wanted). They had run out by the time I got there, and all they could provide me with was the Pokemon information packet. I shrugged and took it, and I went back to the hotel room, leafed through it without paying attention, and threw it in a corner. (By the way, I did get the backpack the next day.)

The next day, my friend Rudy (William White) and I went to the massive Nintendo "booth" (it was more like a huge show room), where we saw the most incredible Pokemon sight in our lives; there was a huge, 10-foot tall display case filled with Pokemon figurines, stuffed Pikachus, Pokemon games and other Pokemon merchandise. There was an oversized Poke-ball on top of the display... it must have been at least five feet tall. There was also a screen against the wall behind it that could have easily been twelve feet tall that was showing previews of other Nintendo games. At each side of the Pokemon display case there were some playable demos of the Blue version of the Pokemon Game Boy games. There was also a five foot-tall Pikachu walking around the show floor, sniffing around cutely; when I hugged him, his cheeks blinked red, and I immediately fell in love with the cute Pokemon. The music in the area changed, and I heard an announcer say "Pokemon - Catch 'em if you can!" (It was the motto at the time), and they started showing scenes from the anime to a tune that would stay stuck in my head until I got back to Edmonton. (For those who are curious, it's track 8 - "Pokemon Get Daze" - on the "Pokemon Sound Anime Collection" CD.) Then a crowd of people started to gather around the display case and the huge Poke-ball, and I found out why; the Poke-ball was opening up, and an over-sized Pikachu was inside, saying "Pi, Pika, Pikachu?", and suddenly, hundreds of stuffed Poke-balls shot out of Pikachu's Poke-ball and landed on the crowd below! I caught one (keep in mind that I wasn't prepared for that and that I'm only five feet tall) and I soon found out that it was unzippable and, when inversed, revealed a Pokemon inside. I had caught Kabigon (Snorlax), and I eventually caught all twelve they were distributing at the time, including a Pikachu with his eyes closed acting all sleepy.

I gradually became more interested in Pokemon, spending more time in the Nintendo Booth than anywhere else at E3, playing the Game Boy game (I reached Tokiwa no Mori/Viridian Forest before I felt the people at Nintendo were going to throw me out), and I went home with Pokemon thoughts in my head. I wanted to know more, and Nintendo wasn't very informative in their press releases. Who's Ash? How does he get Pikachu? What about Gym Leaders? And who the heck are Jessie and James? That's when I found Shou Tsurugi's web page, and I read the information there as if it was the answer to life, the universe, and everything. (No, that's 42. Really.) I then started writing to him, begging for more information, and we've been writing to each other since then. I also found out that I actually had a snippet of the beginning of the fourth episode on tape (up to the point where Satoshi/Ash calls Pidgeotto to fight Weedle, and the scene changes to Kasumi/Misty) and I watched it wistfully every day until the series would be released...

To Be Continued...