Lady Vulpix's Pokémon memories
Memories from a Pokémon fan called Lady Vulpix, who shares her memories of growing up with the series, and the challenges she faced in accessing Pokémon video games and products.
Many people reading Johto Times will be fortunate enough to have easy access to Pokémon products and have similar experiences of growing up playing the games and using these products often. In other parts of the world, some fans are not as fortunate. Lady Vulpix shares her memories of being introduced to Pokémon and the difficulties she faced in trying to do what many of us take for granted.
My first Pokémon experiences differ from those of most people I have met online, mainly due to my circumstances. While most Pokémon fans have fond memories of playing Pokémon games as kids, I was already 18 when I first heard the word Pokémon, and 20 when I first came into contact with these games. Moreover, while people in Japan, North America and Europe had plenty of opportunities to trade and battle their friends, go to Pokémon stores and take part in special events, I was in Argentina - a remote corner of South America which the people at Nintendo either didn’t know or didn’t care about - and thus had no such opportunities. Game Boys were expensive and the cables to connect them were simply unavailable. The games themselves were hard to find, and we often ended up with pirated copies or clones which we paid for as if they were original. Some of them had even more glitches than the original games!
So…how was I introduced to Pokémon? My first contact was less than impressive. Back in 1997, and throughout the following two years, I started seeing the word Pokémon thrown around together with the image of Pikachu either online or on signs on the street, some product packaging and Tazos inside bags of snacks. I didn’t make much of it: I thought it was just another fad, and fads had never been my thing. Then in 1999 the Pokémon anime came out. In spite of my parents’ opinion at that time that someone who was old enough to drink, vote and go to prison should not be watching cartoons (I have since managed to convince them otherwise), I still enjoyed them and I decided to give this one a try. I spent several episodes trying to make sense of the plot until I decided that it was simply poorly written, and the Latin American dub was even worse than the writing (there are still some memes going around which make fun of that terrible dub), but I was hooked on the idea of a world inhabited by what were effectively magical creatures, who could interact and cooperate with humans. The battle aspect was not so attractive to me at the time - especially because the anime made it so inconsistent - but there was an underlying logic behind it that caught my interest whenever I saw a glimpse of it (yes, I’m a logic nerd. I always have been).
As a side note about my Pokémon anime period, I spent some time looking for a favorite Pokémon. I started loving Charmander from the way he acted whenever Ash was not around, but it was more a connection with that particular Charmander than with the species. Still, it was enough to prompt me to make a set of animated Charmander cursors and a short-lived web page called Charmander Anime Zone, with links to some anime resources I liked. It also led me to choose Charmander as my first starter when I finally started playing. Still, I had yet to find a Pokémon that I considered really cute, and that bugged me until Vulpix showed up. There was a “finally” moment, and I have loved Vulpix ever since, hence why I later chose Lady Vulpix as my online name.
It was already the spring of 1999 - and spring here lasts from September to December - when I first had a Pokémon game in my hand. It was Pokémon Red which, sadly, had no Vulpix in it, but I had lots of fun playing it nonetheless. It was then that I got interested in the battle mechanics, especially type advantages. I did not own the game, but my cousin was kind enough to let me borrow his cartridge after he was done playing with it. My brother played with me sometimes: we discussed which Pokémon to add to our team, what to name them and what moves to give them, and sometimes he would pick up the game and make some progress on his own. It was a bit frustrating to start the game knowing there were some Pokémon we’d never have, like the event-only Mew and all the Pokémon who could only be obtained through trading, but we managed to beat the Elite Four and become the Champion, and I really enjoyed the journey. In hindsight, I feel it was a good thing that the whole “Gotta catch ’em all” concept was unachievable from the start, so I was free from the pressure it brought and simply enjoyed the aspects of the game which were accessible to me.
Another thing I enjoyed was explaining the game mechanics to a curious eight-year-old who would sometimes visit my home with his mother. We bonded through the game in spite of our age difference. He’s 33 at the time of writing in 2025 and we’re still friends. I also had an awesome time training my Vaporeon in this game, so much that I’ve had a Vaporeon in my team in every Pokémon game I’ve played. Now Vulpix and Vaporeon are officially my two favorite Pokémon, while Charmander is still my favorite starter.
Then the first Pokémon movie came out. I went to watch it and hated it. Apologies to those who loved it but I felt my time had been wasted by watching it. I slowly lost interest in the anime because of the bad writing and Ash’s terrible decisions, even though I’d found a way to watch it with the English dub, which was not nearly as bad as the Latin American one. I was still trying to give it a chance when Gold and Silver came up - in fact, I only gave up on it completely after watching the first two episodes of Advanced Generation - but by then I was far more interested in the games than the anime.
I played a broken clone of Pokémon Gold which was mistranslated into English from the Japanese version, so it had some Pokémon and move names wrong and some really weird descriptions (yes, the Pokédex descriptions have always been weird, but some of these were even weirder). I remember catching a Sentret and reading “Oddly enough, it evolves into a worm Pokémon”. And the description of Hidden Power - which was called “Awkpower” - was “Shoot and awaken”. What made it even worse was that you could not enter the Battle Tower because the game would crash if you did, but since that part of the game was optional, I was OK with skipping it. I managed to beat the game and still have fond memories of beating Red’s Pikachu with a level 63 Butterfree (it seemed impossible, but luck was on my side and Sleep Powder worked really well).
While I was playing this broken game, I had some trouble understanding some of the mechanics, so I started looking up information online. This is how I became acquainted with Pokémon forums. I got some useful responses to my questions on The PokéMasters forums, which led me to become engaged in that community, which in turn was the beginning of many stories, some wonderful, some not so much, but all memorable. I have used other forums and websites as resources, as well as to discuss the games, play some forum games and socialize. I also made my own calculators and randomizers which helped simulate battles for our forum games.
At this point, I could argue that I am no longer recounting my first steps with Pokémon, but there is still a big first which came later on, when Generation V came out. I skipped Gen III and most of Gen IV - I did play Soul Silver, and loved watching my Vaporeon follow me around and jump up and down with joy whenever it started raining, as well as finally getting the chance to catch a Vulpix - but I did not own the game. In fact, I have never owned a Game Boy Advance. But then the 3DS became available in Argentina, and I was able to not only get it, but also buy an original copy of Pokémon Black! It was my first time playing a Pokémon game that I truly owned and, even better, it allowed me to access online features, like the GTS and the Dream World. It also had some great music and other features I loved, like the changing of the seasons and the Sunset Cruise where you could first battle trainers and then go up to the deck to enjoy a beautiful view. It also had a story which, for the first time in the history of Pokémon, was fairly well written.
Then, in 2012, something amazing happened: a friend from The PokéMasters forums got married in the US and invited me to his wedding! I took the chance to buy a 3DS for myself and give the old one to my brother, as we had been sharing it until then. I shared a room with some friends from TPM and had a wonderful time. This was the first time I was able to battle my friends, and we also traded and talked about our games, among other things. We had an awesome time together.
Ever since then, my location has no longer been a major impediment to access games and features. Even though consoles are still more expensive here than they are in other countries, and those players in Argentina who want to access most games need to link our Nintendo accounts to a different country, it can be done, so now it is not uncommon to find other people who play Pokémon games around here. There is even a Pokémon League not far from where I live! I’m not into IV breeding or competitive gaming, so I will continue to enjoy playing with my friends and sharing our thoughts and memories.
Thanks to Lady Vulpix for sharing her memories of Pokémon with us. I hope that these days, Pokémon products and games will be a little easier to find and more accessible than they once were for her!