Vol. 2, Issue 51 - Justin's Christmas Pokémon Memories
A Pokémon fan called Justin, shares his Pokémon memories from Christmas 1999, and how Pokémon has retained a special place in his heart
A big festive welcome to Vol. 2, issue 51 of Johto Times! We are celebrating this special time of the year with some memories from a Pokémon fan called Justin, who takes us back in time to December 25th, 1999, when he received a copy of Pokémon Yellow and a Lime Green Game Boy Color console to play it on. Justin talks about how that Christmas defined his childhood and much of his adult life.
Please note that our team is currently taking a break throughout December, so this issue has been scheduled to go out automatically. Readers are encouraged to follow our Mastodon account and our Discord server for any breaking news announcements during this time.
Feature: Justin's Christmas Pokémon Memories
The holiday season can be a special time for young children, especially if Pokémon gifts are resting under their tree on December 25th! For this feature, I am proud to share the memories of a Pokémon fan called Justin, who sent us his memories of a Christmas so special he described it as life-altering! He also goes on to tell us how Pokémon has continued to have a special place in his heart as he’s grown up with the series.
I’m Justin (@jstndstrctn), longtime Pokémon fan, cosplayer, streamer, YouTuber, general nerd, gamer, and Pokémaniac. When I was seven years old, I had my greatest Christmas. While it’s become nearly a cliche to say, it’s that wonderful, magical time of year – a truth which is amplified through the eyes of a child, with so much latent wonder towards exploring the new and unknown.
My parents were very young when they had me, and so I was raised alongside their developing interests at the time. When I was young, my dad would hook up his NES, while I often watched or sometimes took a clumsy turn at it. We’d play Tetris a lot, as well as Excitebike, Golf, Top Gun, Karate, and some others. He’d eventually go on to get a Sega and the original PlayStation. Outside of that, he did have the original Game Boy, on which I often played Tetris, Spider-Man, and a few others.
As I journeyed through my childhood, growing and moving on to Kindergarten and 1st grade, a new series popped up that captured my interest. This was, of course, Pokémon. I’m sure many have different first points of entry to the series – mine was not in a very direct way, such as the anime. I remember being in school and seeing my best friend Giavanna and some other kids drawing these creatures. I had no idea what they were but I wanted to be involved. With unsteady lines, I tried my best to draw along with these monsters I’d never seen. I latched onto Poliwhirl, because, at the time, I was no artist, and with my limited skills, it seemed simple enough to draw.
I started to learn what these things were and got more interested in Pokémon. I would watch the show, [and] I would occasionally ask my parents if I could get a pack of cards. It all culminated in me begging them to get the game. The year went on, and I became more familiar with the different Pokémon. It was such a wondrous experience. I would pore over all of the data in the Pokédex book that featured details, lore, and attributes of all the Pokémon. I was really obsessed with it and learned as much as I could. When I was young I always had a strong interest in dinosaurs and reciting all of their names and facts about them, and this ended up transferring to a deep love of Pokémon.
My dad coached the high school basketball team, and I would sometimes go to the practices with him, dribbling a ball or just kind of sitting around. Sometimes I’d talk to the older kids, and they would regale me about the Pokémon myths of the time. They would make up stories about Pikablu, and they would tell me about how you can secretly find Mew under the truck in the Vermilion City cove. Sometimes they would let me play their Game Boy, which led to my first time playing the games.
Finally, once Christmas rolled around, I woke up, excited about what I could possibly get. To my greatest excitement and luck, I received both Pokémon Yellow Version and a lime green Game Boy Color. I couldn’t have possibly been happier. Immediately, I dove in, spent hours and hours playing. I brought it to my grandma’s, and I played all Christmas. This opened an entire new world. The charm of the sprites, the towns, the music. I was in love. However, being small, I didn’t quite grasp all the mechanics and attributes of a typical RPG. Most games I’d played up to that point were, like, Tetris, or maybe Mario. Some of the stuff I mentioned earlier, much more arcadey and classic sorts of video games. Pokémon was a big turning point for video games as a whole since, while there were RPGs like Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, it was pretty advanced especially for just a Game Boy game. Most of the big RPGs were dropping on the Super Nintendo, which I sadly never owned. As a result, I got as far as Brock, on the first or later days of owning it, and then grew frustrated as my Pikachu was having a tough time getting through [his Pokémon’s] ground typing, and thus, their electric resistance.
I ended up restarting my game and trying to train other Pokémon. Somewhere in this exploration, I came across the male Nidoran. After using it a bit, learning Double Kick, I was very pleased to find this was my ticket to defeating Brock. As a result, I ended up just totally overpowering my Nidoran, evolving it quickly into Nidoking, and thus, I met my favorite Pokémon of all time. Nidoking’s been my favorite ever since, and he took me through the rest of the game, in my unbalanced childhood team.
That Christmas really defined so much of my childhood, growth, and adult life. I don’t mean to sound exaggerative, but it’s hard to understate how impactful it was on my life as a whole. Getting [the game] and being able to completely fall in love with Pokémon set me on so many paths that I have followed my whole life.
The Game Boy Color was really impressive for its time, and I loved playing through Yellow, meeting Jessie and James, being able to follow what somewhat mirrored Ash’s journey, the cute Pikachu expressions; it was amazing. I still revisit it to this day, every few years. In fact, I’ve just beaten the Rocket HQ at Celadon in a current playthrough. You just know I’ve got my Nidoking on the squad.
Not too long after, we got Gen 2, and I received Silver Version for Easter. I think my parents just wanted to surprise me. I remember we were in a hotel when I got it; I think there was travel for the baseball team, or it was one of our old vacations. Nevertheless, thanks to this surprising, maybe oddly timed gift, I was able to be on the curve with any other kids who were still into it. I do remember people playing that generation, but a bit less than the first.
By the time I was nearing the end of my elementary school tenure, probably 4th grade, and saw the announcements for Ruby & Sapphire, a lot of kids at my school weren’t playing Pokémon anymore. I saw it in Nintendo Power, got extremely excited, and picked up Ruby. Ruby is really what re-cemented Pokémon’s place in my life once again. I would spend time on the Nintendo NSider forums, where, as a silly 13 year old, I made cringey sprite comics that netted me 1400+ replies on the thread. From there, I got into NetBattle, which was an archaic program, something like Pokémon Showdown that would allow you to battle against people around the world. I remember being a bit full of myself and then getting crushed by a guy who went on to lose the championship in New York City in the final round that year. It’s crazy what a small world it can be, and wonderful how Pokémon can bring us together.
I ended up meeting many dear and wonderful friends through Pokémon throughout the years, some of whom I’m still in contact with all these years later. Pokémon led me to meet many others, to compete in the games, and even to cosplay. I’ve cosplayed a generic Team Rocket Grunt from my super old first days of cosplaying in 2010, as well as a humanized gijinka of Umbreon, and around 2017 or so, Team Skull’s hated boss, Guzma. I’ve been lucky enough to have had that cosplay seen and retweeted by Junichi Masuda, which was an incredible moment that means so much to me – to have one of the legends of Pokémon, this franchise I have loved so much, see my tribute to it.
There are so many incredible moments from my life involving Pokémon, and there are a lot of great quotes, connections, memories, and I’m sure it will be with me my whole life. I am eternally grateful [for] the role the franchise has played in my life, and very lucky to have gotten the gift of Pokémon that Christmas, now 25 years ago. It’s actually so crazy for me to think that it’s been 25 years since that Christmas. Time flies.
"...The places we are born. The time we spend living... The languages we speak... We are all different. But the presence of Pokémon unites us. We share our lives with our Pokémon and our happiness grows as we all become greater than we were alone. That is why we can battle and trade with anyone we choose..."
Cynthia, Pokémon Platinum Version
A huge thanks to Justin for sharing these very special memories with us! It was fantastic to read how much Pokémon has meant to him for over twenty-five years. Happy Holidays Justin!
Favourite Starter Pokémon Poll & Fansite Word Search Puzzle
As the holiday season approaches, we’ve decided to put together a couple of fun events! We are currently running a poll to see which starter Pokémon is the fan favourite. This poll will run from November 22nd, 2024 at 18:00 UTC until December 31st, 2024 at 18:00 UTC. The winner will be announced via the Johto Times newsletter and our social media pages on January 9th, 2025! You can cast your vote here.
We received some great feedback last year on our word search, so we have decided to make another one for this year! This time around, we want you to try and find the names of Pokémon fansites, many of which we have interviewed in our newsletter since we began in February 2023! If you are able to find them all, send us a picture of your result along with your name via email before December 19th, 2024 (that’s today), and we will publish the results in our 100th issue on December 26th, 2024!
That’s all for this week’s issue! If you enjoy what Johto Times provides, be sure to share our newsletter with your friends and loved ones to help us reach even more Pokémon fans. For Discord users, you’re welcome to join our server for the latest notifications from our project. We are still open to sharing your mailbag entries for 2025, so if you have anything you would like to share with us, drop us a line by visiting this link to contact us directly!
THAT GUZMA COSPLAY RULES WOW