Pokémon nostalgia: Gotta catch all them feels...

Having been born in the mid-90s, I was perfectly placed on the stage of life to receive a full-blown Pokémon-flavoured pie to the face as a child.

For the uninitiated, Pokémon is this huge amorphous blob of games, TV series, and trading cards which has aggressively gripped people for decades. A cult, almost.

placeholder image — The Pokemon logo (credit: Pokemon)

For the initiated who took the leaf-blower force of the zeitgeist at its peak, Pokémon is everything. Again, like a cult.

My very earliest memories are Pokémon-tinged: literally shaking with untamed excitement in 1999 whilst waiting for my mum to return with Pokémon Yellow; losing a battle and saying the f-word as a seven-year-old.

These memories are vivid and lush, edged by names, facts, places, plotlines, and strategies from the games. They have a visceral taste to them. They will forever be etched into my psyche.

For an impressionable young lad, a dopamine hit like Pokémon was always going to leave its latent mark. A latent mark to be prodded, which is exactly what I did at university.

Armed with a student loan, too much time on my hands, and eBay, I all but overdosed on pure, unfettered nostalgia by purchasing and replaying the classic games of my childhood. It was utterly glorious.

In 2020, Pokémon is back. Various YouTubers, indulging their own nostalgia trips, are getting into the trading cards in a big way. How big, you ask? A card recently sold for £180,000.

That’s how big.

Through YouTube, my younger brother - too young to receive the Poké-pie to the face as I did in the 90s, the poor bugger - has now discovered this wonderful world. And so he asked me about it, knowing I cultivated a powerful obsession of my own back in the day.

Twenty minutes later, he was 15 minutes into playing one of my old games and I was all but frothing at the mouth in a seizure of happiness and nostalgic dopamine.

Here were two of my favourite things: my brother and Pokémon, together at last. I felt like a proud parent as I guided him through the opening sequences, smiling to myself all the while and chuckling like someone looking at black and white photos of childhood holidays.

For those sniggering at the nerdiness of all this, I have only pity. No true Pokémon master denigrates his fellow trainers.

And this might be a little ‘inside baseball’, but... I like shorts! They’re comfy and easy to wear! (Google it)