Pokémon

Pokémon is a Japanese video game, anime, and trading card franchise launched by Nintendo in 1996 in Japan, though Mew was first trademarked as early as 1990, info not too many fans know about.

Currently has eight generations of games and over 1,000 anime episodes. Yes, it's that popular.

The anime began airing in 1997 in Japan before debuting in the West a year later.

As spoilers are ahead, it's recommended to play the games and watch the anime series before reading the rest of this page.

## Tropes

* Financial Failure: In *Gold & Silver*, you can often get some useful inventory in your PC if you save up your money.
* Cute Mascot: A lot of the starter Pokémon. Pikachu, Eevee, Rockruff, etc. also count.
	+ Mew, the first ever trademarked Pokémon, is this.
* This gave us inspiration: Satoshi Tajiri based the entire franchise around his insect collection hobbies. A lot of the Pokémon in Kanto *alone* are based on insects.
* Obscurity, much?: Its popularity actually works against it in certain cases, mostly for related goodies such as the Pocket Pikachu (ironic considering Pikachu's the mascot for the franchise) and a VHS released before the Western debut of the anime, which the latter wouldn't be dug up until Chadtronic reacted to the entire video. This is so notorious, the franchise earned its own page.
* The Colbert Effect: Double subverted. When the first American commercial came out, Ash noted that the franchise would "take America by storm". This is technically true, but it got that way due to the TV ads rather than the videotape. *Then* the videogames and other merchandise came out, followed by big fast-food chains offering *Pokémon* toys... you get the idea.
* Dubless Series: The English dub actually skipped quite a handful of episodes. These episodes were also cut from dubs based off of the English dub.
* Offer Void Wherever Prohibited: Thanks to South Korea just starting to lift its ban on Japanese cultural imports in the 90s, the games were obscure in South Korea until the mid-2000s despite the anime and merchandise hitting South Korea as hard as it did the rest of the world.
* Satisfactory Conclusion: Winning the league and then facing the Elite Four counts as this. In some games, however, in case you want to travel to the Battle Frontier or unlock other secrets, Post-Conclusion Gameplay is played straight.
	+ On the anime side, as of *Sun & Moon* Ash Ketchum finally broke his losing streak, not counting the *Orange Islands* (which was anime-only) or the Battle Frontier (which isn't even a league), due to winning the Alola League.
* Cartoon Network Isn't Teletoon: So notorious between the US and Canada, the only seasons of the anime to avert this between the two countries are the *XY* seasons due to Pokémon moving to Teletoon in the latter country, as in 2017 Disney XD got a hold of the US broadcast rights to everything Pokémon.
* Ran Out of Manga: Pokémon in anime form often runs out of gameplay to adapt since it would be a few more years before another game came out. The upcoming reboot resolves this strategy by featuring all regions up to that point.
* Padding Filler Z: Necessary to keep an anime incarnation going until a new game comes out. The *Orange Islands* in particular never existed in the games.
* Animal World: The anime planned this to be level 3, but was forced to be downgraded to level 1 thanks to Game Freak.
* Size Changing: Dynamaxing, Giant Pokémon, etc.
* Gainax Ruined the Ending: Until *Sun & Moon*, things go badly for Ash at the Pokémon Leagues. By the time he finally won a major league (the Orange Islands didn't count), he's been through *seven main regions* including Alola.
* True ending: The reason why the anime never allowed Ash to win until *Sun & Moon*- it meant Ash's journey would end. It wasn't long after the anime reboot was announced that the episode featuring Ash winning a major league for once aired.
* You Are Fired: Angrily releasing a Pokémon, in an instance that would otherwise be I Renounce My Position.
	+ Even more extreme is releasing your whole team (and every Pokémon in your PC) save one Pokémon, or *even releasing the starter in anger*.
* No Home Release for You: *Chronicles* is the only piece of *Pokémon* anime (not counting specials) to never receive a physical release in the United States.
	+ That said, good luck finding *Pocket Monsters* (the original version) on physical media. In a similar situation to *Fighting Foodons*, none of the original series (which covers Kanto/Johto) was released to physical media there, and it's pretty rare to find any shred of the original Japanese version on physical media.
		- *Diamond & Pearl* got a few DVDs in its native Japan in the 2000s... with no opening *or* ending, and no menu. It's as laughable a Vanilla Edition can get. And to top it off, not every episode was released to DVD, in contrast to Viz's releases which cover *every* bit of the *Diamond & Pearl* era.