Pokémon

Eras

• Origins — Satoshi Tajiri turns a childhood spent collecting bugs into Pocket Monsters Red & Green, six years in the making at tiny Game Freak. Within two years Japan has a trading card game, a TV anime — and the Porygon broadcast incident that made world news.
• Pokémania — Pokémon hits the West and becomes a full-blown mania: Red & Blue, the 4Kids anime, cards banned in schoolyards, Burger King promotions, a Time magazine cover and a movie that topped the US box office. Gold & Silver arrive before the wave has even crested.
• Advance Era — The Game Boy Advance generation — Ruby & Sapphire, FireRed & LeafGreen, Emerald — rebuilds the series after the fad-crash headlines, and the first official Pokémon World Championships crown the game as a real competitive sport.
• The DS Years — Diamond & Pearl make the Nintendo DS a Pokémon machine and online trading goes global. Platinum and HeartGold & SoulSilver follow, and the Video Game World Championships are born.
• Black, White & 3DS — Black & White dare a full reboot, X & Y launch worldwide on the same day, and the internet makes Pokémon its own: sixteen days of Twitch Plays Pokémon, the Helix Fossil, and a thousand Pikachu marching through Yokohama.
• Pokémon GO — A Super Bowl ad for the 20th anniversary, then the summer that broke reality: Pokémon GO sends millions into parks and streets, stampedes through Central Park, and puts Pokémon back on every front page. Sun & Moon ride the wave.
• Switch Era — Pokémon conquers the living room again — Let's Go, a Hollywood Detective Pikachu, Sword & Shield and the Dexit revolt — while a pandemic-era collecting boom sends trading cards to prices nobody thought possible.
• The New Golden Age — Legends: Arceus reinvents the formula, Ash Ketchum finally becomes World Champion and hands the anime to a new generation, Worlds comes home to Japan, a Van Gogh Museum collab descends into chaos, and TCG Pocket makes card-ripping a daily ritual for millions.