Pokemon: Links & Fan Works
Pokemon came out right as most homes were getting access to the Internet. Naturaly, kids used their new-found voice to express their love for the series, & marketers used the web to spread info about all the avaliable Pokemon merchandise.
But wait, how could kids make a website? HTML might be easy, but hosting is expensive. Simple: in the late 90's there were a lot of companies offering free webspace. Most, sadly, are gone, but a few, like Anglefire, still ramain. I don't know how long they'll last tho...
I first heard of fansites in a magazine, Beckett's Unofficial Pokemon Collector.. They had a small section reviewing fan pages in thier second issue. Seeing that, I wanted to create a webpage myself, but our family didn't get the internet till '08 or '09.
Below you'll find links to old Pokemon pages, both official & fan-made, some only avaliable on web archives:
Official Sites
| Pokemon World | Nintendo's official Pokemon Website, from 1998. Just an online brochure listing Pokemon merchandize. I got the main menu's "I'm an official Pokemon Trainer" button & the Craze page's map of the Pokemon World from a later version of this site. |
| KidsAnimation.com | Pioneer released the Pokemon Anime on VHS & DVD, one three-episode volume at a time. This is their official website from 2003. |
Fan Pages
| Zapados Pokemaster | A farily typical old fan site, found in the Wayback machine from a reddit link. The webmaster found the site archived, & decided to share it. | | Dratinigirl's Pokemon Site | This site has a lot of fan resources, plus a fairly long summary of the first movie, summary of each of the League episodes, info on the games, etc. | | Ash & Misty's Love | A collection of scenes the webmasters believed indicated Ash & Misty had a crush on eachother. Awwwww... | | Pokemon Fantasy | A very early fan site, from when the series was still in syndication. Lots of pictures. | | PokeTown | This appears to be a professional site, created to attract Pokemon fans. Well-designed, with lots of links to infoon the series. | | Pokemon Central | Has a long episode guide, done as a single block of text. Also has a preview of Gold & Silver | | The Rise & Fall of Pokemon | A history of the Pokemon fandom, from 2001. I've read it before, & found it again via a link in reddit. The author showed up there to defend it. It's not a bad article, & it sums up the feeling of the era correctly. |
| PokeDream.com | A large old fan site with guides to the games, still updated. Archived an interview with Satoshi Tajiri. Pretty much the only place I can find online to confirm that the anime & early games had the same protagonist. |
It mighty be fun to look at Pokemon-related News Articles too:
Pokemon In The News
| The Secret World of Pokemon | Rather negative article explaining the series from Salon.com (1999) I got the surfing Pikachu picture you see above from this page. | | Time: Beware of the Pokemania | Another conpempoary article on the craze, from Time magazine. Actually not a bad history of the franchize to that point in time, but it carries a cautionary tone, noting that kids have gotten into fights over trading cards, etc. |
 Return to the Main Menu
|