Blue and Silver felt like my entire life for awhile. I remember telling a friend that I needed to “take a break” from it, so it could still feel fresh. Dang - 10 year old me squeezing every last drop of dopamine even then.
I believe the anime was my first introduction to Pokemon. The first episode I caught was the one where Ash’s pokemon talk in subtitles, “The Island of Giant Pokemon”. A weird one to get started on, but I think it forever cemented that these little monsters have distinct personalities and I need to treat them as such - no matter the form they take (digital, plushy, card, whatever).
I stopped playing after gen 2, but got into Sw/Sh (gen 8) late once I finally got a switch. You know what? I had a blast. So much was new to me, and parts of it really did feel like the adventures I had as a little kid. I see a lot of criticism of the designs of the newer pokemon, but I tend to like the ridiculous ones. Give me all the trash bag and ice cream cone pokemon, please. I got the Pearl remake and have played through a few gyms but fell off pretty hard. I’m not sure what my issue with it is, but I was not having a good time with it at all.
When I was 9 or 10 I got (read: my parents) my best friend a couple of booster packs of the cards for his birthday. One of them had a shiny Charizard. Another friend was so jealous that he punched me in the face.