being a kid in the early 2000s meant being absorbed by the pokémon craze, flesh, bones and soul. i distinctly remember when i was in kindergarten, and this boy came up to me and asked “who’s your favorite pokémon?”, and i said “what is that”, and I swear to god his eyes went wide, and he whispered “you don’t know pokémon? it’s coming”. it was so ominous. so ominous and insane, the look in my mom’s face when a parent realizes some new fad is going to take over their child’s life for the foreseeable future still haunts me. that boy was right tho – it came. and when it came, it was a tidal wave.

i wanted to dedicate this space to explain what it was like to be a pokémon kid in brazil in the early 2000s, because every 30 year old will tell you the same story with stars in their eyes if you ever ask about this. for most kids, it started with the show, but for others it started with the game, and for me, it started with the gameboy color and pokémon blue. my first console had actually been a playstation 1, but for all intents and purposes, the first time I actually wanted to know what the fuck was going on in a story was with pokémon. i didn’t speak english. and none of my 8 year old friends spoke english either, right, so what we did at the time was progress through the story thought context clues and exploration, completely in the dark. we understood that we were a child leaving home to capture pokémon just like in the show, that we had to level up our creatures to battle gym leaders, that certain items could heal pokémon and how to use pokéballs. that rare candies were used for leveling up, but we didn’t know how to pronounce this word, so to this DAY i call it like i said it back then (ha-reh kandi). but there were obstacles i couldn’t surpass on my own: getting past that snorlax on route 12 east of lavender city. i remember being so frustrated, because me and my friends were all stuck in the same spot for WEEKS, not knowing that we had to get a flute to wake the beast up, because we didn’t know how to read. that’s when interacting with older kids became vital for our survival.

older kids back then were gods. walking encyclopedias of knowledge, who knew how to use AOL and read magazines and even sometimes speak??? english??? we respected our elders back then because they got bikes for us to move faster in the game, and they could kick sabrina’s ass because they KNEW!!! they KNEW that psychic-type pokémon were weak against ghost-type pokémon. how did they know that!!! when i was 8 i couldn’t wait to be 10, because i knew that’s when you unlocked all the secrets of the world (you learned how to play pokémon).

anyway, none of that matters. what truly matters is how GOOD the merchandise was. there was a real effort, i think, effort that nobody has the time or money to care about anymore when it comes to kids toys. in brazil we have guaraná, and back then the brand caçulinha would partner up with the pokémon company to bring us “pokémon da caçulinha”. i still have mine!! when we opened the pokéball that came with the drink, we were so excited to find out which pokémon miniature we got, eyes shining with pure joy finding out that we got a dewgong, or a bulbasaur, or my personal favorite from this batch, a poliwrath. we would storage them with care and play with the other kids who also got them, because everyone and their mother drink guaraná in this country, so when we could bring toys to school on friday, it was a pokémon party.

but none of that matters either. what i actually want to talk about is early 2000s brazilian entertainment, and how it shaped much of who i am today in terms of taste and curiosity. i think that something truly special about brazilian entertainment is how we try to assimilate things from other countries by putting them in a blender, taking it out, and somehow making this eldritch abomination into something so uniquely ours that none of the original material could even compare. we have songs for everything, and this never truly changed. famous kids show host eliana has a videoclip of an original pokémon song that mixes everything from that era into one insane joy burger. the song bleeds europop, with outfits that emulate tokusatsu heroes but with a touch of brazilian tv fashion from that era (stomach out, ladies) and the best cgi they could come up with (her logo is in the pokéball dude!!!!).

and oh my god the song is a banger. kids and parents were vibing to this at parties, eliana was being asked to go live and perform this like she was jigglypuff herself, kids crawled up the WALLS when the beat came on. show this to a japanese person and they’ll wonder where in the translator things went wrong, and the best part is that we have an answer for that too!!! it was 4kids!! we got our anime from there, so the domino effect one day made this clip come to life, and goddammit you’ll take this song out of my cold dead hands. brazil has always been this sort of cultural gartic phone, the final destination bringing masterpieces beyond human comprehension.

i played pokémon arceus this year. it’s the first pokémon game i play in a long time, having stopped at pokémon sword and thinking that things had changed too much from the good old days. it’s funny how sometimes i can be wrong. arceus is a breath of fresh air, thousands of miles away from the original but something new that made me weirdly emotional when i was done. there’s freedom in this game in ways i never thought possible. i couldn’t stop reminiscing, thinking back on that kid who memorized the steps i had to take to get a bike at goldenrod city because at that point i still couldn’t speak english well. now, i’m crossing fields on pokémons backs, swimming with tentacools by my side and controlling my flight. i can climb mountains in this game. a sneasler puts me in a little crate on its back and climbs mountains with me in there. there are over 300 pokémon to be captured in arceus. when mew was announced as the 151st pokémon everyone freaked, and now there are more creatures than ever. i think i’ll never tire of this franchise, no matter the crazy steps they take. i’ll always be that kid from brazil who lived through the first tentative steps and then through the era of world peace that pokémon go brought everyone for a moment. i think about pokémon a lot, and i’ve been wanting to write a little love letter to the game that made me interested in learning more about the world by studying a new language. i wouldn’t have met some of the best people in my life without it.