In 1996 the first pokemon born was born in Japan; it’s title was Pokemon Red and Green. The release of these games were a huge success and sparked a large fanbase.

This year, 2016, marks Pokemon’s 20th Anniversary, and long time fans are finally getting a re-release of the original games on a newer console.

Nicholas Johanson, Dimond senior says, “The first time I played Pokemon was when I was five years old. My friend got me a Gameboy and a copy of Pokemon Leaf Green. It was funny because I played it so much that I ended up having to buy new batteries nearly every week.”

It seems that people that were around to play the original games have remained fans of the games for nearly all of their lives.

This isn’t always the case though.

When Alex Gill, a Dimond senior, was asked about when he first started playing he replied with, “The first time I played a Pokemon game was in eighth grade. I got a Nintendo DS for Christmas, along with a copy of Pokemon Black. I played a total of over 200 hours on the game trying to catch all of the Pokemon in the game.”

Although many people are familiar with the Pokemon video games, there are also a lot of people that collect the Pokemon Cards.

Jack Hoen, a Dimond senior says, “Ever since the first Pokemon card set came out, I’ve been collecting. I don’t really collect the newer cards though, I like the look and nostalgia of the original cards much more.”

Hoen plans to keep his collection of old school cards in a collector’s binder until the cards move up to a price where he feels comfortable selling them.

Another person that amassed a large sum of highly collectible Pokemon cards is Kyle Bremont, also a Dimond senior.

Bremont said, “I had over 500 holo cards (the more valuable and rare cards) before I sold them. Some of them I sold to Bosco’s for cash and in-store credit, and the rest I sold online to buyers on eBay.”

When asked if he ever regrets selling his collection Bremont replied, “The only regrets that I have were selling my first edition holo shadowless cards, because the price of those cards in mint condition have been going up exponentially within the last few years.”

One of the cool things that Pokemon is releasing this year for the 20th Anniversary is the re-release of Pokemon Red and Blue on the Nintendo 3DS.

When Johanson was asked if he was doing anything special for the anniversary, he said, “Nothing too special, just going to play through all of the Pokemon games, and definitely going to play Pokemon Blue on my 3DS.”

It’s interesting that even though the Pokemon series has been going on for so many years, there is still a huge number of people that actively play the games and collect the cards.

The only question left is when will the craze of Pokemon ever leave?

This is a question that may never be answered.