The first time I heard about pokemon was n advertisement about the cartoon. I was into watching cartoons and anime was starting to spread so i was very curious of it. I watched the first season while ignoring about the franchise.
After I am out of Zelda Universe and through other games, I realise that the games came before the anime and not the other way around, furthermore the franchise has several years and the games are highly recommended. Back then I didn't like pokemon stadium.
When that was no longer new to me, I somehow managed to get Pokemon Yellow, I'd already played some silver and crystal that cressel lent me, but yellow was the first one I ever 'owned" so it became very special to me.
The franchise had a second air to me after that, as I started to enijoy the stadium game, seeing my Pikachu 3D and having it saying "pikachu" instead the weird sound, having your own pokemons, with the moves you taught them and the bond from the portable game errands makes you feel very satisfied as you go on against Gym in the stadium games. As well as recognize some of them in the minigames.
The anime also took a second breath. " I know that guy" was something i mentioned often, to see the 'cities' in the anime and even be expecting to see Ash daring certain Gym leader is pretty cool. It just changed the way I saw the series a lot, in a good way.