The original Pokémon anime television series premiered in Japan in 1997.
The series began broadcasting on TV Tokyo in April 1997, more than a year after the first Pokémon games appeared. It followed Ash Ketchum, known as Satoshi in Japan, as he traveled through the Pokémon world with Pikachu and pursued his goal of becoming a Pokémon Master.
The anime helped turn Pokémon from a successful Japanese video-game property into a worldwide cultural phenomenon. Its international broadcasts introduced audiences to the characters, creatures, regions, and terminology that had first appeared in the games.
The premiere is sometimes dated to 1996 because the original games launched that year, or to 1998 because the series became widely known in several overseas markets then. The Japanese television debut itself was in 1997. The broadcast also became associated with the well-known incident involving flashing lights in the episode “Dennō Senshi Porygon.”