M: List every video Pokémon-related that existed before May of the year 2000.
G: Assuming you mean every Pokémon-related video game released before May 2000, here’s the chronological list up through April 30, 2000, including Japan-only titles and major spin-offs. citeturn0search0turn0search2
A couple of edge cases:
M: Nope, I meant video, whether it was this cartoon series or movies or whatever. I'm trying to recreate something and I know it was created, or at least it premiered, on May 20th of the year 2000.
G: Ah, got it. You mean Pokémon video media — anime episodes, specials, movies, shorts, etc. — existing before May 20, 2000.
If your target is specifically something that premiered on May 20, 2000, then you are sitting right on a very narrow transitional window in early Pokémon history. That date lands during the late Orange Islands / early Johto transition period internationally, and shortly before the third movie in Japan.
So here’s the complete pre–May 20, 2000 Pokémon animated/video canon landscape.
Started in Japan:
Episodes:
Major arcs completed before that date:
Key characters already introduced:
Legendary Pokémon already shown:
Did not yet exist in released form before May 2000.
Japanese release:
US release:
Contents:
Japanese release:
US theatrical release:
Contents:
This movie absolutely existed before May 20, 2000, but had not yet released in US theaters. citeturn0search9turn0search0
Attached to First Movie.
Attached to Movie 2000.
Japanese TV broadcasts and prologue content existed in varying forms before western edits reshuffled them.
Before May 2000 there were:
These are often falsely remembered as “early Pokémon”:
That exact date strongly suggests one of these:
Pokémon episodes were airing weekly in syndication and Kids’ WB blocks around then.
Late spring 2000 was peak:
This is important because memory from that exact period frequently cross-pollinates with entity["tv_show","Digimon Adventure","1999 anime series"], which exploded in May 2000 ratings. citeturn0search13turn0search14
Japanese trailers and promotional footage for the third movie started appearing around that timeframe.
You’re probably trying to reconstruct either:
M: No, it's a fan thing that only exists in like a 200-pixel format, and incidentally was not very well done, but still is compelling. I'm trying to see how much trouble it would be to recreate it. So don't give me the long-form breakdown, just a list of the video sources that the guy could have used. Because God knows I haven't watched all of that crap, but I will if I need to. You mentioned the first 82 episodes of the series and the first two movies, I think. Was there anything else?
G: Then yes, the usable animated video pool before May 20, 2000 was basically:
And that’s basically it for animation sources available to a random fan editor in spring 2000.
Critically:
So if the thing you’re recreating looks like a tiny crunchy late-90s AMV/web tribute: there’s a very high probability it was assembled almost entirely from:
And if it premiered exactly May 20, 2000, there’s a decent chance Movie 2000 footage was actually coming from trailers or Japanese release material rather than a clean full-film source.
M: No, it's on animemusicvideos.org. There's an entry for it. It says he used a WinTV Go capture card and Adobe Premiere. So it's not... When I said it was badly done, I mean that it was done by someone who didn't quite have a good sense of rhythm, but knew what they were trying to do. And the size is limited by the equipment that was available to the average person at that time. So how many seasons would that be that existed? Let's limit the range to simple basic outlets like series and movies. Don't worry about commercials or anything like that. But just how many seasons and movies do I need to slog through? I can always come back if it turns out there's something else missing.
G: Then your likely source pool is pleasantly finite.
By May 20, 2000, for a typical AMV creator using consumer capture hardware like a Hauppauge WinTV GO and entity["software","Adobe Premiere","video editing software"], the realistically accessible Pokémon footage library was basically:
Season 1: Indigo League
(~82 episodes)
Season 2: Adventures in the Orange Islands
(~36 episodes, though depending on exact air dates he may not have had
literally all of them domestically yet)
Movie 1: entity["movie","Pokémon: The First Movie","1998 animated film"]
Movie 2: entity["movie","Pokémon the Movie 2000","1999 animated
film"]
(possibly Japanese/raw/trailer/import footage before US
release)
That’s basically it.
So in practical “how much do I need to review?” terms:
And honestly, for an AMV from that era, you can probably reduce the actual useful search space by another 70%, because editors then heavily reused:
Late-90s AMVs were extremely clip-repetitive compared to modern editing because:
So if you’re recreating something, you probably do not need encyclopedic coverage. You mostly need: