As you may know I am very interested in pokemon and have a very keen memory of all 493 of them. Sure I have my favourites' such as Delibird, Politoed and Magmortar; but to me every single one of the little monsters are unique and that's what got me so fascinated in pokemon for the last 9 years...
I remember my first experiance with the yellow mouse so familiar to nearly all of us, no matter if we like pokemon or not. I was probably 5 or 6 at the time in our local newsagents with my dad, and as always I raced to the magazine rack, hoping for my dad to splash out on some comic I probably didn't need or know anything about, instead just felt the need to have it or spend my dads money in any way shape or form...
Scanning the many faces that looked back at me, smack bang in the middle I noticed Ash and Pikachu in what seemed to be cerulean gym. With my eyes fixated on the happy looking creature and its trainer I knew I had to have it, so I slipped it into my dads hands, unaware that I had just started a new life as a pokemon fanatic...
In this particular magazine it had the list of the first 151 pokemon ever to have been created, which would over time, gradually end up being the classic 1st generation pokemon, everyone was familiar with. In about 2 days I had memorised them all, and by then I had started drawing these still pictures in different poses then the boring front poses you usually always see! Aswell as doing this I also started drawing new evolutions for the different pokemon ( usually different Eevee evolutions)and I once or twice ended sending some of my fan art into the magazine, which I had featured once or twice.
Another of my pass times was watching cartoons, as most people do at the age of five. I always used to go out the room while adverts were on, as I found them very dull and boring. Just as I went to come out of the room though one day one advert came on for pokemon Indigo league and my at first little interest had blosssomed into more of a craze. I made sure I watched it and I loved that these once still pleasures had become moving figures, with speech and new journeys that soon enough, both Ash and myself would be starting...
Gradually over time the series started building up and every day a new adventure would befall Ash and his friends, and a new pokemon would pop up every time, and I would shout out the pokemons name ages before the pokedex would reveal the creatures identity. I was shocked to find that at least 2 pokemon had cropped up within the episodes, that I had never seen before (hooh and togepi.) This lead me to research, now as I was just about old enough to grasp the knowledge of how to use a computer and I began my search for 2 mystery pokemon, who at the time I had no idea of there names; all I had to go on were small pictures in my mind that I had remembered from the television... To my amazement after a while I had come to a number of sites which revealed many second generation pokemon, that I had no idea about...
Again and again more episodes were made and soon enough a generation 3 and 4 had been created. I was in a little world of my own I had so many new things around me that seemed spectacular and wonderous, and my craze had turned into a massive obsession... Aswell as this my small collection of pokemon merchandise had grew into a large army of different shapes and sizes.
To me pokemon was a cartoon not an anime. I hadn't even heard of the word anime in my life. My friend had stumbled upon pokemon too at the time, and she just happened to be researching and found that pokemon was in fact an anime. She found that out on a site called www.theotaku.com and although not as amazing as it is now we were both amazed by this site which supported and offered a range of awsome features about a subject we cared so much about...
Nearly immediately after hearing about such a wonderous site, I quickly joined and got started, with the wallpaper feature, and I was happily creating, in my opinion quite decent wallpapers for everyone to enjoy. I was in my element! The best thing was trying to experiment and post my art that now older, had improved and had found its place digitally on theotaku for everyone to see.
That is how I had got started with both pokemon and theotaku, and I thank you all for that. All the friends and strangers I have made, that had first commented and hugged my art and wallpapers. I thank you for all the kindness and support you have given me and I hope you are alll treated as lucky as I am on this site that made alot of my dreams come true...

by Chris Slesser Age 14 Otakuite and loyal fan to www.theotaku.com !