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Pokémon

Twenty-eight seasons in one long run, and twenty-three films that each belong inside a season rather than after one.

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Where to start with Pokémon

There are two honest answers and they lead to different places. If you want to watch Pokémon now, start with Horizons, which begins in 2023 with a new cast and asks nothing of you. If you specifically want Ash Ketchum's story, start at the beginning and accept that it is about 1,200 episodes long. The path below does the first, then hands you the second.

  1. 1
    Pokémon Horizons: The Series, season 26 Pokémon Horizons: The Series

    A soft reboot with new leads, a new region and no returning cast. It is the only point in the run where nothing has happened yet, which is exactly what a newcomer needs.

  2. 2
    The Search for Laqua, season 27 Pokémon Horizons: Season 2 - The Search for Laqua

    Continues straight on and pays off the mystery the first season sets up. Horizons is serialised in a way the older seasons were not, so these are not interchangeable.

  3. 3
    Rising Hope, season 28 Pokémon Horizons: Season 3 - Rising Hope

    The current season, still going out in parts, so this is where you catch up to the present and stop. Nothing after this exists yet.

  4. 4
    Pokémon: Indigo League, season 1 Pokémon: Indigo League

    If Horizons worked and you want the original, this is the beginning of it. Eighty two episodes of 1997 television, largely self contained, and the only stretch most people can quote from memory.

  5. 5
    Pokémon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back Pokémon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back

    The film was made to sit inside season 1 rather than after it, so watch it late in the Indigo League episodes and before the tournament. Saving it for the end makes it read as a sequel to something it is not.

Then what? From there it is one long line: seasons 2 to 25 in order, with each film dropped in at the point marked on it rather than saved up. If you do not want all of it, the three usual shortcuts are to watch the original series (seasons 1 to 5) and stop, to jump to Diamond and Pearl (season 10) which needs almost nothing before it, or to jump to XY (season 17) which is where the show looks and moves best. Journeys (season 23) is a third clean entry point because it drops the region format and reintroduces everyone. The four films in the separate continuity group and everything under Side series can be watched whenever, or never.

A suggested way in, not an official one. The full list is below — tick anything off in either place.

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Sync & backup

Your progress is saved on this device automatically. To carry it to another device, move the code below.

The code holds only this franchise. The link opens the tracker with your progress already filled in — good for showing someone where you're at. The image is a picture you can keep anywhere: scan the code on it with a phone, or drag the file back in below.

Drag a SagaList image here, or .

This reads the progress stored inside the picture, so nothing has to be retyped. If the image has been through a messaging app it may have been re-encoded and lost that — scan the code on it instead, or copy the code printed along the bottom.

Restoring replaces the progress currently saved on this device for the franchise the code belongs to.