Pokémon: Indigo League (originally aired simply as Pokémon) is the first season of the Pokémon animated television series known in Japan as Pocket Monsters (ポケットモンスター, Poketto Monsutā). It originally aired in Japan on TV Tokyo from April 1, 1997, to January 21, 1999. It later aired in the United States in first-run syndication from September 8 to November 20, 1998, and on Kids' WB/The WB from February 13 to November 27, 1999, concluding with the airing of the previously unreleased episode 18 on June 24, 2000.
This season, the narrator of the Pokémon anime (voiced in Japanese by Unshō Ishizuka, and in English by Rodger Parsons) will follow the beginning adventures of Ash Ketchum (voiced in Japanese by Rica Matsumoto, and in English by Veronica Taylor), a 10-year-old aspiring Pokémon trainer from Pallet Town who is given a Pikachu (voiced by Ikue Ōtani) by Pokémon researcher Professor Oak to begin his Pokémon journey. Ash is driven by his desire to win the Indigo Plateau's Pokémon League, a challenging tournament for outstanding Pokémon trainers who compete against each other in Pokémon battles. To qualify for the tournament, Ash must collect the required number of gym badges, which are tokens earned after defeating each of the Kanto region's elite Pokémon gym leaders. Early in the season, Ash befriends the water-type Pokémon trainer Misty, who initially travels with Ash in hopes of him replacing her destroyed bicycle, and Brock, a Pokémon breeder who is the leader of the Pewter City gym.
The episodes were produced by Oriental Light and Magic, with Takeshi Shudo as head writer and Kunihiko Yuyama as chief director. Masamitsu Hidaka served as the supervising director for the series until the beginning of Pokémon: Battle Frontier.
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