About Johto Times

Johto Times was launched on February 6th, 2023. It originally began as a weekly Pokémon newsletter, where subscribers received a new issue directly to their email inboxes each Thursday. On August 1st, 2025, we launched our website!

Johto Times is (mostly) focused on the late 90s and early 2000s era of Pokémon; featuring interviews, personal memories of fans, collections, and opinion pieces. Our interviews feature guests such as fansites and people who have or had a close connection to the Pokémon brand.

The goal of Johto Times is to provide a record of what Pokémon was like for the original generation of fans during those early years, and for the people who worked closely with the brand. We want to educate fans who were introduced to the series later and in the future, to help them understand what it was like during that period. We believe strongly in documenting and preserving information and do our best to make sure that the culture of this time is not lost.

As the years have passed, a lot of the early internet from this time period has disappeared, with the closure of message boards and fansites. Only a few of those original communities still remain, and despite projects such as the Wayback Machine preserving some of those webpages, many of them have broken links and missing images, and some have disappeared altogether. With the loss of these early websites and communities comes the loss of culture and creativity those fans made. Misinformation through social media can also give an inaccurate and warped view of this time. We hope that Johto Times can become a trusted resource for this kind of information.

Since we began our project, Johto Times has developed a good relationship with many Pokémon communities and fansites of all sizes, and will always endeavour to play a positive and supportive role in the community wherever it is most suitable.

For however long this project is active, our mission will be to continue doing all we can to share interesting content, research accurate information, source lost media, and find unique stories focused on the early days of Pokémon, and build upon this important resource that people can enjoy and reference.

About the Author

I have been writing content for online and in-print publications since 2009, and have managed successful online communities and video game related projects. I first got into Pokémon in 1999, and played my first Pokémon video game, Pokémon Blue, in August 2001. My favourite title is Pokémon Crystal, and my favourite Pokémon is Rowlet.

Johto Times, to me, is a personal endeavour to highlight the amazing memories and culture of that time and share it with whoever wants to listen. I hope it will continue to be a positive and welcomed addition to the wider Pokémon community while living in a small corner of it.

About The Team

Many people have supported me and Johto Times throughout the years, and this section acknowledges their help.

Current team:

• Darren - Editor
• Roy - Proofreading
• Dragonfree - Proofreading
• Jim Roszel (AngurisNeo) - Proofreading
• Dominick Ashtear - Proofreading
• Mlu - Proofreading
• LadyVulpix - Proofreading
• Slix - Proofreading
• Teo - News support
• Renan - Website development

Former team:

• Josh - Proofreading (February 2023 - December 2023)
• Stephan Wells - Proofreading (January 2023)
• Renan - Proofreading (August 2023 - December 2024)
• Sunain - Proofreading (January 2025 - June 2025)

Special thanks to the following people for their support with the website prior to launch:

• Amethyst Frost, KomodoZero, Renan, PokéJungle, Jim Roszel (AngurisNeo), Captain Library, Fangking Omega, SteC, Dragonfree, Mlu, Slix, Teo, Roy
• Irene - Website header and logo design

Page last updated: August 1st, 2025