Mew

 In September 2006, I lived in the Dayton area of Ohio. I attended a community college in Dayton and lived with my sister in a townhouse roughly thirty minutes away in a neighbouring town. My brother had recently moved out to live with a friend, and my parents were forty-five minutes south of us in a Cincinnati suburb. My memory of the time is admittedly quite hazy, but I believe my video game systems still only consisted of my Nintendo 64 and cobalt Game Boy Advance SP. I loved playing Pokémon games on the GBA, and my N64 got minimal use. The selection of games I’d had were rather small, too, but as a part-timer, I couldn’t exactly afford to go out and buy the latest and greatest stuff. Besides, I was content with the games I’d had, especially since I’d bought Pokémon Emerald brand-new the previous year and was having a blast with it.

When I learnt about Toys R Us having a special promotion for Pokémon, I was interested. I don’t recall how I’d found out about it, but the stores were giving away an “event” Mew to people who had the latest Pokémon games. At the time, FireRed and LeafGreen had released prior to Emerald, but I didn’t own either game. The promotional signage seemed to primarily advertise getting Mew for the Kanto remakes, so I’d hoped I could get one for my Emerald game. Further research into it revealed one could get it for Ruby, Sapphire, FireRed, LeafGreen or Emerald. I was relieved. Out of those games, I only had Pokémon Emerald.

On the day in question, I took my GBA SP with me as I drove to Toys R Us. I normally never take my games or systems out of the house unless I’m going on a road trip with the family, so this was a bit unusual to me. Nevertheless, I went to the toy store and made my way to the video game section. There was already a bit of a line, so I stood at the end of the line and waited.

There were people of varying ages ahead of me, ranging from little kids to adults in their twenties or so. At the time, I was twenty-three, so I didn’t think anything of it. What struck me as odd was the fact they were all guys. No girls or AFAB (assigned female at birth) people like me at all. I didn’t realise I was transgender at the time, so it was rather uncomfortable to realise I was the only girl there. This was 2006, where were the girl gamers I’d heard about? Apparently not at Toys R Us getting an event Mew.

We were previously instructed to catch a Pokémon that we’d be willing to trade. I figured everyone would go for the “throwaway” Pokémon, like Wurmple or Taillow. I believe I went with the latter, though I felt guilty at catching a Pokémon for the sole purpose of trading it. When the event began at noon, the employee in charge of the event had a GBA SP and a cable, ready for the first person. I’d wondered how the event would work, and now I could see: the Pokémon caught for the event would be traded for the event Mew. The employee had a special cartridge of the game that was full of event Mews.

When it was my turn, I connected my end of the cable to my SP and did as I was told. I’d never been to one of these things before, so it was entirely new to me. Thankfully, the process was simple: have the trainer at the Pokémon Centre in the trading area, go to the correct NPC as one would for a cable-linked trade, then select the Taillow I’d caught for the trade. The employee selected the event Mew to send to me.

Within moments, I had a level 10 Mew in my party. I thanked the employee as I saved my game, disconnected the cable and left the store. I was excited to have my very first event Pokémon in my party, especially one as awesome as Mew. No GameSharks or other illegitimate means of getting legendary Pokémon, this one was the bona-fide real thing. As real as Pokémon get, anyway.

I didn’t realise till many years later that it was the only non-online distribution of event Pokémon I’d ever participated in. Although the next iteration of games was on the Nintendo DS, I did not obtain one for many years to come - both the handheld and any applicable games - and by then, most of the distribution of event Pokémon was done via WiFi. The days of manually connecting two physical handhelds to get event Pokémon was in the past.

Currently, the event Mew sits in Pokémon Bank on my New 3DS XL. Its level is 52, meaning I’d used it in my Pokémon Emerald game for quite some time; unfortunately, I don’t have any memory of doing so. Nevertheless, I’m glad I was able to get it off my Emerald game so I can use it in whichever game I want. For now, however, I’ll leave it in Pokémon Bank, along with several other event Pokémon I’ve obtained over the years.