Pokémon: Indigo League
season of Pokémon
Pokémon: Indigo League is the first season of the Pokémon anime series and of Pokémon the Series: The Beginning, 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. It first aired in the United Kingdom on March 29, 1999 and in Germany and Italy in September 1999.
The season follows Ash Ketchum, a 10-year-old Pokémon Trainer and aspiring Pokémon Master from Pallet Town as he receives a Pikachu from Professor Oak and travels across the Kanto region to challenge its Pokémon League while joined by Misty and Brock.
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.
Episode list
Music
The Japanese opening song is "Aim to Be a Pokémon Master" (めざせポケモンマスター, Mezase Pokémon Masutā) by Rika Matsumoto for all 82 episodes. The ending songs are "One Hundred Fifty-One" (ひゃくごじゅういち, Hyakugojūichi) by Unshō Ishizuka and Pokémon Kids for 27 episodes, "Meowth's Song" (ニャースのうた, Nyāsu no Uta) by Inuko Inuyama for 16 episodes, "Fantasy in My Pocket" (ポケットにファンタジー, Poketto ni Fantajī) by Sachiko Kobayashi and Juri Ihata with musical performance by the Pokémon Philharmonic Orchestra for 16 episodes and the Christmas variant for 2 episodes, "Pokémon March" (ポケモン音頭(おんど), Pokémon Ondo) by Sachiko Kobayashi, Unshō Ishizuka and Kōichi Sakaguchi with an interlude by Shimai Niitsu, "Type: Wild" (タイプ：ワイルド, Taipu: Wairudo) by Rika Matsumoto for 12 episodes, and the English opening song is "Pokémon Theme" by Jason Paige. The anime-size version serves as the ending theme for 52 episodes, while its shortened version serves as the ending theme for 26 episodes.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Pokémon: Indigo League” is season of Pokémon. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Pokémon, Indigo and League, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3008252. The Library of Congress control number is no2018035376. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1997, 1999, 1998 and 2000.
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