The show originally followed Ash Ketchum, a young trainer of fictional creatures called Pokémon. In the international broadcasts, these series are split across 26 seasons.

The anime franchise consists of eight sequential series in Japan, each based on a main installment of the Pokémon video game series. Pokémon, abbreviated from the Japanese title of Pocket Monsters, and currently branded in English as Pokémon the Series, is a Japanese anime television series, part of The Pokémon Company's Pokémon media franchise, which premiered on TV Tokyo in April 1997.