https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r0_F-_ClcQ

My Nintendo DS is all charged up and ready to go, so I lock up the house, grab my bike, and start pumping the pedals for the town over. It’s a beautiful day to be in Hawaiʻi nei, sun shining, sky blue with skirting clouds – it will probably rain later, but no matter, I’ll be inside.

When I arrive I walk right in, say hi to any aunties or uncles present, make sure to say hi to gramma and grampa – we always meet at my best friend’s grandpa’s house.

The living room is a mess of cables, fans, screens and high schoolers. Their faces aren’t too glued to their Poké-battles to say hi.

I find a free spot on a couch or a piece of floor, boot up my Pokémon game and join in.

That day was just one of many that I spent lazing on the floor, eating musubi and playing Pokémon with my friends. It’s just one of the many perfectly average days I spent as a kid, days that, while not that far away for a young person such as myself, still fill me with happy nostalgia.

I was one of the lucky kids who really got to grow up with Pokémon. My mom fondly remembers my older brother and I not fighting – because our Pokémon were doing it for us! He got Red, I got Blue. He got Gold, I got Silver. I’ve chosen the Water type starter all my life, and always gotten the game version I considered to be more “blue” than “red,” in order to continue my theme.

After years of playing in the foreign lands of Pokémon, I was utterly blown away by the Japanese trailer for the newest game, Pokémon Sun and Moon, which is set on the island of “Alola.”

The trailer shows a young Japanese boy who has just moved to, you guessed it, Hawaiʻi. With the language barrier and likely a lot of culture shock, the boy has trouble connecting with his classmates until the newest Pokémon game is released.

It shows the group of youngsters crowding around a beach park bench, connecting over a shared love of Pokémon and I’ll be honest, I almost cried, because the feeling I got from that scene was so real.

Pokémon has been such a huge part of how I met people and interacted with friends and family that it’s hard not to get emotional now that Pokémon is also making itself a part of where I came from.

I’m immensely excited to see what Pokémon has done with this island of Alola, and I hope that it’s filled with as much aloha as the name suggests.

Pokémon Sun and Moon’s release date is Nov. 18, 2016.

But, I gotta pick one dumb lookin’ seal to follow tradition. Some lōlō designed that. Auwe.