Welcome Andy. For 1996 and 1997 you can just go off the set lists, and buy cards that match those correctly. Not saying someone couldn’t potentially create good looking fakes of those cards, but as of yet I haven’t personally seen any out there.
Fakes are usually either just bogus cards that aren’t on any set list so are easy to avoid, or are the ones that PSA and BGS in their negligence have fallen for themselves; which is the cards that are usually 1998/99 carddass animation cards with a bogus holo sticker over the front. The scam is about getting PSA to find a spot in the registry for the card, by using the back of the card and its branding as a reference. Like one I saw in a PSA slab sell for over $1K on ebay recently. Apparently they don’t always look at the cards they’re supposed to be grading they just look at the back and assume the front is real even though pidgey and ash are on the back and charizard is on the front; they just labeled it as the same set number as the ash and pidgey card smh.
You can see examples of fakes in the thread link below.
www.elitefourum.com/t/carddass-pocket-monsters-pokemon-anime-collection/29374/1