It's Official: Japan Has Caught Em All😱
Pokémon's earth day events, new shirts, and a shocking shortage!
The Pokémon Chronicle
The Pokémon Chronicle brings you a weekly roundup of all the latest Pokémon news from Japan, and beyond.
Hi there Pokéfan. This week we have some big news covering Poké fashion, food, trading cards, and more!
Here’s what’s been going on:
🇯🇵 News From Japan and Beyond - Pokémon Go(‘s) sustainable, Scarlet & Violet Frappe’s, and scandelous scans.
📰 The Main Story - Japan Runs Out of Pokémon Cards
🧸 New Merch Alert - New Pokémon debut in plushie form, April 29th!
🥸 Who’s That Pokémon!? - can you figure it out?
🇯🇵 News From Japan and Beyond
Pokémon Go’s annual sustainability week is live from April 20 ~ 26 - the event, which runs every year to coincide with Earth Day (April 22nd), increases the number of grass and water-type Pokémon in the game. This will be players’ chance to catch Bounsweet, Drilbur, and the mythical Shaymin.
Be extra cool this summer with shady Pokémon shirt silhouette designs - Original Japan has released 20 new silhouette designs so you can order an extra-subtle but stylish Pokémon shirt. The designs are based on Kanto region monsters, including Jigglypuff, Vulpix, the legendary birds, and more.
Gotta slurp em all - Japanese convenience store chain Family Mart launches Pokémon Frappucinos based on the Scarlet and Violet starters. Each drink is uniquely flavored and colored around the starter Pokémon; Sprigatito’s is green grape flavored for example.
Scandalous scans of original Pokémon artwork surface - earlier this week a Pokémon archivist, Lewtwo, released original scans showing how Kanto and Johto Pokémon were supposed to look. The artwork reveals some startling things about, amongst other things, the color differences between the original concepts and the images that we know today.
📺 A new episode of the Pokémon Horizons anime dropped in Japan on Friday, April 21. This episode follows Riko in pursuit of her stolen Sprigatito.
📰 Main Story - Japan Runs Out of Pokémon Cards
This week, the official Pokémon Trading Card website in Japan posted a short, inconspicuous message. Despite being only 7 lines long, it revealed some shocking news.
Japanese collectors have seemingly caught all the Pokémon card stocks available in the country 😱. The message confirms that stocks of trading cards in Japan are running out, causing shortages.
A report on the matter from Kotaku, a video-game media site, suggests that the recent release of Scarlet and Violet booster packs Clay Burst and Snow Hazard may have contributed to a surge in demand. The new boosters, much like the video games, contain unique cards, meaning that collectors need to buy both packs to get all the cards in the sets. And they’ve wasted no time stocking up on as many packs as stores have room for, as the current shortage shows.
In the message on its website, the Pokémon Card company apologized to fans and committed to doing its best to restore the supply of cards ASAP.
A silver lining to the story is that the demand for Pokémon cards in Japan is hotter than ever, a testimony to the extraordinary power of this beloved brand.
🧸 Merch Alert
Brand new Pokémon plushies are making their debut in Pokémon Centers across Japan on April 29th.
The new lineup of Paldean plushies includes Paldean Whooper, Fidough, and Cetitan. If you’re in Japan, you can pick one up for ¥2,200 ($18 USD).
🥸 Who’s that Pokémon?
We’ll share the answer and a new Poké-puzzle in next week’s newsletter. If you think you know the answer, hit reply to this email and let us know.
* the answer to last week’s puzzle is🥁🥁🥁Terapagos!
That’s all folks
See you next week for another roundup of the latest Poké-news from Japan and around the world.
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