the
I
Oh
I
On a new adventure
No one knows where the road will take us
We're ready, set, cause now it's time to go
Maybe we can finally see
Who we're meant to be
We're ready, set, cause we're ready
Every journey, your heart's filled with love
Now we've got some side to glory
Together you and I will touch the stars
And then, if you and I are over again
Cause even if we lose our way
Do what we say
Can we go?
Can we go again?
And did it better than last time?
Can we go?
Can we go again?
When there's less than a lot of time
Today, we're gonna win
From our hands
We're gonna get
Oh, yeah
Corrupts the mood, your face sticks
Follow us on a path to the unknown
Still in trouble, we're gonna win this
See when we're walking big, true love
And then, what's gonna win our love again?
We'll see that every win of the day
You know we say
Here we go
We go again
There is nothing left
We go again
Here we go again
Let me last in my time
If you want to be the way you are now and then
So we go
So we go again
Hello trainers and good morning
To start things off, we are about to take you on a musical journey from the past through the present.
Celebrating 30 years of Pokémon, we'll start today by bringing you the great music of Kanto.
I'm your conductor, Charlie Rosen, and we are the 8-Bit Big Band.
Thank you so much. Please enjoy.
I
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Well, that journey through Kanto was actually only just the start of our program this morning,
Trainers.
Join me as we travel across generations to celebrate the amazing 30-year legacy of Pokemon.
Thank you so much.
Thank you!
I'm not a good guy.
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the 2026 Pokemon World Championships and Pokemon XP.
Well, Radha, let's give it up one more time for our fabulous dancers and the eight-bit big band.
I mean, come on. No matter when you first discovered Pokemon, I hope hearing those meddlies from our orchestra
transported you back to some happy and cheerful memories.
Hi, I'm Gabby Durden. I'm your host for this weekend's festivities.
And just like you I've loved Pokemon since I was a small child forming my first score memories
So I'm beyond honored to be here on this stage coming alive from San Francisco, California
This weekend is extra special for all of us one part of our event commemorates the hard work of our trainers as they
conclude their journey to become world champions across four types.
Pokemon Champions,
the Pokemon Trading Card Game,
Pokemon Go,
and Pokemon Unites.
And, and, and, even more adventure awaits
with our first ever Pokemon XP,
where we couldn't be more excited for you
to join us for activities, panels, attractions,
and much more throughout the weekend.
All right, two incredible events.
One unforgettable weekend.
And you better believe we're gonna make sure
it's one for the record books.
But I think we should get things started, shall we?
It is my pleasure to introduce to the stage
to the stage, the president and CEO of the Pokemon Company, Mr. Tsunekazu Ishihara!
Hello, trainers.
and welcome to the 2026 Pokemon World Championships and Pokemon XP.
First, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone gathered here today,
as well as all of you from around the world joining us online.
I'm really delighted that we can all be here together on Pokemon 30th Anniversary.
I'm really delighted that we can all be here on Pokemon 30th Anniversary.
Whether you're here to compete for the title of World Champion,
or you come with family and friends to enjoy Pokemon XP,
I'm truly delighted that we can all be here together on Pokemon 30th Anniversary.
We are going to have a lot of fun this weekend.
We are looking forward to the end of this weekend.
for many years to come.
And to all the competitors who have battled their way here,
truly your hard work, passion, and determination
inspire future trainers to dream of one day standing on this very stage.
You truly represent both an aspiration and a source of hope for the next generation.
Just by being here today, you are helping pass those dreams onto the future.
Take pride in that and enjoy every moment of the competition.
if you give it your best to the very end.
And with that, I wish you all the best of luck in your battles.
Thank you, Mr. Ishihara, for setting the stage, oh, so beautifully.
I can feel the energy in this room.
I can sense the excitement to compete.
More than 2,000 trainers have descended upon San Francisco
to test their skills and fight with all their might
to become the next Pokemon World Champion.
Competitors, the time has come.
Please make your way over to the play tables
to kick off your matches.
And before we get into the action, our casters are prepped to walk you through everything
in store this weekend.
So everybody, let the 2026 Pokemon World Championships begin!
Hello and welcome to the first ever Pokemon XP.
We are thrilled to be bringing you all the action live here from Root Place A Road.
I'm Anna Prosser, joined by Rachel, Glitter and Josh.
Good morning y'all.
Good morning.
We're so excited to be here.
We hope you're here with us and you get to experience everything that's going on
here at Pokemon XP.
And if you're not or whether you want to keep an eye on everything going on,
we will be bringing you all of the action here live streamed as well from the desk.
We are all so stoked to be here at the first ever Pokemon XP and we want to tell you all about what's going on here today
So the way it's gonna work here at our desk is we're gonna talk to a few really cool people
We're gonna tell you about a few really cool things
We're gonna drop a few codes and we're also gonna show you a lot of the panels that are going on here at Pokemon XP
So we'll chat with you and then today you'll get to see behind-the-scenes with Ardman Pokemon Tales
The Misadventures of Surfetched and Pichu will also have Spotlight on Pokemon Pokopia,
Pokemon TCG, the making of full-art card illustrations, 30 years of Pokemon celebrating
past, present, and future, and Pokemon TCG Pocket, cards, creators, and clashes from
B-Series to what's next. So, if you stay tuned here, you're going to see those today as well
as a few times that we've gone running around to see what's going on so we can show you
you what it's like to be here. In fact, I think Josh, you got to walk around
Recraza Road today.
Oh, I did. And it was a blast. And it's so great to see so many people here
celebrating 30 years of Pokemon and to everybody watching at home. There is so
much to celebrate. And there's a lot for me to catch up on as well.
Yeah, I am an OG 151 fan and it has been phenomenal to see not only the
different types of Pokemon that are available, but just the old school
Pokemon being represented and as folks will know you is my favorite so it's
great to see some you in the mix as well. That's actually a great segue to we we
got at least just a little moment to talk about our favorite Pokemon memory
before we get started with the day so Josh do you have a favorite? Oh I do it's
okay I got a number of them but I'm gonna pick one and that's gonna be. We get to tell ours too so you guys do lose a one.
Pokemon Go. I'm playing in downtown Burbank. I'm walking around burning
some calories and I just so happen to see a friend of mine I haven't seen
years. Shout out to Joey Lefeter and we were so ecstatic to see each other we
decided to grab some dinner talk about life and so it was really bringing old
friends back together and I'll never forget that moment.
What about you?
Okay for me, I feel like this might end up making that this is my very first
Pokemon event ever so just one thank you for having me but if we're talking
about memories it might have to be the first time I ever went to Japan
and got to actually experience a Pokemon Center in person.
I mean, I've been a fan my entire life,
but being able to kind of experience that first hand
and be fully immersed in the world like that
is just something I will never forget.
Absolutely.
What about you, Rachel?
Oh, Pokemon and I go way, way back.
I was that perfect age when Pokemon came out
where I was like, I'm gonna be a trainer.
That's my career choice.
Oh, my parents, so wonderful,
drove me all over the state of New Jersey
a Pokemon League at Toys R Us, to the mall tours to see the Pikachu Beetle back in the
day, and I've been on board ever since, so to be here today and to be hosting next to
you Anna, the Pokemon Queen in my life, what a special tree we've got.
Yeah, Rachel and I go way back hosting things in eSports and actually my favorite memory
has to be Pokemon Worlds.
My first time ever was here in San Francisco and I know that that's kind of a very
specific Pokemon memory but sitting here in that nostalgia right now feels so cool
and getting to have another first doing Pokemon XP so I'm feeling I'm feeling a
little emotional today it's really exciting for each other and all of the
energy of everyone just being here together loving the same thing is just
so cool it's contagious and the whole city has been so welcoming and so
lovely the entire time so huge shout out to San Francisco everybody that's
help make this possible. Yeah. And we also want to hear from you. We want to hear what
you're up to here at Pokemon XP or what you like seeing at Pokemon XP. So don't forget
that you can use the hashtag Pokemon XP in order to chat with us wherever you post social
media. We'll be keeping an eye out for your posts and your photos and maybe share some
of them. You feel really good. To Joshua's point, Pokemon XP and Pokemon Worlds has
spilled out into the city. We saw trucks yesterday advertising our Boater garbage
pickups, there's advertisements on every bus stop. It really does feel the Pokemon
world has kind of expanded out and so if you're out there wherever you are in the
world, we would love to know what your Pokemon XP experiences like. Send us how
you are celebrating because it's a global celebration this year. We also, as I
mentioned, have a few things for you if you're watching and one of the first
is coming up right now and that is that we have a Pokopia Island code for
you. Now, if you're not familiar with Pokopia, Glitter, I saw you playing yesterday.
I've been able to put it down, I'm not gonna lie. I haven't been, it's absolutely obsessed.
Yeah? I believe that we're actually, oh there it is, there's the code, we're
able to show it to you. And this is, Pokopia is a cozy game, it's for you to
sit down and make a life with Pokémon on your island playing as Ditto. And
you can use this Cloud Island password, whether you're here at Pokémon XP
or at home and you can visit an island that is themed for Pokemon XP and World.
I have not seen it yet and I am so excited. I cannot wait to see what they have.
Gooder, what about you?
I think that's going to be what I'm doing. As soon as we are done today, I'm going to be inputting
the code and making sure that I get everything added into my account ASAP.
I know. I'm hoping that there's like some special items or something like that.
I don't want your stardust. You're going to want to make your stars.
So Pokemon has been taking feedback from the community about what Pokemon they're going
on the islands. Yeah, I have been hoarding my stardust. I am so ready for everything that might be there.
So also remember that DLC part one is available now. Bubble Basin is out for Pocopia. I've been
really enjoying that. And DLC part two is coming in late 2026. So if you have already picked up
and put down Pocopia, now is a great time to pick it back up. Who are you hoping is on the
the island Rachel. I'm hoping we get to see the EV evolutions there. I like so much gathering
them all together. That was a big special thing I did on my Palatown Island and I know it
just really makes it when you see all the EV evolutions in one big pile. That was absolutely
a major goal of mine. It was getting all of those EV evolutions and a fun thing in
the game is that you have to find these special treats to give them in order for
them to appear and I felt very motivated to do it.
I couldn't believe how well the treats matched the Pokemon and I do hope some creative Pokemon
community members out there have maybe re-traded those in real life.
If so, that would be a great send on the Pokemon XP hashtag.
I want to see all your Pokemon inspired snacks if that's possible.
I mean, and the opportunity for all of the new builds.
In water!
Uh huh.
I mean, like this is a completely different terrain than what you've been working
with in Pokopia so far.
So that's arguably one of the most exciting parts because if you've been looking at the
custom builds of Pocopia community has been managing to put together, they are literally
works of art.
So I can't wait to see what all of the people who specialize in building come up with in
this new dream.
I've been having this experience of Pokemon that in the past I've kind of been like,
ah, for me, that in Pocopia when they just show up a lot, they happen to be around,
I start loving them. Kramerant has been a completely new discovery for me. I have a whole Kramerant page in my TCG collection binder, just the no thoughts open eyes.
I've come to love them so much. Is there any Pokemon that have surprised you recently that have been like, I wasn't paying much attention to this Pokemon, but now there's something special about them?
Well, Rayquaza is one. I've definitely gotten to know a lot more for sure. And like I said, there's so much for me to catch up on, but this is a wonderful opportunity for anybody to jump into
This game with this code and to have a little bit more of that
I'm gonna enjoy my day. It'd be a lazy Sunday where it's raining outside
Perfect opportunity to dive in up but for those of you that want maybe a little bit more action
I want to get out of the house a lot of different options out there in the world of video games when it comes to Pokemon
But super excited to see all these different opportunities and other codes are gonna be available throughout our broadcasts
So people can definitely stay tuned for
Any Pokemon that are coming to mind for you guys surprises recently that have been showing up for you
I never thought that I would like Pelliper.
Yes.
No!
I do!
I just can't get enough of the cuteness of Pelliper.
Mm-hmm.
That might have to do with the show as well, but...
True.
Any comment to mine for you, Rachel?
It was a slow creep, but I looked down one day and I was like,
gosh, I sure own a whole bunch of Slowpoke.
Um, I think this might be one of my favorites, and of course, Impocopia.
Such a guy.
Such a little guy.
Just a guy.
Yeah.
You brought a plushie.
I actually just, since we have plushies coming out, I also, I have my favorite little,
I need to go get my mind-shot.
Dragon who's not a dragon, my stretchy tattoo gear.
You had a plush in your hands, you still have it in me?
I do.
She's down here.
Hold on.
She's exploring space.
Boom.
Sorry, Glitter.
We didn't give you the memo.
I'd like to see my bag.
I think you have my munchie.
I don't want to do that during the break.
In fact, we actually have a video coming up, so we'll throw to that in just a moment.
And that video is behind us, UC Rayquaza Road.
There's a whole area here that has been themed for Pokémon.
So many cool places to take photos, things to look at, ways to celebrate Pokémon.
And Josh, you got to walk around and do that.
I know we're going to watch the video in a second, but any thoughts before we do?
This is a special place in order for us to be right here in the heart of San Francisco
And to see this little friend everywhere that is part of the Pokemon XP.
So let's go ahead and take a look.
Let's do it!
We are here at Reqlaezer Road where 50,000 people from around the world are ready to celebrate 30 years of Pokemon.
Let's go ahead and check it out.
Check it out.
We have taken over this entire street where you can showcase or see the showcase of everything
Pokemon happening here over the entire weekend.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we're going to be live, twitch.tv slash Pokemon XP where
you can tune in and get those coveted Twitch drops.
But right here, we want to showcase this brand new car.
Well, it's brand new to me, but this is fantastic.
Is it electric powered?
That's the question we're going to be asking everybody on Twitch.
As we mosey on over here, we got popcorn and water for free for everybody.
That's right.
Water and popcorn free for everybody.
Making sure that you got your sustenance because you got to make sure that you get
what you need because we're going to be outside.
We're outside here on Marquiza Road.
A nice little lounge here over to the left, over to the right, allowing people just
to relax and enjoy their day here in beautiful San Francisco
because there is so much to do at this event.
We have pretty much taken over downtown San Francisco
and it's gonna be a blast.
So we also host a beautiful photo booth here.
There will be a line.
Plenty of people taking photos
in front of this beautiful mural.
Then over on this side is gonna be the stage.
This is where myself and our wonderful team of hosts
We're gonna be talking about everything
when it comes to Pokemon.
We got interviews with developers, artists,
creatives from around the world.
They're gonna be showcasing what makes Pokemon Pokemon.
30 years is definitely something to celebrate
and it's taken a huge effort across
an international team of very talented artists.
As we move a little bit further,
we got Team Blue versus Team Red.
That's Blastoise versus Charizard.
So you get to choose which team are you on.
I want to know which team are you fighting for?
Now right behind me, we have the trolley,
beautiful looking trolley, really a very nice tribute
to San Francisco, a beautiful city
that has really welcomed every fan of Pokemon with open arms.
And right behind me, we have our friends from Santa Cruz who will be showcasing these beautiful
skateboard decks along with a couple cool tricks.
We've seen a lot of tricks so far here for our preview night.
We're looking forward to seeing a lot of activity in this section and some major grinders.
Take a look at that pokeball.
All right, follow me.
There's way more to check out.
I'm not even halfway done.
And they will be hosting some tours
and a couple of special presentations,
so make sure to tune in as we showcase
other elements that are happening right here,
live at Requizal Road.
This entire convention center is full.
50,000 people are here to celebrate 30 years
of the video games, the anime, the card game
and everything in between.
And it looks like we got some LEGO stuff happening.
Let's go check it out.
Over to my left. We have a building center for Lego with instructions so kids can put together the basin and build from there
Now this is going to be quite a treat everybody
There is going to be a big Pokemon that's gonna be put together right over here
And that's gonna be happening throughout the entire weekend
So make sure to tune in and check out the progress and hopefully by Sunday. It's gonna be complete and look fantastic
Fantastic. Well, I get to help maybe a little bit
But I want to make sure that I don't knock it down with my clumsy self
But shout out to lego very excited to see all these different characters gonna be coming to life
Hi everybody, you know who this is behind me you can take a picture and right here. I requase the road
Now right around the corner
We do have the gardens which features a number of different activities for all our folks that love to be
outdoors. We're having a blast here at Pokemon XP and we know you are too. Another opportunity
for people to pose. Behind me is the stage where we're going to have a DJ and other special
presentations happening right here on this road to help celebrate everything Pokemon
and further down we got a couple cute stuff you definitely want to check out. Now this
This is one of my favorite showcases here at Pokemon XP.
It's one of the cutest things I've ever seen in my entire life.
Now how do they stay in the carriage?
That's a secret that I'll let everybody know at the end of the day on Sunday.
And here on the opposite side of our Quasar Road we have Krabby's Cove where folks can
enjoy live music and other special presentations.
We look forward to seeing so many people here celebrate Pokemon and we look forward to
bringing it to you live on Twitch.tv.
Pokemon XP.
We'll see you online.
Josh, that was fun.
Did you enjoy yourself?
I did and it's really crazy to see what that road was like
towards the end of preview night compared to today
where it's just almost absolutely full.
So there's lounges, there's great cafes, sandwich shops,
so people can get that substance they need
because there is gonna be plenty to do this entire weekend.
Have you too gotten a chance
to explore Rayquaza Road at all yet?
A bit, yeah.
Yeah, we were wondering around together yesterday
and I was really looking to see Pikachu.
That's my goal, so I haven't managed it yet.
You haven't seen Pikachu yet?
We'll have to fix that.
I'm really excited.
There's a stage called the Worf Stage,
way, way back behind us,
and there's going to be some musical acts there.
In fact, Toasty Marcinello,
who was part of the opening ceremony last year,
who was on the soundtrack that I got to sing with,
she's going to be performing there, I think,
in one of the shows,
so I'm gonna try to catch that between things.
But I'm really excited about the presence of music,
and we had even the dancers
and the amazing orchestra in the opening ceremony.
What are you guys looking forward to,
whether it's music related or otherwise?
I think music is a great shout and a music has always been part of Pokemon's history
And I think there's so many iconic musical scores and just little folks that you can pick up on you know the generation
You know what town you just walked into so to have music be such a central part of the celebration here
Pokemon XP makes a lot of sense
I am still jamming out to the song that you and Nate wants to battle put out last year
but we had so many great songs that came in the official soundtrack this year and
And yeah, there's a lot to enjoy if you're right in the Pokemon community because you get the first access to a lot of that
Shout out to here. We go again the new Nate wants to battle song on the same right song here that you heard during the opening video
It was amazing
I'm responsible for it
There are some uncredited background vocals on that song
You may have heard but miss jigglypuff, but enough about me and my really talented husband
What about you?
What are you looking forward to, Glitter?
Or what music is exciting for you here?
I mean, I'm on board just for the fact
that we're hearing the music in a totally different or like
orchestral setting.
So I think that's really fun because anytime you
take video game music and kind of make it this grand
production, it's gorgeous.
It's beautiful.
It's entertaining.
And it like it hits you in the feels.
I want to be listening to that all day.
I don't know.
Can we get them to play?
Just like constant background music running
So we can enjoy that. And also I have questions for Josh about the yoga pose.
Oh, at the end of that, like we were, we were hitting,
hitting yoga poses off the entire weekend.
I mean, you got the great music,
get a little bit of yoga and you got the inspiration of Pikachu.
So with everything all together,
it really does create a concentration of celebration.
But I think for me this morning,
it definitely was listening to the soundtrack, the old school music and just to,
as you said, feel the instruments in the same room,
but also the energy of the crowd.
And last night, we had a small presentation
from some of the representatives from the city
and from Pokemon, and to see a lot of the staff members
that got to take a peek at everything
that we're going to be hosting today,
you could feel the energy really start
to build until the end of the night
until now we've opened up the doors to everybody else.
So everything really makes a big difference
when you get to do it live.
And for those of you that can join us here live,
we're happy to have you here to watch our broadcast.
And we're going to give you even more sneak peeks
and a tour of different booths and different developers
and have some great interviews,
so we hope you stick around all weekend long.
Speaking of that, we kind of breezed through
the day one schedule of panels.
We told you what's gonna be on,
but I wanna hear from you all
what you're most excited to see today,
or rather to show our audience today,
since a lot of you have gotten those sneak peeks already.
Do I get to go first?
Yeah, go.
I cannot wait for everybody to see the Lego booth.
Yeah.
And I'm very excited about the Lego booth.
I know Josh is excited about the Lego booth as well.
If you haven't seen the Pokemon Lego that's happened,
those sets are insanely cool.
I won't spoil why we're going to talk about it later,
or you'll see it if you're walking around on the show floor,
but they are unlike any Lego set you've ever seen.
Yeah, and that's going to be the teaser.
Oh, okay.
I'm really hyped up now.
I thought I knew what you were talking about,
but I think you know more than any of us right now.
The glitter in your eyes, as you're saying this,
I'm so excited.
What about you, Rachel?
But you know, when Pokemon Go fan, I mean, when Pokemon Go came out, that was a life-changing
year and I've been playing ever since.
It's been such like a great thing to add to my life.
I'm outdoors more.
I'm active.
I love the community.
And I got to go down to the Pokemon Go booth and catch up with Kastro, who's the senior
community manager down there and they had so much interesting stuff that's coming
out during the year.
They're doing so much for the community.
So if you're a big Pokemon Go fan, or you're thinking about getting into it
maybe. It's a great place to stop for some information and they have a really really cool booth.
Yeah. What about you Josh? Anything else to shout out today that you're excited for people to see?
Pinball. Yeah, pinball machines are going to be showcasing a little bit later and when it comes
to old school gaming, pinball is just one of those elements that folks like us are like,
you know what? Let me stand for a little bit and see what high score I can get in this
machine. So I'm excited to work with a couple influencers and one of the game devs for the
pinball machine from Stern and there are a number of different elements when it comes to pinball
that you would think wouldn't be that intricate just by glancing at it but the mechanics and the
strategy of trying to understand what's the best move that I can make with gravity working against
you the entire time I'm always excited to see what type of design goes behind those machines
and how these players can get the high school question yes uh fan of pokemon pinball here
rumble pack old-school Game Boy. How would you say the experience relates?
I would say almost one-to-one.
Oh, well, yeah. I'm sold.
Yeah, they've captured the same spirit, so.
I'm with the native pinball machine.
I am very excited today because I got a sneak peek at the 30th celebration booth for the
Pokemon TCG.
Oh.
And I'm really curious what footage they're going to use because there was quite a
lot of it that was just me kind of going, ah!
I think you yourself reported that you you tried a little bit upon entering the booth
I did not expect that I it'll be really interesting to see if that makes it in the video
But we walked in and I was so overwhelmed with the love and care and honor that was given to some of this artwork that
I have come to love so much and that I'm so excited to see and to celebrate
So I did get really excited and I'm really excited for all of you to see it
And we also have a panel today the making of full-art card illustrations
Which I'm really excited to watch because I don't know a whole lot about that process other than what I learned at the booth
And you know what I see on the cards, so I'm really excited to see that
I think that's a testament to Pokemon in general for the last 30 years to see the care the love the
artistry the talent all poured into
Everything that makes Pokemon and this stems back to one of my favorite stories about the history of Pokemon when they were making the animated show
So, they had everybody that was involved play the game.
So they could really understand what the world was.
And as they move forward with the story
and to highlight certain Pokemon,
but not to make it to where the people
that had purchased the original Pokemon games
were like left out, no.
They really created a world
and this world has really stood the test of time.
And it's so great to see that same level of care
and energy and emotion and artistry.
And yeah, some of us may get a little bit verklempt
when we're experiencing that.
I think I will maybe have a couple of tears
at the end of Sunday night.
watching the championships, but it's a testament to really see all of this different artwork
and energy for these many years exhibited here.
I really think that's what feels special so far to me about Pokemon XP is just getting
to be around a bunch of people who are here just because they love the same thing.
You know, I feel like that's a really special feeling in gaming and in fandom.
Yeah, well, we talked about being fans of it from very early on for all of us,
but even if you step away from the fandom for a little bit, I always find it's a
great time.
better time in fact to get involved in Pokemon. Every year there's a new way to play, a game that
supports a new interest or experience and the community grows and grows. I think my favorite
thing that I've seen over these last 30 years is how it's become a generational fandom. You have
grandparents, you have parents, you have kids involved, you have little babies and little Pikachu
outfits. I think that Pokemon has given us so much as examples to move through the world
and be kind to each other and interact with each other that it's really become an incredible
space to come into, more than a game, more than an animated series or anything.
So I'm going to be the huge Pokémon lord and history fan on the desk here today.
I'm going to try and keep it contained, but I'm getting reclaimed just thinking about
how much kindness Pokémon has modeled throughout the years that its fan base has really picked
up and carried into the world.
My nephews and niece are here for the first time.
You know, I've been doing this for a while and they were just born the oldest
when I started doing this.
And I was like, this is a starter Pokemon.
Your first partner.
This is Pop Leo.
Here's some cards.
Put them on the floor.
You like these.
And so now they're here for the first time.
And I'm so proud to get to show them this.
And honestly, coming to Pokemon XP
for their first experience, they were like, what do we do?
And I was like, don't worry.
You'll get here and you'll know.
What to do.
We only have a little bit more time
before we get into our next panel.
We may have time to play a game,
But before we do, I just want to make sure that we have some time glitter to talk about what you saw with Ardman.
Yes, so that's going to be the first panel coming up.
But I'm really excited for this because I am a fan of every series that's ever come out for Pokemon.
And I think this new one with Ardman is going to be such a pleasant,
different version of what people would expect out of an animated series when it comes to Pokemon.
obviously Pokemon Tales, The Misadventures of Surfetched and Pichu.
This is classic stop motion claymation animation.
That makes sense for everybody at home.
It is, if you've seen the teaser trailer,
the teaser trailer already, it's beautiful.
It's going to have that quirky sense of cuteness and comedy
that kind of comes along with traditional art work.
And I think that it is the most perfect collaboration
doing this with Pokemon.
I mean, what better set of characters
to be working with on a show to do that type, that style
of animation to begin with.
And there is a booth here kind of celebrating that.
And one of the cool things you can see at the booth
is that there is like a display, not in clay,
but essentially kind of to that scale
to illustrate what they were doing in creating this show.
you can kind of see surfetched and Pichu and the size of what they were working with in creating the show.
There's also a photo opportunity with surfetched and Pichu. Super cute.
And I think it's just really fun to check out because I think if you are a fan of any of the series that had happened over the last 30 years,
then you definitely want to check this out because it's going to be completely different than what you would have expected.
I'm so excited to see that. I feel like seeing Pokemon in different mediums is something that I've really enjoyed over the years.
And I feel like that's also seeing this stop motion
animation behind the scenes.
I feel like that's always fascinated me as a child,
now as an adult.
Is that, do you feel the same way?
Yes, because if you think about the amount of time
and effort that goes into, here's the shot,
we move the clay.
Here's the shot, we move, this is a labor of love
in order to make something that high quality,
that enjoyable, that beautiful.
It is so many people pouring their souls into this work,
and we are going to reap the benefits of that,
just by getting to consume the media.
Absolutely.
And it reminds me of the memories
of seeing the first animated film in theaters,
and what that meant to a lot of us of, like,
this is something that's really serious here
for the Western audience, and to see that continue to grow.
And I know, Rachel, you have a great memory
from watching the film as well.
Oh, gosh.
You can remember being in the theater.
We're talking about Me Too Strikes Back,
that first movie that came out and as Pikachu ran up the spiral staircase dodging those
YouTube Pokeballs the kid behind me was going run Pikachu run and if you're out there buddy
I think about you once a week so please like let me know hit me up on the Pokemon XP hashtag
I just want to know you're doing well but from that movies debut like it really showed
Pokemon's power to move us with stories so many iconic quotes from that to carry
on the tradition all the way now to this claimation media.
There have been the poke tunes.
There are so many.
I know you're a fan of them all.
So I'm listening them to you, Glitter, but so many great different
one here on stories told in the world.
Twilight Wings was incredible.
Pokemon Generations.
Keep going.
I'm a big fan and I'm so interested in the panel
for so many reasons.
But I want to know why surfaced?
Why Pichu?
Like you said, there's so many Pokemon available,
so many characters in the world.
There's got to be a great reason they ended up with these two.
I'm hoping it's because they're adorable.
I mean, they're going to be wandering the wilds of Galar.
They are going to be getting themselves
into some misadventures through their attempts
to help and protect fellow Pokémon.
So it, I mean, I don't even know what the storylines
are going to be, but I can already imagine
what could possibly ensue.
I love misadventures.
Like what makes something a misadventure
as opposed to just an adventure?
I'm very excited to see.
We only have a few more minutes before that panel,
but instead of just dropping you off
and letting you wait for that panel,
why don't we play a little game?
Why don't we make fools of ourselves for their amusement?
What do you think?
I mean, this is a classic Pokemon desk game
where I will give one of us a whiteboard and pens,
and you will do your best to from memory draw a Pokemon
and try to get us to guess which one it is.
And you're going to start for us as an example, right,
All right. And this is funny too because we're not even gonna pick from a hat. We're
gonna just let us choose. So let's see what I can do here. Are you ready? Okay. Ooh,
which color? Color is important. It's already an important decision being made. Arcanine.
9. Charizard, Amanda. Oh, come on. There we go.
Oh, Scholio Pete.
Oh. Huntail.
Wait, this is actually... Rayquaza.
That's gonna make go to it. Let's see. These are big... Wait, I can't see anything.
Gyarados! Yes! But it's a shiny one.
It's a shiny, it's a shiny Gyarados, that's why the color was important, yeah.
Alright, do we have time for one more?
I think we do.
I don't hate the Huntail Shout or the Electrosha, you know, they were really scary Gyarados.
That's actually pretty good.
You're just gonna burn and ate somebody's ice.
Alright, who wants to go next?
Now that I have broken the ice.
Oh, if you want to pass over to me, I'll give it a shot.
Okay.
Uh, would you like all the colors or a particular color?
I will just take the black.
OK, OK, OK.
OK.
Good clue.
Umbreon.
Black or white is it?
Umbreon.
Shiny.
All right.
All right, we've got a little bit of wind here.
So we're going to try to keep our papers down.
Thank you.
OK, all right.
Here we go, folks.
We're watching.
Boltzorp.
What?
So what was this?
Uh, I'm looking at Magnum.
G.O.D.! G.O.D.!
Yes!
Wow!
Wait, hold on. I don't even think...
Did the audience at all get this?
Did they? Yeah.
And she guessed G.O.D.
You're welcome.
You know her so much.
This is why Claire is here.
Yes.
Well, with that, we are ready to send you off to our next panel.
That's going to be behind the scenes with
future we hope you enjoy.
And we are back.
Okay everybody, thank you for joining us here.
Are you ready to make history?
Are you ready for the first Pokemon XP panel?
That's right.
Are you ready to hear about the Ardman animated series,
Pokemon Tales, The Misadventures of Surfex and Pichu?
I am too. Very excited for this panel. Please welcome to the stage Phil Rindon.
Thank you Joe. Wow. How's it going everyone? So exciting. We're thrilled to be able to share a real early look at a new project from the
Pokemon Company International, The Misadventures of Surfech and Pichu.
This is a comedy adventure series and it's told from the perspective of Pokemon, so we're
going to give you a little bit more sense of what that really means.
It's produced in stop-motion animation or stop-frame animation, so you're going to
learn a little bit more about that process.
And it's produced in partnership with the incredible team at Ardhaman Animation
Studios in Bristol, England.
You might know their work from Sean the Sheep, Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Grime.
Yes, they're the best. It's my pleasure to introduce them on stage.
We've got some of the team members with us. First up is our director, Tom Parkinson.
Next up is Nat McKay, Ardman's Creative Director of Development.
And he just arrived just off the airplane, our head of puppets, Jimmy Young.
He's got his suitcase so he made it in time.
All right, let's have a seat.
Thanks.
I'm happy you made it, Jimmy.
Just all for fun.
Well, before we get into the show a little bit, why don't you guys explain a little bit about your roles and what you do on the show?
So, Tom, why don't you start?
So, yeah, I'm Tom Parkinson. I'm the series director.
I'm also one of the writers on the show and
Actually, one of the people that has kind of developed this from its very infancy since if it's a wee baby like three years ago
I guess
So yeah, I've sort of developed it with the team at Ardman
And how about yourself now? So hi, I'm Nat Mackay
I work as creative director in the development team at Ardman and I also have been working on developing this show
Also one of the writers with Tom and a few other people. So yeah doing it for I think it's four years four years
And Jimmy I'm yeah, so I'm puppet great lead I lead a team of excellent puppet makers
And we are in charge of making all the puppets for the show so cool
And I think I just got to ask a big you know important question
Who are your favorite Pokemon?
Who is my favorite Pokemon? Who's your favorite Pokemon time? Well apart from the two
Heroes of our show my favorite Pokemon is Appleton
Oh, yeah. Good one.
You know, no reasons other than they're made of apple pie.
And it's a dragon. I mean, I love dragons and I love apple pies, so what's not to love?
That's a good one. And how about yourself, Nat?
So I guess mine's probably a bit of an obvious choice, but it's how I started with Pokemon,
and it was my star's Pokemon, so mine is Charminder.
Oh, yeah.
Obvious, you know, every Pokemon has great choice.
Jimmy, last one please.
It's got to be LaChunx for me. Love the chill thighs.
That's what I'm all about, just chilling.
That's a great trio. It's a good pick.
Well, before we get into some of the creative,
we're really excited to give you all a very first look
at our teaser that is being premiered right now in this moment
when I click this button.
So let's give it a look. Here we go, everybody.
Everybody
Hmm
Pokemon tales the misadventures of
Looks looks amazing and we are thrilled to
Announce that Disney Plus is our exclusive
Global Streaming Partner will be the home for this show available for everybody in
2027
Thrilled to see it on Disney Plus. So exciting really cool for everyone to get to get to see this show
That was a real tease Tom so will you give everyone like a little bit of a kind of a taste of what this show is really about
Yeah, I'll give you the overview. It's some it's a comedy adventure series. It's a stock friend show like you said
but it follows our heroes, Sofecht and Pichu, a gallant knight and a trusty squire on a kind of medieval quest around the region of Galar.
This is going to be all set in Galar. And these two guys are questing and their aim is to protect and serve and to help any Pokémon in need.
We've kind of given it this kind of medieval twist.
It does definitely feel like a knight in squire kind of show.
As I said, it's set in Galar, which is cool.
There's loads of cool locations there that we can explore.
And each episode, they kind of encounter a new Pokemon or a group of Pokemon
and kind of get involved in adventures and capers and hijinks with those other Pokemon.
One of the unique things about our series is there are no humans in it, okay?
So this is kind of like taking a look at what the Pokemon get up to in the wild, away from any human eyes, okay?
So that's kind of the bottom line.
And without humans it means that's really told from that Pokemon POV. What does that really mean there?
Yeah, I mean it means that we've had to dig in a lot deeper in terms of their personalities,
really trying, they have to drive the storytelling which seemed really fun.
It's been a really fun challenge. There's no dialogue and that's been another
fun challenge in terms of just yeah lots of character comedy. So yeah it's been a
fun, fun challenge but hope you guys will enjoy it. And how did this kind of
partnership, this collaboration really start? So I think it was back in 2022,
I mean stop motion takes a long time, but back in 2022 we were at the
the Anisee Animation Festival, and Sarah Cox, who's the Chief Creative Officer at Ardman,
was talking to a friend and they were like, oh, there's someone that wants to speak to
you, but we can't say who, but you should definitely take the call. So of course with
an intriguing line like that, you're going to take the call. So Sarah took the call,
and of course it was Pokemon, and so we were all very, very excited. But before we
even spoke about kind of the actual project, we spoke about our kind of creative values
as companies, and it was really clear in that first chat that it was going to
ones for collaboration. It's amazing and with the show setting Galler make sense to kind of work
with a bridge studio and then also the non-verbal nature in the background you guys have with Sean
the sheep working with real physical comedy and really animating kind of character filled animals
makes perfect sense for that collaboration and that dedication to craft and comedy and
and storytelling really aligned for Pokemon and with Ardent.
So couldn't be more excited about this collaboration.
I think we should talk a little bit about our characters.
Let's talk a little bit about our heroes.
Tom, will you give us a little info about our surfetch?
I'll talk about surfetch.
Yeah, I mean, when I first saw surfetch,
I thought, well, actually, there
is kind of a classic Ardent character.
They're just so funny to look at.
There's a duck type, kind of heavy,
kind of thick-set and waddling kind of duck,
but they've got this enormous leak
that they wheeled as well.
And I just think that there's something inherently funny
about that already.
But Sufek just got these nightly pretensions.
They want to be this great night in our show.
And there's just something really funny
about having these high aspirations,
but not quite, not ever able to escape the fact
In fact, you're actually a bumbling, slightly waddling duck at the same time.
When we were developing the character, we sort of thought like,
it's a fact that there's this type of guy who's got the manual on how to be a great knight,
and he's read it cover to cover, and just knows all the ins and outs of what it requires to be a great knight.
But then when things go slightly off the page, or things put out of play amount of his comfort zone,
zone then things go wrong quite a fast. So he's kind of like a classic
urban hero in that he's flawed and he's slightly bumbling but he's got a good
heart and he always gets there in the end. And then every night is supported
by their squire. Absolutely. We have our Pichu for the show. So here's the cutest
squire on earth. Yeah and it was really important to look at them as a comedy duo.
So you know even just visually they look really different but in terms of
their personalities Pichu is obviously adorable, fun, lots of beautiful
energy but we also wanted to not make them feel too young like a baby, we wanted them
to have like this kind of warm edge almost so you know they will challenge
Sefetch when they're being completely unreasonable. We kind of sort of see
pictures are like a little teenager in a way, cheeky, slightly mischievous, not too young.
I guess where Sefetch kind of has read the manual but kind of the real life scares
and pictures kind of a bit more grounded and that kind of bit more just
roles with it so they're a fun balance in how in that balance how do they really
complement each other what are there what drives them I guess adventure really
suffix wants to go on these nightly quests peachy just wants to have fun
yeah they might they probably don't even know what a night is they just were
there because they love suffaction where suffix goes as a venture and fun and
and you know you mentioned sort of like kind of bringing that comedy out and
finding that classic Ardman kind of feeling.
What does that really mean, you know,
when you're thinking about that as a storyteller,
as a director, what do you find that?
Well, we've got a show, like you said,
no dialogue in this show, okay?
So we have to do a lot of work
making it funny in other ways.
So that's where we really have to make these characters,
their personalities, their expressions,
the way they look at each other,
little eye darts, obviously their physical movement.
We have to find comedy in all of that.
And I think that's what we do really well at Ardman, you know?
That's what we do.
It's a door.
It looks amazing.
And these are the actual puppets.
Yeah, these are stills of our puppets.
That's right.
Yeah.
It's so cool.
I guess, like, next, I think we
should talk a little bit about maybe the world, right?
I think we should talk about Galler.
We should talk about kind of bringing that to life
and where that inspiration came from.
You said in the show on Gallow, what does that really mean for you, Jimmy?
So it has very similar similarities to the UK.
It feels sort of wild and expansive.
It feels real, but not a fantasy.
And, you know, elements are based sort of where we are in Bristol.
So the rolling hills, we've got the mountains like in Scotland and Wales.
We have sort of vast areas of like birch and oak trees.
And it has some similarities in that world.
Oh, some great pictures up on the screen.
So this is images from the show that we're looking at.
Yeah, this is one of our sets from the show.
As Jimmy says, Galar's kind of a vast region, right?
So we've got ice caves, we've got big dark scary forests,
we've got mushroom forests, we've got loads of stuff
that we've been kind of inspired from the visuals in Sword and Shield.
But we kind of take it into our own and expand it upon and made it in a sort of
urbanized way really. It's absolutely beautiful. It's amazing. And all of this
that we're looking at, this is built, this is hand-built, this is produced, that
argument. There's a set, people can actually actually back over there and
kind of give a taste to that. We should talk a little bit about kind of what
it goes into to craft this world and kind of build everything. Jimmy, can you
take us through just the simple process of making, the simple, I say simple, not
that simple, of making a tree. Like there's a lot of trees on the show. What do
you do? How do you, how does this come about? So what I should say first of all,
unlike live action when you can just go out and find a sex or you're going to
shoot in the real world, everything in the stop motion world has to be built
and it's normally built by hand. So we're looking here at just an
under structure of some trees from the art department and that gets covered in
polystyrene or foam and the team are carving that with like wire brushes or
hot wires or just sort of sanding those and getting the shapes right and here
we have Nicola here from the art department and she's sort of cutting
like chunks of foam and she's sort of hand carving with a knife and a
blade and all those pieces are all individually shaped and they're little
tiny blocks that get stuck on the tree. There's got to be a few hundred
blocks those on there.
So that's every piece of bark.
Every single piece of bark.
Of every tree.
Yeah.
That's pretty amazing.
And then obviously the team then start painting it.
So obviously giving a bit of the base tones in here,
getting the shading down.
And then what's really great about the world
that we've created is the color palette.
It's really quite vibrant in different areas.
And so the hard edges, the solid edges of the trees
complemented with all the soft undergrowth, the plants, the flowers.
Really adding depth to the Pokemon world.
So every element that we're seeing here, this is handmade, sculpted.
Crafted by the team.
Wow, it's absolutely beautiful.
Really comes together and brings together life in this amazing way.
And this shot here is a classic shooting space at the studio.
studio. Obviously the set is on a wooden base here and we have all the accoutrements for
shooting. We have cameras, all the lighting set up. And you can kind of see in the top
right hand corner these little pieces of glass and it sort of adds the dappled look
from the trees, the canopy as the light passes through that. And it's just, we're layering,
layering this environment. Here we have Heather here. She's sort of what we call
dressing the sex of the birch forest.
And this is that abode like shadow in the foreground that's sort of made by...
And our sort of DOP Laura will sort of set this all up and sort of like painting with
lights.
What is the DOP?
Director of Photography.
Very cool.
Director of Photography Laura.
And then how about this one?
So this one, no humans in this show.
This feels a little human.
Relics of humans.
Yeah, we never, yeah.
And not so explicit but there obviously have been humans in this in our world and potentially there are but yeah
We don't see them. Not yet
And a lot of the sort of the architecture as well is is based around sort of like the UK medieval history and things
I even take lots of elements around the country. They've sort of
Played their part within the design the production design of the show
And this shot here we have busy our production designer on the left and we have Simon our art director
And Tom's giving a brief here about sort of the miniature set.
So not only do we build huge, quite big sets, we're obviously shooting a lot of stuff in miniature.
And that's like our opening set pieces, sort of our wide shots.
Why do characters come through?
Why would you shoot stuff in miniature?
So in the audience of, like, make Galar feel as expansive as possible,
we work on different scales, okay?
So we have our puppets on one scale, and we have a set that then suits them.
But then we also have whole mountain ranges in miniature, like ice caves and sort of establishing shots.
We go quite small, but they look super cool.
And it just allows us to create a bigger looking world, essentially.
So this image is from one of these kind of wide shots.
Yeah.
Jimmy's going into his luggage.
Should I go into my luggage?
What's in the box?
I think you should go into your luggage.
Bring out your underpants.
Box of Kicks.
And here we go.
Probably won't see them from there.
You have to win.
Yeah.
So we're playing with different scales.
We have our OG scale.
And then we have our 1, 10th and 1, 5th scale.
And this is what's in the shot here.
And this is our smaller scale, right?
That's our smaller scale.
And some of the elements actually move as well.
And little Pute's head turns and the shield moves.
And we have, like, in the pocket team,
we have some really talented painters.
I've got really old eyes.
I can't paint this detail.
So I left some of the younger members of the team.
And then for animation, how does that scale and process work?
I'm just curious about if this is the miniature scale.
Yeah.
So what I really love about that one
we sort of talked about at the beginning.
For me, when we start animating, it's
very simplistic animation.
And it feels like there's sort of a child animating
with their own toys on the set.
And I think that, again, is bringing that extra layer.
That's amazing.
And the Pokemon world is just full of these incredible
creatures, diverse shapes, sizes, ways of movement,
personalities.
You guys are telling stories with them and adding even more
personality.
The team at Ardman's done just a fantastic job at bringing
these creatures to life in a way that we've never seen
before.
And I think you're about to pull out one of those creatures.
Let's do it.
Should we get this one out?
I think we should get one out.
Don't delay anymore.
Don't drop it.
One of our stars.
So this is one of our actual puppets.
This is a shooting puppet from the show
that I've brought along here.
This is so fetched.
I'm going to pass it down to Tom.
And maybe Tom can explain a little bit more.
So yeah, I mean, this is our scale of puppet that we animate with.
This is fully poseable.
It's incredible.
It's got a whole structure of mechanisms inside that allow the animator to do
all sorts of crazy things.
I can't do those things on stage right now, but even like the hair,
his feathers on top, obviously the beak opens.
We swap out the eyes here.
The shape of the eyes changes.
you know animation is extremely painstaking but like to get any expressions
just swapping out taking a frame swapping things out taking a frame we have
different arms actually for different action we'll take these arms off and
put different ones on when he loses his leak and shield in certain situations
arm yeah it's some real piece of work an incredible piece of work from your
And you guys call them puppets, but I think of puppet, I think of, you know, classic sort of hand puppets.
But our stop motion puppets are manipulated by hand outside of the puppet, which Tom's been kindly demonstrating for us.
You're just maneuvering that, and you're setting the pose, and for animation you then take a photo,
and then you change the pose again, take another photo, and the process of animation is when you've got a series of photos together,
you'll play it back at the correct speed and that gives the illusion of movement stop motion animation.
It's incredibly laborious and painstaking, but we really, you know, we love doing it and I think our audiences love seeing it.
So I think it's worth it. It's a long process, but I think it's worth it.
This is our surface. Should we show our squire?
Yes.
Yeah.
So adorable.
You'll see over there.
So, much smaller. How does scale work when you're...
Yeah, you choose about sort of 12 centimetres I think roughly from the feet to the top of the head.
When we started at the beginning talking about puppet design, we had to sort of figure out a scale.
So, we have to make something that the animators can use every day.
If it's too small, like technically very difficult, and the animators would get annoyed with us because it would be very difficult.
It's okay using the miniatures for one-off, but for a long show that's taken about a year or so to do,
we want to have a great scale and also then we have to think about the rest of the cast in the show
if the puppets then become too big. So Obstaclean for instance is twice the size of Obstaclefetched
and if Pucci was bigger and everybody would be bigger and they would be enormous
and we needed so much space in Bristol to film it.
We'd have a half to compromise and this is the scale that we've started with.
Let's take everyone through that development process, that build process.
We've got some cool photos to show, so maybe we can start here.
How does it all begin, Jimmy?
So we're really lucky with Pokemon.
They've sent us so much research and information.
So we're talking about illustrations, we're talking about TV shows,
also the stuff from the games as well, it's been really useful.
What's brilliant about the games is it has a lot of information about the movement
and all the poses and all the special abilities of all the Pokémon in this Pokémon world.
And then Tom and I will sit down and discuss what he wants from those puppets related to the story, the script.
So what he has in his mind.
So like, yeah, while the puppets have been designed and created, Nat and I and the writing team have got stories in mind for them.
So we've got certain things we know that we're going to want the puppet to do for our stories.
And that information is really important for you guys, so that the puppets can actually attain what we're after.
Yeah, and then once Tom's happy and Pokemon are happy, we sort of start doing some of our first couple of sculpts.
We have Lee and Bloxy. Lee is sort of our main sculptor for the show, and Bloxy is one of our chief designers as well.
And we're sitting down, it's very, puppet making is very much a collaboration. It's not a one person job.
So because I have a team of about 15 people, we'll start discussing how we're going to make those puppets
and then we sort of break off into smaller teams and what you'll find is
certain teams will handle different puppets.
So here we have blocks here doing the soldering on the bench,
some of the internal mechanics of our puppets which help them move
and we're thinking about how they're going to move inside
so there's a level of complexity there and then we've got to think about
OK, well, how are we going to make the bodies?
What are we going to make the bodies from?
So P2, for instance, has a silicon body,
like a rubber body.
And the silicon is very much like baking a cake.
You add two different ingredients.
You mix into a bowl.
You add some pigment, which gives it
a really vibrant yellow.
And then you inject into a mold.
So we have this really lovely squishy body
that we're able to do all those things with.
We're using rapid prototyping, 3D printing.
And that's around the heads, and producing
the different heads with the Pikachu puppets,
and also like Tom explaining about the eye shapes
and things like that.
So we're using a whole host of different techniques,
sort of very traditional and more modern,
with the 3D prints from this world.
So it's a lot of craft involved in those puppets.
And this is always really about executing
that performance, staying true to who these Pokémon
that we already know and love and then also being able to make sure that physically they can do the things they need to do to tell the stories.
Yes, that's right.
So my job at the end of the day is to provide the animation team with the very first prototype puppet and then they'll start doing a series of testing
and that's when we start developing the character, seeing if there's any issues with the puppets,
that we may have to go back and change.
That's the radius of exploring the character.
So that testing, you're testing the physical nature of the puppet,
but you're also sort of continuing to develop who these characters are.
Yeah, that's the most exciting bit.
Once we get a puppet that's working, we road test it.
We do extensive sort of development test session on it.
We don't just figure out if it works.
We also then go, well, who is this character?
How do they move?
And different characters, there's so many brilliant,
different characters in Pokemon.
They're all going to move differently, aren't they?
So we'll spend a whole period of road testing with the
puppet.
We've got a development animator who will put them
through their paces and try and find the character,
try and find the personality in the way that they
March in the way that they crawl around or the way that they leap this is all like really informative stuff, you know
We should show some of those. Yeah, should show us something. Can I just say like at the beginning me and Tom was really quite nervous
About our first animation test was so fetched about how it was going to move
Why were you about to see it? Why were you nervous? Well, there's a lot of silicon in there
It's quite like it's quite a solid
He's heavy. This is a big puppet.
I remember we were like, how is this thing going to move?
Like how are we going to get finesse out of it?
But we're going to show you a test, I think.
So we're going to show you all for the first time
some of these very early animation tests
of both Sirfetched and Pichu.
And this is kind of these characters coming to life
for the first time for the first time.
Alright, let's roll it.
So fetched
It's amazing.
We can keep the lights down, we'll be here soon.
So adorable.
I mean, these are these puppets.
Yeah, these are these puppets doing all that testing.
Yeah, those were the first time they were bought to life, as it were.
And you can see, actually, with the peachy one, you know, Jimmy said these are made of silicon and mechanics inside.
But actually, when it was rolling around, when peachy was rolling around, we swapped to plasticine.
So we do we do mix it up. We kind of use our
Standard plasticine stuff as a kind of cheat sometimes and for you now like you see these characters
You've been writing them who thinking about them from a story perspective
Yeah, it's all theory up until that point and when you see that first animation Tesla. Oh, okay
This is good. It's gonna work and I think you know when you're writing you go, you know
They walk to a place and it's kind of you know
That's just their walking to face and then you kind of seeing how the animation team make that funny and make it character
It's just such an amazing part of process. They really come to life on the screen. It's wonderful
It's it's so beautiful and I noticed on Pichu Pichu is zipping around. We saw like a fact
But this is animation tests. What what were we seeing?
Well, we decided to like Pichu's got so much energy and they're an electrotype
So we've decided to get them to this this little kind of
of a whispered electric behind them when they move super quick.
It's a really nice way of contrasting
with the waddling, heavy, surfaced Peachtree zips,
or we gave them these little zips.
And that's just a piece of acetate,
or several shapes of acetate that we animate.
It's like a transparent film.
That's right, yeah.
Cut, cut, yeah.
Yeah, and it just describes their movement, basically.
You can sort of very simply take a frame here,
take a frame there, and put the little acetate zip
between them and we've got movement.
Was that part of the plan going into the testing
that you knew this is?
Well, I think it came from the testing.
Yeah, it was like one of the development animators
like trying things, experimenting, having fun,
playing with the new puppet.
So this animation testing, we just saw some,
kind of have sets of builds, how puppets are made.
But there's a huge team involved in this
and everything comes together.
How big is the team at argument?
Really, how many people are working on this show?
maybe some stats, Phil, if you want to.
It's massive.
So there are 262, I'm going to say,
just to cover myself, people from Ardham working on this.
So it's a huge, huge team.
And one episode will take, so this is from the start,
so the very start, the writing process,
all the way to the end, 110 weeks.
So.
Two years.
Yes, a long old time.
I mean, the shoot where, you know,
you'll actually have your puppets on sets filming
doing the animation in about six weeks. So there's so much prep and post around that as well.
So there's so many different roles across the whole project.
And how many episodes are sort of happening simultaneously?
I mean, because that's...
Two or three, two or three, yeah, they run in parallel.
Sort of overlap each other.
Yeah, we've only got so many puppets we can use, so we can't shoot them all at once.
We've only got so many animators, you can't shoot it all at once.
So we kind of, we have a long schedule and we drip feed the shooting of it.
Each animator I think has their own...
Yes, there's about 12 to 13 people surfaced in 13 Pichu's for the series.
So it's not like one animator...
No.
No, that would be impossible because they're in a lot of scenes, you know, like across the series.
It would take eternity.
So I think each animator per week does about 13 and a half seconds per week of animation.
13 and a half seconds work.
Yeah, that's amazing.
And how do they keep consistent?
How do you guys kind of keep make it so that it doesn't
matter who's animating and surfetched, it really always
feels like surfetched?
So when we get our puppet, in the development period,
with that puppet, we write what we call an animation Bible.
And that is all of the clips that you see the tests go
into that.
And then written documents go into that.
And kind of like do's, don'ts, everything that the
development animators learn about that puppet, they
right down and it's kind of like any new animators fighting with us working with us
will read it and read it again and read it again until they really fully know that
character and they know how to animate that character before then going and
shooting basically. It's amazing it's incredible. It's a lot of process. There's
I mean 200 and how many people? 62. 62 people. Like can you just share a couple of
other roles that maybe people might not expect that are on the
So we have our amazing production team.
We've spoken about writing, animators,
lots of different roles within Puppets.
Any fun roles with the edit team?
There's storyboard team, writers, drawing these things.
I was in the studio one time and I got introduced to a spark.
So this was a job I'd never heard of before.
Say that again.
Spark.
A spark.
I think it's a spark.
No, a spark.
Not to me.
A spark.
A spark is a spark.
So a spark is an electrician.
Oh, how irresponsible for all the lighting and making sure we don't blow ourselves up with all the electricity
just running through the studio, like, teach you.
All these pictures running around, they cause problems.
There is a role called Puppet Rangler, which is my favourite title,
because it does sound like someone's just running around the studio trying to grab back the puppets, so it's a great role.
And what do they do?
They make sure the puppets are where they need to be.
They literally run around the studio.
They put the puppets back to bed at night, they tuck them up.
Actually there was a position called a rigger and just in those animation tests you could
see Pichu running around and there was like a metal wire coming and so that's the rigging
that is needed to hold them up it's like scaffold and then in our VFX process that
is deleted you know we rub that out it's one of those little tricks of the trade.
That's very cool and then all this whole team brings us together and now we're going
I want to show a clip that was the very first finished shot that was delivered over two years ago for our pilot.
So this shot showed up at TPCI and we saw this and it was just remarkable.
And for us at Pokemon, working with you, every time we receive material, it really is like opening a gift.
It's amazing and this was the first time we really got to see everything come together.
So we're gonna give you guys that look.
Amazing.
So that was about, I think, 13 seconds-ish.
So that's a week.
That was one, that was something to me.
And the animators were like, that's how it works, too.
Yeah, yeah.
And then all of the other teams kind of on that.
Truly, truly.
It's definitely a team effort.
So we've talked a lot about Sifat,
we've talked a lot about Pichu.
There's also a lot of other Pokemon.
I'm just curious, are there any other kind of Pokemon
that you are excited to show on the series?
we've seen some stuff in the teaser, any other highlights from this Pokemon that you'd
like to talk about? I mean it was such a fun, what a fun job we got to look at all the Pokemon
on the side, who's going to be in our series which is a very, very fun part. I mean we
we did focus specifically on Galar. Yeah the Galarian. Yeah trying to make it feel
as Galar. Rich is possible and looking at their different personalities, trying to
work out who would bring like really fun stories and challenge our heroes in some
ways and yeah it was a it was literally yeah to my opening presence that was like
it's kind of someone else's toys I mean like just visually they're stunning and
and but as soon as we started looking at some specific characters they lent
themselves to certain stories like like every show needs a kind of antagonists
to some degree so we always still went we went straight towards a scabalier as
like the Nemesis or the antagonists to the great nightly suffetch, you know a
scabally again a night that could challenge and compete against them so
the scabally it pops up quite a bit. It was like really fun to build Jimmy for
your team to kind of get action. So for me it was Obstegu, it was a really quite a long
process it was at sort of we've made a lot of other puppets or characters
Pokemon before then and so it's the culmination of all the different designs
that we're using sort of then sort of working that into obstacoon scale
just the way it looks as well and technically it was a big achievement
from the puppet department because a lot of that is all cast in one it's not
separate pieces so being so large casting it and obviously the graphic
nature of the Pokemon as well. He's massive isn't he? He's heavy. And any
actually you need to be quite hench animator to even move his limbs around
like he's big, too fella. Jimmy is like an obstegoon type. Jimmy is an obstegoon.
And what's great we're obviously highlighting what the animation
development animation team are doing seeing some of the shots coming back
out of the units of obstegoon those early tests because it's such a large
puppet. It just blew me away. All the jaw mechanism that was working, and all the tongues
and it was just really top-notch stuff. So for any kind of unexpected surprises, Pokemon
that you didn't think you'd fall in love with, or maybe you changed their attitude
about them? I think for me it was Caravalast who saw them in their trailer. I think when
we were writing that episode we were struggling about how to place them in the series
And then we were talking, kind of talking them through,
and then we spoke about this kind of snooty way to vibe to them.
And it just worked so well in the story,
and I love them as a character.
They're fantastic, and they've got such a vibe.
Them and Pichu have got a great dynamic as well.
So yeah, that was really...
Yeah, Cara Blast, we've sort of cast them as Escavalier's squire.
So, where Escavalier and the Sufetia competing
or challenging each other,
We have this kind of squat face-off between
Karabalast and Kichu.
It's kind of cool.
It's good relationship.
And that seems like a very classic
argmin kind of formula for comedy also.
Yeah, comedy duos.
And were there any other kind of great moments
working on the show, just fun highlights
outside of the characters themselves?
I think for me, like the most exciting thing
is just being allowed to play
in this incredible world of Pokemon.
Like, you know, there's just so many characters.
And Galaaf, to me, is just such an exciting place
to go and play.
We've got icy mountains, ice caps, ice caves.
And then we've got the mines.
We've got mushroom forests.
We've got so many different locations and environments
that we can just go and have the benches.
It's a really cool show.
I can't wait to show more stuff to you guys.
It's like, you know, next year's a long way away, but it can't come quickly enough for us.
We just want to get it out there and share what we've been working on.
And all of this is, you know, you're talking about adventure, but this is Ardman.
Yeah.
This is an Ardman show.
So bringing that Ardman tone and comedy was so fun to be able to kind of see how this could be.
Yeah, that collaboration, our show, really pushing the quality and the characters and the slapstick.
It was a warm and reverent humour. It was a really good experience.
I think it's a really exciting show for Ardman. It's slightly different from what we've done before.
I think it feels really fresh. Everyone there is so excited about it.
When we started working on it, we were all just grinning.
The crew were all the way just motivated because of the excitement.
We've got some big super fans on the project as well.
So, obviously, collecting cards for a very long time, playing the games,
and obviously, those people being involved within the team,
and everyone's just super pumped for the show,
and very excited to be working on it.
And at Pokemon, we're Ardman fans,
so it was really great to work with you all,
and I think there was always kind of trying to find these moments.
Ardman did an incredible job at kind of bringing Pokemon to life,
and we also said, like,
well, how do we make sure that this can feel Ardman?
You know we saw that Pichu Tastri said either with that plasticine, we think about Ardman
often we think about clay, plasticine.
There was a moment early on where there was sort of a gag cut away.
Do you want to kind of set this up a little bit?
This is a throwaway comedic moment in our show but I think it pretty much typifies like
a real cross between Ardman and Pokemon.
It's Ardman doing Pokemon.
You should show it.
It's a moment a throwaway moment, but I find it hilarious. So when this is just a still image
It's people who have seen Wallace and grommet or chicken rum will get it. All right. We're just gonna show this still
It's only a still isn't it?
Not what I think of when I think of Pichu
Geez
It's one of those but maybe our Pichu this is so so in our show this feels right
Yeah, it's a moment. Our peachy doesn't have teeth like that, but it's a great little gag cutaway.
And I feel like that's what's been the best thing about this is that Pokémon have allowed us to express ourselves in it.
You know, make it an odd man show with their characters. It does feel very odd.
Yeah, there's loads of fun and there's loads more coming your way.
It's so funny. It's so cool. So we'll get a couple of those moments.
they're rare, they don't happen often, but when they happen they're pretty
hilarious. I mean really like truly incredible to be working with you all and
you know like seeing that, seeing that Ardman moment you know it's not just
making a Pokemon show now, really is being at Ardman working on this. You know
Jimmy you're a Pokemon fan before this project started. You know when when
And that puppet came across, you desk, you know, how did that feel?
In terms of sort of for you, yeah, it is so very exciting.
I was like super pumped for the Beyond the Project.
What I'm really interested to see and what I love is the personalities that we're giving
to all these characters.
I'm really excited for the Pokemon family and for all of you and see how you sort
like them and the personalities that we've given to the Pokemon characters in our world.
And then Tom, you mentioned kind of really making this such a great collaboration and so much fun
that this exchange of creativity is happening on the show, but for you personally, like where,
how did this feel? How did this all come together?
Well, I just think it's a combination of two amazing studios. I feel really lucky that
that we've been allowed in to come and play with the Pokemon characters. So thank you.
Yeah, I'm just, I said privilege really, you know, and I think the quality of what we're making
is blowing our minds at Arman, and I'm hoping that everyone's going to love it when it comes out.
Actually, can I give a little shout out to the crew at Arman?
Yes, please.
Especially Zoe, our producer, who couldn't be here today, but yeah.
Yes.
Everyone back in Bristol.
Season 1 is still in production, she's still finishing up Season 1.
Too busy to come. No, yeah, a big thanks to all of Arman, because they're the best crew ever and they have Tylus.
That's very cool. And Nat, you know, you picked your Charmander as a kid, you know, a few years have passed and here you are with Pokemon again.
again, if you could go back and kind of tell, you know, Nat playing Red, picking their Charmander,
but what would you say to yourself?
Well, I mean, I don't think I believe that this is a real job.
It's a great job, but yeah, overwhelming.
It's been fantastic.
That's really cool.
I mean, you know, there's so many Pokemon fans here, and there's so many people who
just love, you know, the world, the characters, and just to think that you can kind of
be involved with the production or with the brand in so many different ways, just so exciting.
So we're, you know, we couldn't be more grateful to be working with you all on this amazing
project. The show really is beautiful and the team of Ardman has done just a stunning
job at bringing Gala to life, bringing these Pokemon to life and really similar to, you
can't wait to show the world more of a Survection Pichu. We should watch that teaser one more
time. Now with more context of what you've all seen, maybe you'll watch it with a slightly
different appreciation and maybe catch little things in this teaser. So here we go. One more time.
Yeah!
Ha ha ha!
Yeah!
Hmm.
Uh oh.
Ugh!
Pokemon Tales, the Misadventures of...
The Patch!
And...
The Tue!
So good.
And Tom,
2027 is just around the corner so far away. Everyone go check out the show on Disney Plus next year.
We've got a display just over there. Yes. There's other stuff to see and do.
So we've got our display booth right over there. Go check out those. Those are the actual scale.
Those are handmade. Everything's hand-painted. That's one of those trees.
A different tree. There's a tree from all shooting set. Go check that out.
Surfection Pichu will be appearing there throughout the weekend get your photos taken with Surfection Pichu if you see
Nat, Jimmy, Tom, or myself just say hi. We'd love to say hi to all of you
Check it out. Thank you all for joining us for this panel
It was it was a thrill to show this for the first time
Thank you for the the reaction and up next is Pocopia
Stick around this game is incredible
Thank you all for joining us, and see you all soon.
I
Oh
I
Hello, and welcome back to Pokemon XP.
I'm Anna Prosser here with Rachel and Glitter at the desk,
and we are so, so stoked to be here on Rayquaza Road
in San Francisco for the first ever Pokemon XP.
We just watched a really cool panel.
Did you see everything you wanted to see, Glitter?
I did.
I did see everything I wanted to see specifically.
The reaction shot that we had of Pichu
towards the end, full teeth in the terrified face.
I was like, this is what I wanted out of Armin.
and this is exactly perfect.
Yeah, you had mentioned the teeth were a specific thing
that you were looking for, right?
It's just one of like their signature,
I guess things that you would see
in a lot of their other animations.
And I feel like on PG specifically,
it couldn't have been any more perfect.
Absolutely.
All right, in case you're just joining us
and you're like, what's going on here?
Like I said, this is the first ever Pokemon XP
and our job here is to bring you a glimpse
of everything going on in one place.
So if you're watching the livestream,
going to see some videos of us going and experiencing things here at Pokemon XP as well as many
of the panels that are available to watch at Pokemon XP like the one you just watched.
Also here at the desk we have the distinct honor of dropping a few things for you.
There are some stream rewards for you to watch.
So let's take a look at exactly what those are and how you can get your hands on them.
First of all for well Rachel do you want to tell us the first one Pokemon TCG live
I believe?
Yeah, you can pick up some Mega Evolution Pitch Black Booster packs, you got six of them for you.
We also got some Build and Battle Event Entry Tokens, then of course, when you're loading up Pokemon TCG Pocket
to play all those delicious new Team Rocket-based cards and open those packs, call those Hour Glasses.
That 24-hour glass, if you're playing Pocket, you know what that's worth, and if you're not playing Pocket, download it!
It's free! It's on the App Store, I promise.
promise. And of course while you're in the after, make sure you got Pokemon Go too because
we got the Pokemon XP Costumed Pikachu. We love her, she's an icon and she could be yours
in Pokemon Go. All you can do is watch 30 minutes on Twitch slash Pokemon XP.
That's right and you can see in that how to earn column, it basically has to do
with what you're watching and for how long. So be sure that you're tuned into the
right stream at the right time and watching for the requisite amount of time. You can
find us of course at Pokemon XP on Twitch, as well as everywhere on the Pokemon channel.
But now, you can spend that time watching while we have an incredible interview with our guest.
Welcome, Swainani!
Thank you so much for having me, excited to be here.
Yeah!
Tell us, in case people aren't familiar with you, who are you?
What do you do?
Yeah, so I talk about a ton of anime and manga stuff across YouTube, TikTok and
Instagram, and of course I've also just been a lifelong Pokemon fan, so excited
to be here.
The requisite question is, what is your favorite Pokemon?
Neuvern for me.
Nice.
I saw you catch your shiny Neuvern in ZA.
Congratulations.
Thank you very much.
That was a very exciting time for me.
Go ahead.
As a big fan of animation, we were talking on the desk earlier,
so I'm just going to jump right into it with you.
So many different Pokemon animations exist out there.
Do you have a favorite one of those
that you feel like best encapsulates the story?
Oh gosh, best encapsulates the story.
I know for me, I'm just super nostalgic for my childhood era,
So that would be the Diamond Pearl era of the anime just because Dawn was there
Cynthia was there some of my favorite characters and always go back to that one whenever I need a little
nostalgia
Nice and this I was gonna say is this your first Pokemon XP, but it's all of our first
So how has it been for you so far? What are you feeling? Yeah, it's been great
I mean obviously we're only here in day one, but if the atmosphere has been amazing this year
It is such a big venue
I was here last year for Pokemon Worlds in Anaheim and even just the jump from 25 to 26 has been quite big
So excited to see everything this year has to offer
Obviously we just got through the panel there about the misadventures surfaced and Pichu give me your thoughts on what we heard
Yeah, it was really exciting to see a teaser
I know we'd only just seen a couple clips before so
Ardman is a company that does such interesting stuff with their claimation
So it was really cool seeing a bunch of different Pokemon represented and I'm kind of excited to see
which ones appear as we learn more about the series.
Yeah, absolutely. Are you, you know, as you're here at Pokemon XP,
are you mostly focused on those kinds of content,
anime, series, those kinds of things?
Are there other things that you're keeping your eye out for here?
Yeah, for sure. Obviously, the Urban Panel is very exciting for me and all this stuff,
but I'm also a big fan of the TCG art,
so all of the artist spotlights and panels they have here will be very exciting for me as well.
And then, of course, the merch, as everyone has been very excited for.
I have my own Pokemon Center slot later this weekend.
So excited to check that out a bit later into the column.
I feel like it's a good strategy to have it a little later
in the weekend because we all got the chance
to go a little bit earlier and we're like,
ah, I should have picked that up.
Oh, I should have picked, so you get all the time
to figure out what you need to put on your list.
For sure, yes.
It's been, I wanna say a little bit of FOMO,
but obviously not FOMO since I'll be there,
but just kinda seeing everyone,
seeing it and knowing I gotta wait until the end
of the weekend, but it's building up
anticipation, so.
Is there any of the World Special
or the PXP special stuff that you're looking for?
I have to say the backpack where you have the rocket ship
and it has a little capsule to put in plush in
is one of the cutest things I've ever seen.
So.
Yeah, in the video they had the Mew in it.
It's a little bubble Mew.
So cute.
What plush would you put in there?
I would put my Neuron.
Hopefully it would fit.
I gotta stay on brand.
Absolutely.
I am here for that.
So with Neuron as a favorite,
has Neuron appeared in any animation in a way
it is special to you that that you've singled out it's a good question I think
for me anime-wise the one I'm most akin towards is Pip-Lup just because it's so
cute Dawn's obviously one of her top Pokemon so I think no even I'm not
actually sure how often it gets to appear so hopefully hoping fingers crossed
to Ardman if you're listening, if you can somehow.
Ooh!
Make a request to Ardman.
Dear Pikachu, please input.
Yeah, Miss Dear Pikachu, please, if you can.
I mean, I don't hate that chat, though, because, like you said, if we saw the teaser already,
we've got definitely some new faces in there.
When we saw Kara Blast, we saw Obstacle, and Alcremie, Impidimp.
There are definitely opportunities for more Pokémon to get involved in the animated side of things.
If you had to pick a legendary Pokemon to see show up in Ardman, what would you prefer?
Well, for a talk in Mythical 2, I love Darkrai.
I don't know how you'd be able to bring that in, but I would absolutely love that.
Also just the Gen 4 Mons in general, I'm very nostalgic for.
So, some of the timekeepers, yeah, Dialga, Palkia, any of those.
Thinking about stop-motion Darkrai is really cool.
Yeah, right?
I think I've given them really hard tasks, really big, complex ones, but I think it's somehow doing, you know.
Yeah. Well, you've talked about how cool it is to be here at the very first Pokemon XP, but this is not the only Pokemon destination that you've had the chance to visit.
You actually saw you got out to the Fossil Museum as well?
Yes, I had the chance to visit the Fossil Museum in Chicago. That was a really great time.
I think any time you have those huge statues of different Pokemon, it's really exciting.
and just seeing them in fossil form as well is really, really cool.
What was the experience like being in a museum like that?
Yeah, it was really cool because they did a great mix of mixing real science with Pokémon.
So you would learn a little bit about the Pokémon and then you would learn about its real life inspiration.
So it did a really nice mix of learning and just like the fun of seeing your favorite Pokémon.
I think you went to the baseball game last night, is that true?
Yes, I was at the baseball game. The drone show was a very, very exciting time.
exciting time but even just throughout the game they had fun little graphics like
whenever when there was a home run you got to see Charizard that was the one
home run of the game yeah so it's just really cool being able to go mix all
these different interests between you know science and Pokemon with the
fossil museum and now baseball and poker yeah in case you weren't familiar
there was a giant game a baseball game that was themed all for Pokemon and
celebrating Pokemon worlds and Pokemon XP and I think there was even a
Jersey that fans got that was Pokemon specific.
Yes, I almost wore it today.
I didn't. I was afraid of the cold a little bit, as you can see.
It's a little windy.
The Jersey is very, very cool.
I think that's so neat, like mixing our favorite.
Sport, as it were, with other favorite sport.
It's really fun. Yeah.
I mean, isn't that kind of what's so amazing about Pokemon in general
is that its ability to cross over into so many different
communities and genres and still work and totally make sense and kind of bring
together a new crowd of people. Yeah for sure. I even looking forward to Pokemon
Night Out coming out in October as well. So many of that's mixing music and
Pokemon with some DJ sets so there's just a lot of opportunity to kind of
mix fandoms. Now speaking of fandom there are so many people here who are
experiencing this event for the first time or people at home who are
looking forward to experiencing it sometime. What advice would you have
for someone or where would you tell them to start or what would you
Tell them about this experience.
Yeah, I think just take a second to take it all in.
There's a lot going on here,
but a great place to start for this one specifically
was the opening ceremony this morning was fantastic.
There was a performance from a big band of different music,
but I think just throughout the convention,
kind of enjoy it, take it in, take time to talk to people.
There's plenty of friendly faces
and just enjoy the convention in general.
There's a lot going on here.
So you mentioned last year you went to Anaheim
and you got to witness worlds now with XP,
with how things have grown.
How do you think the Pokemon community that's been able to come and enjoy this has responded?
Because competitive is a great way to enjoy Pokemon, but there's so many different ways to do it.
Yeah, I think XP is a great opportunity to expand some of the stuff that was offered last year,
being the TCG Artist panels where they talked about the inspiration behind some of their cards,
the opportunities, obviously, that there being much more merchants this year and just so many more things.
I think the crowd has really enjoyed the ability to kind of spread out.
and when you're not watching the competitive,
which you should also definitely watch,
you can enjoy the other activities offered.
You mentioned the art of the TCG cards.
I'm also very interested in that.
Later today, we're gonna have a little sneak peek
at the booth from inside with a video.
But tell me a little bit about why you like the art
on Pokemon cards or what you're looking for here,
or what you wanna learn about on the art
on Pokemon cards right here.
Yeah, I think one of the really exciting things
is that every artist has a pretty unique style.
I know we were talking a lot about Ardman earlier.
Yuka Mori does these gorgeous clay cards,
and that's part of the reason I was so excited
for the Ardman series, and I know she's here
for workshops with some lucky fans.
Unfortunately, could not get an RSVP,
but I know that the people there
are really going to enjoy that
and just enjoy all the different styles.
There's one person who crochets,
there's many different styles.
It doesn't even have to just be pen and paper.
So it's really cool being able to see
how everyone puts their own spin on your favorite characters.
I think I saw even down there a little bit of a gallery of some of those play
features right? Yeah. They have a walkthrough where you can see actually
Mori's art that she made for the cards and I didn't get to look around all the
other sides. Maybe there's even more down there with the crochet. I cannot wait to
explore the floor. And speaking of the floor, we don't want to keep you too
long. I know you've got lots to do but is there any shout outs you want to
give? Any thoughts you want to leave the Pokemon fans at home with before
we say goodbye to you? Yeah just shout out to everyone who's been here for
30 years of Pokemon whether you're coming in just now or you're a Gen 1 fan
It's been so amazing to meet everyone and kind of say hi and experiences together
So I hope that chatter continues online awesome, and where can people find you if they want to yeah
You can find me Instagram YouTube tick tock at Swainami SW a y and a hem I
Awesome. Thank you so much for coming. It was really nice to see you have a great time
Yeah, so nice meeting you all. It's a fantastic time. Thanks. Thanks for coming
All right now don't stop watching because we have some very exciting twitch drops for you
Let's check those out right now some things that you can pick up from watching the twitch stream now
Here's how you do it. You've got to visit rewards.pokemon.com
Log into your Pokemon trainer central account or make one if you don't have one
Link that to your twitch account and then watch your desired stream for a period of time earn those rewards
So all you have to do is tune in and you can get some really really cool twitch drops
Also remember if you would like to watch us in other languages you can turn on the twitch
closed caption extension and that will watch with translated captions so you can you can watch us speaking in other languages via text if you would like to
I'm very excited about that
I think that some of the twitch drops were some badges that were very especially cute
Yes
There is a Pokemon XP twitch badge that I definitely want for my profile because of all the people
that I'm so excited to get this Twitch badge.
I want you to have it, but also I want it very much
because I wanna remember that I was here
and I wanna flex it on Twitch
for the rest of my Twitch career.
Yeah, we've got our mobile devices
just logged into Twitch under here
making sure we're getting all of those dropped.
I know.
Also, I'm very distracted.
I'm sorry, there's, look at these vending machines.
Look, I'm sorry, look how cute these are right there.
Everything is-
It's adorable.
I'm sorry to be talking about right now.
And they have the cutest display backpacks
for their plushies that are in a vending machine chain.
The Rallet commitment is beautiful.
The meta of the plushies this year has really stepped up a notch.
We've seen Elja.
Yeah, I got it!
I got it!
Wow, the wrap.
That looks so good!
I choose the one in the middle.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
The fans have been so creative, though.
We're in the best spot to watch everybody go by here on Requizer Road, and I have
seen Nurse Joy with her cart of Pokeballs.
I'm watching a beautiful Jill Dion walk by.
I am seeing so many fans showcasing their fandom in so many beautiful ways with
a treat.
Now, speaking of fans showcasing their fandom, let's check out some of your tweets and things
you've had to say about Pokemon XP right now.
Excuse me.
It is.
Got a little wind in my throat out here.
Yeah.
We would love to see what you have in store for us on social media in just a moment.
But, guys, tell me a little bit about what you are looking at from this vantage point
here.
We've got the back end of Rayquaza Road.
Oh, here we go.
There it is. Here's your This Could Be Us of Pokemon World.
Oh, but I love that.
Wait, no, that's a meme format that needs to go further.
Take this. Take this Pokemon community.
Yes, I need this. I need this photo.
So cute. Where are those diddos?
I need to find them.
They come beneath the gardens.
Yes, they must be.
Yeah, we're just around the corner
from us is the Yerba-Wayne Gardens.
So please do check this out.
That out and let us know what that is.
That's from SunnyTTE.
Thank you so much Sunny and that's been one of the coolest things
I've seen as we've walked around the venue preparing is they've got all these little areas where these incredible Pokemon statues are set on these little
Diarramas you can pop right into and here's another favorite the ferris wheel
I don't see and nor anything about
Who's king of team plasma on there much smaller ferris wheel, but we've made it work here for this couple and that's from Koopa and
Jay we are out here. Just like you looks like a New Jersey, maybe
New Jersey proud to see it glad you're out here represent if T rocket lived
anywhere be there. Alright Andre's L1997 says these
pokecology sculptures look amazing wow. That's gorgeous. My goodness how did I
I haven't even seen all of these things yet I'm so glad you guys are taking
pictures. My queen in the trees look at her she's beautiful. I love I want to
give her some honey so she'll give me some patterns items in pokokia. And we
talked about the Pokemon fossil museum we had swenami up here the
Book Ecology books as well do a beautiful job of taking kids' passion for Pokemon, and
I say kids, I mean me.
And relating it to real world things, so, there's a lot of education in there, there's
a lot of ways to get excited about so many real world things through Pokemon, and this
is a beautiful example.
You're just reminding me there's even more things I need to go pick up from the show
floor, I need to get some books.
Some books, yes.
Alright, this is Posh Queen says, I love the Pokemon XP jacket so much, the glowing
patches are such a nice touch, especially Jirachi, my witch wish definitely came true.
Oh well said.
I didn't know they glowed!
I was just gonna say that!
Did the patches glow?
Posh Queen, thank you!
I'm gonna go stand in the sun and then I'm gonna darken my jacket.
Yes, we are learning so much from you.
This is very important.
And it's great honor.
Yes.
It sure does.
It goes with that hair very, very well.
Thank you so much Posh Queen.
This is a bit of a factor of the Pokemon community overall.
Overall, when the games came out, red and blue, you had to learn about what was in each
other's games by talking to each other.
When Pokemon Go came out, they didn't tell you everything.
They wanted the community to talk to each other and teach each other.
So friends, you teach me, I teach you.
Take pictures around Pokemon XP, or wherever you are celebrating this event, and please
send them in because you're learning so much.
What does Penguin have?
Pin rally complete.
Oh, right.
That's impressive.
Legend.
So as you can see, there's a map there.
that you can stop at throughout Pokemon XP and you can pick up pins in order to complete the Pin Rally.
I personally, even if I don't complete them all, I need the Umbreon.
So I'm going to need to go down there and get that for the Pin Rally back.
It wouldn't match your jacket.
I know.
Wow, thank you Penguin.
Congratulations on that completion so fast. Must have done it immediately.
Yeah.
Record time. Well played.
Yes.
Now you have to sit on the champions throne for the next champion to walk up, potentially unseat you.
I'm learning from Gary here, but you've got this.
What a shame has to sit on the throne.
Oh no.
Thank you so much everyone who shared with us.
Remember you can use the hashtag Pokemon XP to have your contact featured
and to tell us what's going on out there.
We are really excited to see all these things that we can only see so far.
So you must be our eyes and ears and go out.
But don't worry, we actually did get a chance to go out and make some videos yesterday.
You two will get to make some today and we're going to see a lot of the special events going on
We will bring them to you from here as well
That's our job. That is our job. Honestly pretty amazing. I do love my job, right?
Yeah, as I put on my my my rocket arm this morning and you know, slung my slow poke over my shoulder
I was like off to the office
It really is a good day and coming up soon
We actually have another panel for you again if you're just tuning in the purpose of this stream is for us to bring you all
Of the action from Pokemon XP
So that's gonna be us going and experiencing things to show you that's gonna be a showing you the content
We did from socials and that's also going to be bringing you some panels for Pokemon XP
The next one is going to be the spotlight on the Pokemon
Pocopia game all three of us very interested in Pocopia
Super not a lot of time a super normal normal amount of Pocopia play time among the three of us
Yeah, absolutely. What are the rules about just getting the switch out and play right now? Like are we, should we?
I feel like if I've ever had a job where it would be appropriate to be like,
I'm busy right now and pull out my switch, it would be this one.
We'll call it a bit.
Show me the cloud.
Wait, do you actually have your switch here?
I mean, in the green room.
I always have it on me.
We can play right now.
Bubbly Basin has just come out, the first of the DLCs for Pokemon Pokopia.
I actually saved it until just this past week in preparation for Pokemon XP, started playing it.
Really exciting things you can do in water, like being able to build not resting on the ground,
being able to build floating. What are some other things that you've enjoyed about Pokopia?
For me, I tend to kind of grind through the quest, but then I get sucked into the building side of things.
So like you're mentioning where you have this opportunity to kind of like float I'm envisioning
Like an entire water temple vibe like underwater
Water temple where I can then move all of my water Pokemon who I have like kind of stationed in like
Random beach areas to get them as close to the water as possible and feel like it's fitting their vibe
We're putting them near hot springs
Now I put them in the water. Mm-hmm. They're gonna be
comfy. You're swimming. It's worth supposed to be. If you aren't familiar with
Pokopia, there is a whole mechanic where you find a Pokemon and then you build
them a home and then you tell them where you think they should live and they're
really excited about it, hopefully. So that's an interesting strategy that you're
putting them all by the water. I find it really interesting how people home
their Pokemon, you know? It's so different for everyone. I built my Eevee
Don't look at how my Pokopi Island is.
Please never don't tell anybody how they live.
I personally took all the EV evolution and built them a giant treehouse complex so they could all live together, but they have themed rooms.
That was my one big build. That was really important to me. What about you, Ray?
Everybody gets beautifully themed builds. No roofs. No roofs. No roofs.
No! I want to move inside!
And I want to move the things out.
So if it rains like everyone's very unhappy and all my pocopia islands except for the water types
Which I will soon move under the ocean so no one will be happy exactly. How are you housing yourselves? What is your own area?
My house is chaos it is the most it's like anything that I was like, oh, I kind of like that
I just threw it in my house. Yeah, so there's all sorts of noise making things and bright blinking things
It's disgusting looking and so chaotic and every time I wake up. It's like a jump scare
I'm like, oh, let me go outside and go to one of the beautiful builds I made for the other Pokemon
It's just it's a it's something in self-care about there
Well for poke over here for me I every single time I've unlocked a new zone
I've had this experience of like there is so much to do there's so much world
But if you've played Pocopia, especially if you got to the end,
I think you know why I love it so much.
I feel extremely validated as a Team Rocket Apologist for 30 years.
But I love living in the Pokémon world.
I love seeing the things that people who get to create Pokémon create.
And they have hidden so many beautiful gems of lore and love letters in this game.
The little bits of things left over that you get to pick up and read about.
I spend so much time just just treasuring every little I have so many screenshots
Really all the little like letters and magazine things I found in the game
Rememberizing the lore as you're going you're like double checking back. How does it tie in? Where are we at in the storyline?
You know I am how did Professor Tengroz get there? What is happening?
There's a lot of talk about the Kanto gym leaders for how long after there's a lot
I when we get to the Pocopia people I have many questions for them
I know I'm really I'm hoping that we get some glimpses of that in the Pocopia panel that's coming up
in just a few minutes. However, you're not getting out of answering the question, how
do you house yourself? I actually have a system. I don't know that it's the best system because
I too care more about my Pokemon's living situation than my own. Yes. However, the formula
that I have employed for myself is when I get to the new area, I pick one of the
box build small houses. I eventually try to get the box build mansion in every single
area. So I don't have to worry about building anything fancy for myself. Just give
me copy paste this is what it is and it gives me enough rooms to have space for
myself and then I move my favorite Pokemon from that area into my house
with me that's what you have a choice they're living with me whether they
like it or not yes favorite Pokemon roommate oh that's a good question okay
we're gonna have to think about that and answer it after the panel I don't
think I can do the house fair if oh you're so ready because I always try to
get at least one dog in my house. I'm living my real life. I want a pet in there. I do secretly
kind of lug Machamp as one of my roommates. Do tell. Tell us more. I feel like he's just
a good vibe while also being pretty useful for what I need to get done. High shelves,
high shelves in her house. That's another example of those Pokemon that I was positive
all the time. But in Pokopia, it's just a solid dude. It's just solid in Pokopia.
Thank you. I need to keep those. We have been chatting about the Pokémon Pokopia panel
that is going to be spotlight on the Pokémon Pokopia game that's coming up right now. We've
mentioned we would like to see some, maybe some lore drops, that's what we're hoping
for. Anything else that we want to see in this panel before we throw it to them?
No, I'm going to get into it. Bubbly Basin was such a surprise because I was enjoying
so many of the online adventures I didn't even think they'd open that chapter for us
so I'm just ready for them to surprise us again with something new.
I bet they will I know and I can't even think of what it will be so I hope we get
some hints as we go into the spotlight on Pokemon Kokopia panel let's watch it now!
All right, we are back.
Quick question, are there any fans of Pokemon Pokopia the game?
That's what I like to hear.
So coming to the stage are a few members behind Pokemon's Pokopia the game.
Let's make sure to clean up our habitats.
Let's make Bulbasaur proud, and let's make some noise for the team!
Hello, and welcome to the Pokemon Pokopia video game panel at the Pokemon Pokopia
Pokemon XP event.
Thank you to those who are in attendance and everyone watching from the live stream.
We're all excited to have you here.
I'm Rumi Yamashita from the Pokemon Company International, and will be the moderator for our panel today.
I will be assisted by Anne, Lisa, and Ryuka,
also from the Pokemon Company International,
who will be providing translations
for the today's panelists.
I am the moderator of today's
Pokemon Company International, Yamashita Rumi.
As a panelist, I will be supporting
Nami-e-An-san, Abe-Lisa-san, and Hashimoto-Yuka-san.
Before we get started, just a small reminder to please mute all electronic devices and no photos or recording of the panel are allowed.
始める前にお知らせとなりますが他のお客様のさまたりになりませんよう
電子機器などの通信音がミュートになっていることをご確認ください
またパネルディスカッションのお写真や映像のご撮影はお控えいただくようお願いいたします
So today we're joined by three very special guests who were directly involved in developing Pokemon Pocopia
I'm hoping we can dive into stories from the development process and hear about their experiences along the way.
So with that, let's get into introductions.
Hi, I'm Omori from Game Freak Inc. For Pokemon Pocopia, I served as the concept and senior director.
Hello, I'm Takatama Ida Gawa from Pro-E-Tecco Games. I was Chief Director for this game overseeing the game development as a whole.
And today I have flown in with Professor Tangro from all the way from Kanto to speak to y'all.
Applause
Hi!
I'm Murata from Kabushiki Gaisa Pokemon.
I'm a producer of the project,
and I'm also a global promotion.
I'm doing a lot of localize for the language.
Hi!
Thank you very much.
I'm Kanako Murata from the Pokemon Company.
for this title, the Pokemon Company has responsible for producing the project as well as had a link global marketing and localization into various languages.
Thank you for the introductions with that. Let's start off with Mr. Omori.
So for those who may be unfamiliar, could you please explain the premise of Pokemon Pokopia?
Mr.Omori, I'd like to tell you more about Pokemon that are not familiar to Pokemon.
What kind of Pokemon is Pokemon?
Yes, it's Pokemon.
This game is a slow life sandbox game that allows you to create a Pokemon town while cooperating with Pokemon.
The player is a metamon who has transformed into a human form
and has now become a human.
He lives in a place where he lives alone.
This is Dr. Mojambu.
He is Dr. Mojambu.
He meets the player and decides to make a new town like the one he used to live in.
In the middle of making a town, we make a tool,
we make a technique of the Pokemon we met,
we cut the skin, we roll the water,
and we make a town where everyone lives.
That's how the game works.
Yes, so Pokemon Pokopia is a live simulation
or sandbox game where players work together with Pokemon
to create a Pokemon town.
Players play as a ditto,
Ditto transformed to look like a human in a withered wasteland where there's no sight of any humans.
Ditto meets the mysterious Professor Chan growth who has been living here all alone
and decides to build the area as it once was by crafting items, cutting trees and watering the area,
and then learning moves from other Pokemon to create a world for everyone to live in one step at a time.
Thank you for the explanation.
So, Mr. Omori, do you mind sharing what inspired you to create Pokemon Pokopia?
Thank you, Mr. Omori.
What was the reason for the development of Pokemon?
Yes, there are various features to Pokemon.
I first started thinking that even if you don't focus on RPG genre, you can make a game using the new characteristics of Pokemon.
As a result of the first development, I was the first to make a game that was made as a new player in Game Freak.
It was a Pokemon Ruby Sapphire.
When I was making a map of Ruby Sapphire, I put the grass in the grass on the map.
From there, I developed an experience of Pokemon appearing from the grass.
I've always thought that this experience would be very interesting,
so I decided to use it.
I thought that this experience could be used in a new game,
and that it would be possible to create various maps,
and that Pokemon will fly out of the sand.
That's how we started to create something like a simulation simulator.
As a result, the game style called Slow Life was the most popular game.
It was a game that became a flow of emotions and was completed like this.
to the RPG genre and that was the beginning. We actually didn't start developing this game with
the concept of creating a life simulation game but personally I have a memory that triggered the
inspiration and this was when I was newly hired at Game Freak. The first game I created was Pokemon
Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire and I was also creating the map for this game and I quite enjoyed placing
the bush on the map and then see all the Pokemon start spawning from there. I thought this
experience would be pretty fun if used in a different game and thus began the creation of
a simulator which enables players to meet many Pokemon by creating a lot of different maps.
As a result, this concept fit the best with the life simulation style game.
Evolving is something Pokemon definitely does consistently so it's great to see something new.
Also, I know there's probably a lot of people here and watching who can appreciate
Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire as well.
So, when you came up with this idea, what led you to partner with Koei Tecmo Games for the development?
I think it's fun to see the new Pokemon that's evolving all the time.
I'm sure there are many people watching the show and watching the stream.
We wanted to make this game more high quality, so that it can be played as a real game.
At Game Freak, we first made a game for the production.
At the time of the production, we presented the game to the company of the company.
This is something I want to shape.
As a result, the development experience of the sandbox game
is connected to the development partner of the game.
art. To make this an even higher quality game when Game Freak presented an early prototype
that we've been creating here to the Pokemon company, we decided to approach Koei Tecmo to see
if they would be interested in co-developing this with us since they have a lot of experience
developing sandbox games. While working with Koei Tecmo Games was a great choice,
we'd love to hear how the partnership between Game Freak and Koei Tecmo Games worked
from the Koei Tecumogame style as well.
Koei Tecumogame sama to kyoudou de kaihatsu ni atatte ikareru to yu na masani
subarashii gohan dan datto to kanjimasu.
Partnership o kumare de kaihatsu o shitsumerarutakoto ni tsuite
Koei Tecumogame sama no boshi ken kara mo o hanashi o kagai shite mitai no desu ga
Eda Nara-san, ikagai deshou ka?
When this project started, I wanted you to take the specific development part of the project in a mode that you think it's okay to use.
That's how I got it done as an item.
However, the game-freeq-san and the Pokémon-san created them
are not at all related to the actual concept of Pokémon.
They are all based on the concept of the game-freeq-san and the Pokémon-san
We were able to communicate with each other and create creative ideas.
We were able to communicate with each other in detail,
so I think this game has become a game where all three of us have disappeared.
we realized that it really shouldn't be a one-way street where Koei Tecmo was creating the game and then have Game Freak
Supervised and review. So really the everything from the basic features, the concept,
design, CG assets and texts and everything. All of these were very collaborative efforts between
Game Freak, Koei Tecmo and also the Pokemon Company.
So, we were able to really have very close and frequent discussions about these things
throughout the development process and decide on everything from gameplay direction to all
of the smallest details.
And in the end, I think we were very able to effectively collaborate and collaborate
and incorporate all the strengths of all three companies into the game.
A game like this is vastly different from what's been done in the past.
So it must have come with some new learnings.
So for the group, we'd like to hear what challenges did you face while working on Pokemon Pokopia?
It's a completely new game that we've created while experiencing the past, and we've gained a lot of experience.
I'd like to ask everyone, is there an episode where you were in the development process of Pocoa Pokémon?
Yes, I'm from here, but there are some things that are quite painful to develop, but this project was not so painful.
The Go-E-Pek-Mo game that we developed together
has really cherished the Pokemon,
and we understand the point of cherishing them very well.
We want to experience them in this game.
We want to do things like this, and we want to achieve that.
We can create them all at once without being able to reach the end.
It was a very fun development.
If I were to give you one example, there were a lot of Pokemon characters this time.
It was really hard to describe.
Each Pokemon is very unique and you can talk to them properly.
and the number of people who are working on the game,
and also the number of people who are working on the game,
including the people who are working on the game,
are very difficult to do.
Yes, so usually when it comes to developing games,
there's a lot of challenges,
but in this case, I didn't really face too many challenges
or hardships for this title.
Koei Tecmo Games has been very understanding
about what we value about Pokemon and they really value Pokemon as well and our
thoughts on what we want to achieve through this game was quite synced up
until the very end of development. We were able to proceed with the development
very smoothly and it was quite a fun process together. If I should name one
challenge it would be the amount of Pokemon dialogue that exists in this
game which is very hard to work with. Each Pokemon says very unique
dialogues and its quantitative amount made this project tough with so much text creation,
debugs, and localizations all put together.
I was also personally very much able to enjoy the development of LEGO.
Thank you for your cooperation.
I was able to enjoy the development of LEGO.
I also personally was very much able to enjoy the development process, and everyone on the
Koei Tecmo Games team who worked on this project was also having a lot of fun.
But if I had to talk about one sort of painful memory I had is that during the testing
phase we were trying to test out building a very large scale building.
And so I brought up the idea of how about we try making the Koei Tecmo office building
together.
And we were all getting together, and everyone was working together to build it on a cloud
island, and things were going just fine and smoothly at first.
And then one of the team members actually decided that they wanted to kind of make their
own version of the same office building on their own cloud island.
And as time went on, they were starting to have some rumors that this other building
on the cloud island was turning out to be a little bit better.
So, I noticed that I was starting to get left behind on my own Cloud Island, and in the end I was just kind of left behind on my own Cloud Island with my own office building.
I'm not saying it was painful, but this time, the Pokémon have really talked a lot and expressed their individuality in a really unique way.
I think it was really hard to find the same kind of character in any language.
Not exactly a challenge for myself as well, but in this game, the Pokémon converse, a lot with each other.
I think it's really fun to see how the Pokémon converse with each other.
not exactly a challenge for myself as well but in this game the Pokemon
converse a lot of a lot with each other and every Pokemon has various
personalities it was up to each of the localization team to show their skills
to localize the game and the way those person has actually really shined through
I personally am playing in Japanese for this game but it makes me very happy
happy to see that those playing in other languages are also enjoying the dialogue as much as
I am with the Pokemon and all the different personalities.
Those actually sound like fun challenges to have.
So Mr. Omori, you mentioned about the dialogue.
Each Pokemon has its own personality in the game and we have some really fun conversations
with the Pokemon.
How did you decide on this?
Yes, thank you very much.
At that time, I think it was a very difficult time for everyone,
but when I see your smiles now,
I feel like you were busy with your daily life while enjoying the dark.
Mr. Omori, I was talking about the words of the Pokemon,
but the charm of Pokemon is that each Pokemon has its own charm,
I think that the conversation between Pokemon Doshia and the main character MetaHunt will be enjoyable,
but how did you decide on this kind of strategy?
Yes, Pokemon is a very unique and unique existence,
and each of them has its own personality.
In this Pokemon world,
Each of the Pokemon is thinking about what they are thinking about.
I also think about it in Game Freak,
and I also think about the lines from that image.
For example,
For example, a character like a mountain of blood, a pudding,
may have more complicated thoughts or worries.
Also, a little young Pokemon that hasn't evolved
It's a little bit of a cute thing, so I thought about it one by one, and I made it.
This is a Pokemon. The main character is a metamon, so you can understand the other Pokemon's words.
If you don't know the human eyes as a trainer, you can feel the characteristics of the Pokemon more clearly.
This is one of the big charms of the game, so if you haven't played it yet, please play it.
I hope you can feel the unique characteristics of the various Pokémon.
So, for example, the highly intelligent Alec-Zan is likely thinking about more complex things
and worrying about that kind of stuff, and a young Pokemon that hasn't evolved yet might
be worried about something more childish and cute and childish.
And Ditto is the first protagonist of the Pokemon Pokia, and they can understand the
words of other Pokemon.
So the personality is a Pokemon that wouldn't be understood from a normal trainer or
or a human perspective can be felt more clearly.
This is one of the great appeals of this game,
so please play the game if you haven't already
and get a feel of the various personalities
of the different Pokemon.
Speaking of Ditto, could you share a bit more on
why Ditto was chosen as the protagonist?
Metamon, why did you decide on Metamon as the main character?
I decided to make Metamon the main character from the beginning.
I wanted to make it a character like this.
I wanted to draw a rough on my character and make it a designer.
And then, using a new technique,
you can make a cycle of the waves,
you can make water,
and then, with that,
you can meet a new Pokémon
and learn a new technique.
You can make a cycle of the game.
So, depending on the Pokémon you meet,
you can fly through the sky,
you can swim through the waves,
and you can hear a lot of changes.
It's very convenient.
So we decided to make a big spread of Pokemon here in the early stages of concepting.
So we decided in the early stage of concepting to have Ditto as the main character.
So I also came up with the rough idea on my own and then worked with the designer to see what kind of character it should look like.
And this was very important for this game to have a Pokemon as the main character
so that it could enjoy conversations with the various Pokemon that it met.
In addition, it would be difficult for Pokemon to use complicated tools directly.
So we thought that Ditto's ability to transform could create a new game cycle
by copying new moves from Pokemon and then using those moves
to then meet more Pokemon and copying their moves.
So, Transform is definitely something that enables so many things like letting Ditto fly or surf.
And so, by choosing Ditto as the main character, we were able to open up a wide range of possibilities.
Ditto does offer a lot of flexibility.
So, Related, what are your favorite moves that Ditto can learn in Pokemon Pokopia?
Yes, the changes in the metamon are very important to the game's flexibility.
By the way, what is the most popular technique that you all like to learn in the Pokemon game?
I think that the basic skills of this game are very good.
So for me, I would say that definitely a move that goes back to the mechanics of Pokemon
that spawned from Bushes.
So I think the Leafage is something that embodies the core fun of this game about
like meeting Pokemon and it also highlights the different like Pokemon-ness of this
game.
Thank you very much.
I'm a member of the group, and I gather every day for an hour and play while remembering.
I check the problems with the game.
So I really like the move rollout. When we were testing this game, we were in a room with a team and we would have these one-hour sessions where we would test-play the game.
And I realized that the whole hour would actually go by with me just going around leveling the terrain with just rollout.
So I definitely, for myself, I think rollout is my favorite move.
It's very difficult to just choose one, but I feel like the move jump that Margecraft teaches you is very useful.
I think it's the first time I've used so many of the other Pokemon in the game, so I really liked the unique move.
It's very difficult to just choose one but I feel like the move jump that
Marger Carp teaches you is a must in this game so it's very useful when hopping
over like spas and fences and I think it's the first time that a Pokemon other
than Marger Carp has used jumps this many times in the game so it's really
unique and I really like this move. So speaking of moves dive is a new move
that was introduced in the latest update a few weeks ago and it's a big part of the
part 1 DLC, Pupply Basin. So what was the inspiration behind choosing an
underwater setting for this part of the DLC?
Please tell us why you decided to expand the stage during this additional content and what inspired you to do it.
I think that this game, the Poker Pokémon, is fun to live with the Pokémon.
So I think that there are many things in this environment that are more characteristic of this environment.
As one of the characteristics of this environment, I thought that the environment was surrounded by growth,
so I thought that we had to create it somewhere.
I'm really happy that we were able to perform such a thing with this map.
We're happy that the Pokémon are able to enjoy the game and enjoy the game.
Yes, so the core theme of that gives a lot of the main enjoyment from this game in Pokémon Procropia
is that you're living together with the Pokémon.
And since every Pokemon has different preferences
on what kind of habitat they like to live in,
I really had a strong desire since the beginning
to make it possible to be able to live underwater
because that is really one of the defining features
of a lot of these habitats.
And so with this update and this new move,
I'm really happy and it's very rewarding to see
that these Pokemon are able to happily swim around
and be their happy selves underwater.
So that's been great.
Excited to see more people dive into Bupli Basin
and continue to build the unique creations
in Pokemon Pokopia.
So what has been your favorite things
to see people create in the game?
I'm looking forward to it.
Many players have been published on social media, but please tell us what you are impressed with and are interested in.
Yes.
So, I have been watching the matches that are broadcasted on social media.
The matches that you have made are very high quality.
Even if you are a developer, you can make something like this.
You can make it very surprising.
In that sense, what I am quite happy about is that I want to show the city and the road in the world that is in the pocket monster world.
I would like to share my experience of making a city and a road with Ruby's Fire.
I'm very happy that you are doing what you wanted to do.
It's interesting to create a map like that.
I would like to say that to that person.
Yeah, so all the towns that people have been sharing on social media have been such high quality and they often make me think, wow, you can really create something like that.
I'm especially very happy to see towns that faithfully recreate the cities from the Pokemon video game world, such as something from like Ruby and Sapphire as mentioned before.
And when I come across those, it makes me feel like players are doing exactly what I had hoped,
and that makes me a lot of joy.
It makes me want to say, see, like, map creation is really fun, isn't it?
Yes, I check SNS every day.
Well, I was expecting to see if we can make something that we had imagined.
I think it's a great way to create something that can surpass me in the spring.
But it's not just a way to do that.
I think it's a good way to look at the game every day.
For example, if you told me something like this today,
I was surprised to see how much fun it was for me to be able to play this game.
When I was making this game, I wanted players who had never played a game like this before,
and players who had never played a game like this before,
so I was very happy to receive such reactions.
Yeah, so I really do check social media every day and see different fan posts, but when we
were developing this game, I was expecting that there would be a level of creations that
would exceed our expectations, but it really has been beyond really our expectations, seeing
that so many immaculate creations that we've seen from fans and it's really
great to also see fans react to the Pokemon reacting to what they have
placed or made for their towns and seeing their fans being surprised
and delighted by that and so it's also great to see people who haven't really
played building games very much or even play video games at all even have been
able to really enjoy this game and that's been a really nice and rewarding feel.
I also saw a lot of your amazing rolling dice and I was really surprised that you didn't have this kind of idea or that you could use it like this.
I'm really surprised to see so many trees that I didn't even think of.
For example, there are many small trees, but there are many trees that are made of one very large tree.
There are also some of them that are made of very large natural trees.
On the other hand, in a tower mansion with a very tall building,
all the Pokemon live in one building.
I think that the environment where the Pokemon live is different from the other.
When I see everyone's amazing towns, I think to myself, well, I never thought of that, or
oh, you could use that piece of furniture like that, and I'm always blown away by the
creativity that everyone has.
There are those that put many trees, not small trees, but regular trees, to create one giant
tree, and those create like a large, very, very tall apartment complexes for many,
many Pokemon to live in together.
And it shows that there's truly so many different ways
to shape each and every town to live together
with your Pokemon.
We're coming close to time,
but could you please share what players can look forward
to in part one of the Pokemon Pokeropia Expansion?
For this one, let's ask Ms. Marata first.
The time of farewell has come to an end, but I hope you enjoy this game, especially with the help of Pokemon Kongo and Expansion Pass.
Let's start with Mr. Murata.
Yes, I've seen a lot of Pokemon, but I've never seen a new one before, so I've been able to see them all the time.
By diving further, I can see a new one that I've never seen before.
For example, the poikin who taught me how to fly jumped over the ground and moved.
I like it, but if it's in the sea, I'd like to swim in the water.
So I would like you to make a home in the sea,
and I hope you can show me the shape of the water in the sea.
In Pokemon Pocopia, players could experience a new side to each Pokemon,
but the move dive makes the underwater setting
and see Pokemon in many ways that weren't possible before.
Pokemon like Marja Karp that would truly thrive underwater, swim, swim, swim instead of just hopping
on land. I hope that you can build a Marja Karp a new home underwater so you can thrive like itself.
I think we can still improve the bass part of the game.
So I want to improve it as an update in the future.
I have a lot of things to improve in the future, but I hope you look forward to it.
I hope you enjoy the Senagaku Tokoha Pokemon.
So the DLC also includes parts two and three which also have their own updates
incoming but we've also are so making improvements to the base game as well and
quality of life updates and we will continue to work hard on making the game
more enjoyable and comfortable to play so we hope you keep enjoying the game
for a long time to come.
Pokemon in the world, and I hope you can enjoy a lot of Pokemon and slow life, so thank you very much.
Also, peace life with Pokemon.
And thank you very much.
So, thank you very much.
That wraps our panel.
Thank you to our very special guests,
people here and everyone watching.
The game is currently available only
on Nintendo Switch 2 System.
And for those of you who are here,
please make sure to stop by the Nintendo booth
and play a demo of the game
as well as the recently released DLC part one.
Also, be sure to visit the Pokemon XP
and World's Cloud Island inside the game.
Pokemon XP and Pokemon World Championship's Cloud Island, please go and try it out.
Thank you very much. Thank you!
I
Hello, and welcome back to Pokemon XP.
I am Anna and with me are Rachel and Glitter.
You just saw the Pokemon Pokopia panel,
which we watched also with great interest.
Yes.
I, a highlight for me was when they were talking
about the different personalities
that they've given Pokemon in Pokopia.
And the question was, you know,
how did you decide which personalities to give the
Pokemon?
And the answer was kind of like,
this is just how we think they are.
And I was like, canonically that's actually
such a great answer that the Game Freak specifically
thinks that this is how the personality of these Pokemon are. I found that very
satisfying even though it's kind of like oh yeah I guess I didn't saw that.
But also how much leeway they gave the localizers to take these personalities and
say well what does that sound like in your region? What does that sound like you
know to your fans? And so that's how I think we got so many of those great
moments that you saw shared all over social media. Loved, get it human. Yes.
Loved, I threw up. Iconic language in the Pokopia universe.
I want to know which localizer was like, it's good, yo, I want to know yo who who made yo because I love you
It's a some some goosener writer out there. Yeah is on the loose again, but it still works
It's a I mean I'm calling back to Machamp as we were talking about before heading into the panel
but tell me that his
Personality is not the most perfect Jim bro part like gotta be lifting heavy things
You know that they're trying to move rocks around. He's got to make sure he's keeping himself in shape
He's trying to pick things up and put them down. Exactly. That's all he's trying to do, you know, I
I love it. I love it also really loved that every single person on that panel also was holding a plush
Yes, thank you for saying that I feel very affirmed by the fact that we all just kind of brought these up here with us
I feel like is this okay? Are we low-key bullying you because you didn't bring a plush today?
I have this he's in my plush is attached. He's practical
He's a case for caring things and my emotional support plush
And if you look
Munchlax has his own Snorlax on plush.
Plush on plush. So everyone's getting in on it.
We're really killing it, honestly.
Really killing it here at Pokemon XP.
Come on. That's how you get the Munchlax in
Pokopia, you got to put the Snorlax bed out.
So check that.
Honestly, yes. We have more Pokopia to talk about actually,
because we have an interview coming up with List of the Last.
We just saw the Pokopia panel.
But really quick, we want to give you a look at the Pokémon Pokopia booth here at Pokémon XP.
So let's take a look at that right now.
I love that they took us to that booth and they were like, do we need our switches?
Because we can bring our switches out.
We can bring our switches out.
Absolutely prepared.
You're absolutely prepared.
But don't worry, if you didn't bring your Switch 2, you can head over to the Pokemon
Pocopia Booth.
You can play a demo there.
You can use the switches that they have on hand.
We confirm for you.
Yeah.
They work good.
And it's so much fun just moving around and living in the spaces that they create
down in the hall.
I know we'll get to check out a lot more with a lot more of our featured content, but
the Pocopia Booth is a special little cozy spot for a cozy game.
I was so activated by hearing just the audio.
I walked by and you hear the audio and I'm like, I'm ready to be cozy.
Oh, where is it?
Carrying me away at Drizlin.
All right, in case you are ready to go to the Pokemon XP
or Pokemon World-themed Pokopia Island,
we have that code ready for you as well.
Remember that you can visit this island
and we think that there may be some special things
you might want to take some pictures of,
bring some Pokemon home with you,
so be sure that you check out that island.
It looks like here's a little preview
with the painted ladies from San Francisco.
You can check that out yourself by visiting,
using the code we're gonna show right here
that is the password.
I personally have not visited it yet
and I feel very much FOMO about it.
Yeah, it's just, it's so cute.
There's gonna be so many amazing details
as there always is when you get a special
like island situation like this.
So I suffice to say I've been taking a lot of pictures.
Yes.
I like to take pictures and then try to build brick by brick
what I saw.
Yes.
That's what I will be doing with that.
Any other Pocopia things we want to chat about?
Just that, because we haven't been able to visit
the Cloud Island yet, but we've also been accepting
photos and tweets on social media
with the hashtag Pokemon XP.
If you're on the Cloud Island,
do you want to show us some fun stuff going on out there?
True!
I'm not asking, I'm telling you to send me photos.
I would like to see the photos, show me the photos.
That is specifically a request,
not from the production staff,
but from us here at the desk.
Please show us your Pocopia islands,
use the hashtag Pokemon XP.
we want to see them.
Now, if you're tuned in from home,
we also have some other things for you
that we hope you will enjoy.
One of them is a Twitch chat badge.
Let's take a look at how you can get that,
what it looks like, what you've got to do.
We were backstage trying to get our accounts
all linked up to get ready to do this as well.
All you've got to do is watch Pokemon XP
for 60 minutes.
You're already doing that.
You're already here.
Just make sure that you keep on doing it
and you can get the Pokemon XP costume
Pikachu as a chat badge.
Look at her, she's so cute.
I can't handle it.
I know.
I can't handle it.
That's a need, not a want.
So much personality.
I just want that chat badge forever.
I'm going to flex that in every stream.
Absolutely.
Yeah, Pokemon for life.
She also is an exclusive Twitch chat badge.
That word gives me a lot of urgency.
I need this now or forever not.
You know what I mean?
60 minutes.
Gotta put our 60 minutes in.
easy peasy. That's gonna fly by.
We will endeavor to entertain you while you do that.
And here to help us do that is list the last surprise.
Here you are on the desk.
Hi, it is so wonderful to be here
with all of you lovely ladies today.
Welcome to Pokemon XP. How is it so far?
Oh my gosh, it has been so incredible.
I just got here maybe an hour and a half ago
and there's so much to see.
I haven't even scratched the surface, so I'm excited.
Wow, amazing.
Okay, well then, obviously we're here to talk about Pokopia.
So, what's your personal experience with Pokopia?
What's your favorite part about the game?
I am obsessed with Pokopia, wholeheartedly so obsessed.
I have been super enjoying Pokémon's venture
into the life sim genre.
Honestly, starting off XP with a big Pokopia panel
has been just incredible.
I'm just so excited about it.
It's like we're starting off with a bang, you know?
So I'm a huge fan of the game
and of course loved hearing from all of the people
that worked on it, all of their fun little development
processes and secrets and stuff.
Oh, it's been so fun.
Are you kind of ditto-coded today?
Is that what I'm facing?
Oh, I am so bad, so dumb.
Okay, we're getting worldwide
with our Pokemon Center stuff, okay?
Because I am so excited about this bag.
Anyways, yes, I am ditto-coded today.
A little closet cosplay.
Yes, we love to see it.
Yes.
So you watched the panel, and one of the things
I was really excited to hear them talk about
was how impressed they were with players like you,
who build incredible, beautiful structures,
who have really taken the game
and shown them things to do in it
that even they never anticipated.
So you've made some incredible builds in the game.
You've had a lot of excitement about it.
What has been your favorite to approach
and kind of what's your philosophy
when you're picking these builds?
That is so funny that you say players like me
building really great and amazing because honestly if you go into my game I have over a hundred hours
in it and I can't even show you maybe one area that's finished. It is so expansive and extensive.
The amount of just gameplay in there and just how sandboxy it is, it is so easy to just like
constantly be pulled in so many different directions because there's so many different things
that you're wanting to work on at one time and especially with the new DLC out.
I'm like, oh my goodness, there's just, you're really giving me another world?
I can't, I can't, but I am so up for the challenge and for me, I love going in and trying to figure
out based off of my knowledge of the Pokemon games that are in Kanto, I love going in and
trying to figure out how to recreate and rebuild the structures that have kind of deteriorated
obviously in the game and see what I can do to kind of recreate them as accurately as possible.
So that's typically how I like to play. I know a lot of people just really go out there and get
so incredibly creative, you know, and I love seeing that. But for me, I love trying to
recreate the towns. I feel like I'm also a preservationist. Yes. I love that. I'm a
I feel like there's there's different types of players like my husband was like look what I did bulldoze the entire area
Just made it flat
And I was like, how do you know which buildings were there and what if the Pokemon miss that building and I need to make
So I I'm much more like that, but I have so much
Respect for people who build from scratch also, but I just can't I can't bring myself to do it
It's like I I it's the history of the place
a flattening an entire place.
Like I just, I can't,
how do you even start from something that's just so empty?
Like I love that there's something to work off of already
and I'm going to take that path and stick with it.
I mean, it doesn't mean that you can't still
make it your own along the way.
You're just kind of utilizing the natural terrain
and the existing structures
and just gizzing them up a little bit,
giving them a little bit of your own flair.
And I know that you guys said that
you're very did okay today,
But does that also then correlate to your favorite Pokemon?
I, listen, I who love me some ditto, okay?
But I do have a favorite Pokemon,
and I don't think that ditto would even,
you know, be able to touch this one for me.
Okay, okay, okay.
For me personally, my favorite Pokemon is Mime Junior.
Oh, okay.
Really?
Kind of a random poll.
Speak, speak, tell us about what it was.
There is a movie called Lucario and the Mystery of Meal.
Okay, I watch this movie and Mind Junior was the cutest thing
I have ever seen in my entire life.
Watch that movie and you'll totally understand
what I mean, everybody, like come on.
He was miming everybody, miming Pikachu, miming, oh.
I'm with you, you're, yeah.
And I was so sold from that moment on.
Mind Junior's my favorite.
What about you guys?
I love that.
No one has asked us what our favorite Pokemon are.
I was so nervous.
Really?
No.
It was there before.
I was just on the desk.
I really, I love this for us.
I mean, Eevee.
And I know that's a very basic answer, but here's the thing.
It's like you've got to get to choose a bunch of favorite
Pokemon in one because the opportunities to be whatever
you want to be are endless.
So I'm an Eevee girly.
However, I've a lot of shout outs to some other weirdos
down on the way.
What about you, Rachel?
Articuno and Mew, but also Mew like ditto is all the Pokemon. So I feel like it's a little bit of a cheat
That's fair
This is also a little bit basic, but I have such a soft spot in my heart for Gengar specifically because of the lore
behind
Gengar store. I mean being left alone
waiting for their trainer
Abandoned and just helping they're coming back. Oh, just loyal. Yeah, loyal
So cute and
I mean I love Sylveon.
I mean I love Sylvan.
Who doesn't?
Honestly, yeah.
But getting to recruit all the Pokémon, getting to live with them in the Pokopia Universe is
one of my favorite things about it.
Do you have a favorite area that you played in the game and Pokémon that you spawned there?
I have been really loving Bubbly Basin, but I cannot abandon what I'm trying to do
in Withered Wasteland right now.
It has been my main and number one area
and I find myself becoming a little bit more brave
and putting myself out there
a little bit more in the sparkling skylands.
Okay, oh!
That area is incredibly intimidating.
Yeah, everything is so upheaved and on different levels
and I'm trying to do this restoration thing
but I'm finding it like a little bit difficult
to understand how it was before, right?
And so, trying to make a little headway there
here and there.
to jump around though.
I feel like in Sparkling Skylands,
there's one of the floating islands
that that's just my resource area.
I just pull apart those buildings and put them
other places and I feel bad for that area
but no one lives there anymore, you know?
Yes, yes, yes.
I do the exact same thing.
Whenever I'm gonna start like one building,
I'm like, let me just go tear this other one down.
It's only halfway there.
Yeah.
You know, why not?
I'll just use the same resources.
It's really putting things into work over there, huh?
Yeah, it's gonna take a lot of work.
I find that I'm looking at Pocopia as a lifelong project.
I think it is going to take me my whole life to finally completely restore everything.
And that's such a fun prospect for me because I do like a game where I can just hop in a
couple of hours at a time and make a little bit of progress, you know, over the course
of years I'm going to find myself slowly maybe completing one area at a time.
We need to follow with this journey, though.
Yeah, yeah.
Where can we follow this journey, by the way?
I'm on YouTube!
I'm a YouTuber!
YouTube.com slash C slash list the last.
Or wait, no, actually now it's YouTube.com slash at list the last.
Nice.
Nowadays.
That's a three line simple.
What will people find on your YouTube channel?
I love to talk a lot about games in general.
And Pocopia is a really good topic for me,
because I find myself having just so much to say, you know?
I love to gush about the game and how much,
just how interesting the development process was.
And I, in general, I'm just always trying to talk
about games that I love and spread the good word, right?
Get it out there, you know?
I have two questions that we were chatting about before the Pocopia panel that I think
are particularly interesting in getting to know someone.
The first is, who are the Pokemon that live with you?
Who are your favorite romance in your home in Pocopia?
I always keep gulping around because I love that he holds things.
And Mime Junior, of course, lives in my house with me.
Love him.
Um, as far as anybody else, I kind of, like, if you go to my house in the sparkling skylands,
I got a bunch of random Pokemon that have nothing to do with each other in there.
Don't even want to be in the same habitats, because I'm like, I just got to get people
in habitats right now.
So yeah, there's some areas that are a little bit more messy than others, but in Bubbly
Basin, I have my house with trapping.
I moved him over there.
So yeah, no, we're having fun.
Yeah.
So I just have it on there.
I don't know.
I just, I figured I was like, yeah, I just feel like you want to be over here.
So over kind of by the Pokemon Center, I have me and Trapinch just over by that spa.
Am I the only one who made the spa my home?
Oh, I do not.
No, mine is right next to it.
Mine is right next to it and I love it over there.
I just feel like, yeah, I mean I was spit out right by this spa where I can relax.
I feel it's a great place to put my little flag.
Yeah.
One of the other questions that we had that I thought was interesting is,
are there any Pokémon that before Pokopia you were kind of like,
but then after spending time with them in Pokopia,
maybe their personality or like them just being around enough,
made you be like, no, they're one of my favorites?
I honestly, it's Trappin.
Really? He's so funny to me.
I really, there was one,
one of the events where we had to go around
and do a lot of different quests for a different Pokémon
that it would just kind of pop up
and then we would get some sort of reward out of it.
I can't recall exactly, but I saw that Trapinch had a little bubble over their head, and seemed
so troubled, right?
And I go up to Trapinch and ask what's wrong, and they're like, I simply just don't know
what to do.
Oh, Liz, do you think you could help me out?
I just need one leaf.
Bloody.
And I'm like, that's the funniest thing I've ever heard.
You were so stressed about one leaf.
So, honestly, just opening my heart to so many different Pokemon in there in Pokopia, it's
good so fun, but I love those little moments where it's like, you're funny.
You're, I know, I don't really think about Trappin' very much, but you're funny, and
I like you, and I want you to live in my house.
Yes, exactly.
I feel like that's what Pokopia did for me with a lot of Pokemon.
I was like, you're funny.
You live with me.
Yes.
Thank you.
Definitely.
We have plenty of time, actually, before our next panel, so I am really chilling talking
about Pokopia, but I also, Liz, want to give you a second also to talk about any other
properties of Pokémon that you're interested in, because we are here at Pokémon XP.
We're celebrating 30 years of Pokémon.
We've seen some really cool shows.
We've seen some cool card stuff come out.
Anything else that has your interest here at Pokémon XP?
general I am super excited to watch the tournaments and watch the competition. My
boyfriend plays a little bit and some of the regionals and so I've been slowly
getting into watching competitive Pokemon in general over the years and it's
really fun you know going through the competitor halls and you know there's
so many friends in there so many people competing and so I'm really
excited for everybody good luck out there everyone super excited to watch
all of the finals as well. In general just have been a Pokemon fan my whole
life you know starting with the anime and for me personally I feel like your first
Pokemon game is always one of your favorites and my first game was Pokemon
Diamond and so I always look back on those games very fondly especially in
the DS era I love you know all of the new games as well and so it's just
kind of been a constant throughout my life and I'm excited to celebrate it here in
beautiful San Francisco with so many other fans. There is a fashion side of it.
Yes, yes. I mean, I always got to show up and show out.
Well, with such a long and interesting career in
Pokemon you've been fans since Diamond and Pearl. Now you've watched we're all
the way up to winds and waves almost coming out. We've talked about all the
Pokemon that are in Pokopia. We've talked about Ditto. We've talked about
Trapinch, but I'm gonna talk about the Pokemon that made you love Pokemon. So
when you were first playing Diamond Pearl, when you were first playing any
Pokemon property, was there one that sort of opened the door for you? I think
Pip-Lup changed my life. It's the second Pip-Lup shoutout we've gotten too!
It's a Pip-Lup Day.
How did Pip-Lup change your life?
So cute. So cute. I've never seen anything so cute in my life.
I don't know anyone who doesn't love and think Pip-Lup is cute.
There's no Pip-Lup Antis, are there?
No.
Because I just wouldn't be right.
Because they would be wrong.
Obviously.
Pip-Lup is even one of the Pokémon Company has done a little special stamp on the TCG cards for.
There's Project Pip Lup, a lot of stuff out there.
So a wonderful ambassador, I think,
that they've identified there,
just in the same way Pikachu was for some of us.
You mentioned being here with so, so many people,
and we've been talking about how it's so cool
to just be gathered with such a throng of humans
who are all just excited about the same thing.
I'm thinking about the fact that, you know,
maybe I don't have a lot in common
with some of these people, except for
that we just love Pokemon,
and in some way or another, it touched or changed our life.
What has that feeling been like being part of this huge group of fans?
So connecting.
You know, we're also connected by this hobby and you know, there's so many people here
from different age groups, different generations that have been Pokemon fans their whole lives.
And seeing all of the kids obviously running around and meeting all of the mascots
and the characters and having so much fun.
It really warms my heart and it makes me so excited when I run into a kid who says,
oh my gosh, I love your key chain, and then we get to talk about Pokemon even outside
of the event.
And it's really great that we all get to come together and celebrate all of these
just amazing, wonderful fans and competitors and this intense love for the game.
Absolutely.
And kind of following up on that too, as you are obviously someone who's creating content around
Pokopi and Pokémon in general, and the idea of community and how unique Pokémon's community
is specifically, how has that allowed you to better connect with your audience?
Yeah, I, you know, before Pokémon Pokopia, I hadn't really played a ton of Pokémon on my
channel. For me personally, I like to talk about a lot of life sims and farming sims.
So obviously, when Pokemon Pokofio was announced, I was like, very interested. I'm very intrigued.
This is such a cool idea. I am very excited to see what they do with the genre. And they
knocked it out of the park. This is my game of the year. Sorry, like I am so excited
about this game, I think that it's very, very special.
And so before that, I had really talked a little bit
about my Pokemon history and my general context
of my gaming history, but I loved Legends EA.
I loved Legends RCS.
I am just so excited about the Switch games in general.
But, you know, it wasn't something that I really
got to talk about all that much.
And now I get to talk about my love for Pokemon
through Pocopia all the time, yeah.
You made content before this,
but now that you're talking about Pokemon,
has your audience changed in any way
or has your experience creating content been different
now that you kind of walked into the Pokemon space?
We have so many Pocopia heads in the chat all the time.
So many people have been loving this game.
Something that I find through my audience,
a lot of joy and is for a lot of people,
this is their first Pokemon game.
But for a lot of people that really appreciate
the life-saving genre,
maybe a lot of like animal crossing fans, right?
They really take to Pokopia.
And a lot of people ask me,
is this a good first Pokemon game to play?
And I say, absolutely, all of them are.
Yeah.
All of them are, but this,
if you are into the specific genre,
Pocopia is really gonna wow you in general because it is just such a good game
It's also one of the only games where you can kind of get to know
Pokemon the way that you can like making them your neighbors learning their personalities
I feel like as someone who really focuses a lot on the collecting aspect of the games and always wants to shiny hunt and always
Wants to have my favorites in my team that was it really fed a need for me of feeling like I got to know all these
Pokemon and to me as we're talking about fandom and connecting with people it's like
When you have a shared love of or an experience with a Pokémon,
it connects you even more with the Pokémon community.
So I find that really special about Pokopia as well, that feeling.
Yeah, it's perfect for that hardcore fan, played every game,
every single one, multiple times, speedrunner, take a second, show.
Let's play some Pokopia, let's hang out with the Pokémon.
And it's also perfect for the brand new player
who has never touched any of the games before.
or it allows you to, like you're saying, get to know them.
And all of their personalities are so unique.
Something that I really appreciated about the panel
was how they were talking about specifically injecting
all of these personalities in and figuring out,
okay, you know, Alakazam would be a little bit more
of a wiser Pokemon.
And maybe other Pokemon would have a little bit more
of like a younger, childlike feel.
That was so cool to hear about that philosophy
because you kind of can tell when you're playing the game
that each Pokemon has their own different thing going on.
And then of course I love the little accents
and stuff that they throw in.
Magic harp is so fun.
I love slow-po.
You know, how cool.
You know, all of the thought that they put into it
adds more life, I think, into the series in general.
You know?
Oh, go ahead.
a lot about and I do love the Pokemon in Pokopia. Very nice. But there is also an underlying
story in Pokopia that I found. Oh my gosh, here we go again. Yeah, to dig into. We're
finding all these pieces of, I'm putting together kind of what happened and we're really uncovering
who is going to save the day at the end, whoever that might be. But I want to know
your reaction to the story of Pokopia and kind of as you uncover things, how are you
reacting to finding out how things got the way they were? What Rachel wants to
know is is Team Rocket really the good guys? I know the answer that's yes I have
no questions about that. Even if they're not the good guys they're funny I really
should at least find you funny. Yeah I you know what I love the grunt storyline
right like it's just had so much just life in general to the series it's so
great but my reaction to the Pocopia story is I was surprised I was like wow
this is a little bit darker than I was expecting right it was so interesting
hearing all of the different like connections obviously to things that
are going on in the real world and piecing the whole story together there
was some certain devastating moments when you're looking and finding all of
of these human records all throughout.
I'm trying to figure out what happened to the humans,
and it's just no spoilers guys.
I won't spoil anything because the Pocopia story is so good.
You guys all need to tap in.
But wow, there was a lot going on.
It felt so crazy,
it felt so big and the very last scene,
it just was a giant moment to me, obviously.
So one of the weirdest builds that I did in Pocopia,
and I'm going to ask you guys what some of your weirdest builds were.
So think about it while I talk here because,
but was inspired by the storyline of Where Are the Humans?
Because we got the item that was the gravestone.
Then on one of the dream islands,
you find this temple build thing that has
the railing around it and the pedestal in the middle.
So I reconstructed that with a grave in the middle and
the spooky candle in the middle as like the grave to the unknown human and it
was like the altar to all of the lost humans and only ghost types live there.
That's not weird that's honor. Thank you. You get your honoring the storyline.
Litwick lives there and like you know all the ghosts float around it and
there's windows on either side so you can always see the lit candle inside to
remember the humans. Super dramatic. So any other dramatic or weird build that
you love to show people you're like oh come look and I'm like please come see the
grave to the unknown what would you guys like to show up I I did build a prison
yeah somebody on Twitter do that I was like that's really funny as a mind
junior lover but that doesn't mean I love mr. is he always in there what do
you do when you look and he's not in the jail cell there that's sometimes I'll
bottom and just to see him behind my little jail window you know I just throw a
little honey in there and he's like just happy and joyous you know just for that
one moment he's like bars bars bars bars bars bars it is so funny I need him
mime it out right when he's in there but I loved seeing that online and so of
course I had to recreate it I don't even know if I have any weird ones
although I did rebuild the cruise ship only to leave one Pokemon alone that no one ever
sees.
Oh, which one?
Glitter?
I'd rather not say.
Which one?
Glitter!
Because I feel like it might be someone that people like, however, they were just so
dead set on running their shop and I did not need a shimmy.
It's happening.
I know, it is, it's happy.
Yeah, you left him back there.
I see, I see.
He's only rebuilt it so they at least have a cozy,
slightly cobwebbed bedroom.
He's like, can they leave, Lauren?
Can they leave?
If they want to, can they leave?
I mean, can Mr. Mine leave if he wants to?
I'm concerned, friends.
Yeah, sure.
True, that's fine.
Go ahead, figure it out.
Maybe it's not so easy, maybe it's not so intuitive,
right?
But yeah, if you want to go, you can go.
We all have challenges in life, you know?
Rachel, what about you?
Any weird build you want to share?
You guys are building stuff?
All my Pokemon live in a bush by a rock.
Yes, down by the river.
It's a fishy thing.
And nature as Arceus intended.
That's where they live.
All right, well, Liz, thank you so much
for coming and chatting with us and hanging out,
talking about Pocopia.
Again, where can people find you on the internet,
on your channel, everywhere else?
Yes, I am on YouTube as well as Twitch sometimes.
I'm kind of everywhere.
I'm playing my silly little games,
and I love talking about my silly little games.
So thank you, everybody, for having me.
I'm so excited that I got to come on and talk
about one of my favorite games, not only just of this year,
but I would say of all time.
Pokopia, all time banger.
Make sure you guys go back and rewatch the panel.
They had a lot of really interesting information in there.
if you are a Pocopia fan.
And thank you for having me.
Make sure you guys tune in to the Pokemon XP broadcast
and watch these lovely ladies
commentate us through the whole weekend.
Doing my job over here.
He's really killing it.
Yeah, and don't forget at home or here at Pokemon XP,
please use the hashtag Pokemon XP,
show us your posts, your photos, anything.
We would love to see what you're up to.
And we would also love to see your Pocopia builds.
So use that hashtag Pokemon XP
show us what you've got. Now, we're coming up on another panel. We're going to be showing you live
from Pokemon XP. I'm very, very excited about this one. This is going to be the Pokemon TCG
Making of Full Art Card Illustrations panel. And after that, we're also going to show you,
I took a tour of the 30th Celebration booth down there while yesterday.
I've been waiting to see this tour of yours. I'm really curious what will be shown in
that because I may have kind of flipped out a little. So without any further ado,
Let's watch the Pokemon TCG panel coming up right now.
Alright, how are we enjoying day one of Pokemon XP so far?
All right, that's great to hear we've started off our day really strong
We're gonna keep it going right now so far
We've heard about the Pokemon tales the misadventures of serpents and peachu
We've talked about Pokemon pokopia the game, but now are you ready to talk about the making of Pokemon TCG full-art?
card illustrations
That's what I want to hear. All right, let's give a big cheer for Noriko saying
Wow, this is a big crowd, a little bit nervous, but hello everyone, and welcome to our panel,
the making of full art card illustration.
So my name is Nariko and I will be your moderator today.
In this session, we will explore how full art cards were created, how they have evolved
over time, and what goes on behind the scenes.
Joining us today are members of the Creatures Development Team, who have helped shake
this part of the Pokemon trading card. So before we begin I have a few quick
announcements if you haven't been to the previous funds but this panel will be
conducted in a bilingual format. I will first ask the questions in English and
then repeat the same questions in Japanese for our panelists and we have
our amazing interpreter Stuart who will interpret their responses back into
English.
Thank you very much.
Everyone, please.
Thank you very much.
Hello everyone, my name is Haru Saito. I am an art director for Pokemon Car,
as creatures. And my favorite Pokemon is Play Coco.
Hello everyone, my name is Haru Saito, I joined Creatures in 2018.
I'm a photographer and I'm a photographer and I'm a photographer.
I like Pokemon, I don't know what to say.
Hello everyone, my name is Koei Kobayashi.
I am a creative director for Pokemon Cards at Preachers.
My favorite Pokemon is Loret.
Hello everyone, my name is Kohei Kobayashi.
I joined Creatures in 2013 and currently serve as a Creative Director.
I ever see all aspects of Pokemon Trading Cards production, including product planning,
game direction, and overall creative supervision.
And my favorite Pokemon is Rallet.
And once again, I am Noriko Sang, today's moderator.
I manage the Bilingual Project Management Team at the Pokemon Company International.
My favorite Pokemon is Delivered.
Not this guy, but Delivered.
Stuart, do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself?
Sure. Hi everyone. My name is Stuart Pagan.
I'm a Senior Product Marketing Manager at the Pokemon Company International in Seattle.
And I usually work on Pokemon apps such as Pokemon Trading Car and Game Pocket.
But today I'm excited to join you all as an interpreter for this panel.
My favorite Pokemon is Scizor.
I'll hand it back to Nori-Cat.
Thank you.
So let's start by looking at the history and evolution of Bullart cards in the Pokemon
trading card game.
How did Bullart cards come into existence and how have they evolved over time?
We'll also explore the role they play in today's Pokemon TCG and why they become
such a beloved part of the game.
Kobayashi-san, can you tell us how all our cards first made their way into the Pokemon TCG?
Thank you very much.
Mr. Kobayashi, how did you get this full-art card?
Thank you very much.
The history of the full-art card is still in the black fight series of 2011.
We have made two big changes to make the experience of opening the card pack more exciting and more realistic.
Thank you. The history of Full Art Cards dates back to the Black and White era in 2011.
At that time, we made two major changes to make opening booster packs more exciting and rewarding.
The first was the introduction of what we now call overnumbered cards.
Cards with set numbers that exceed the standard numbering of the expansion.
These overnumbered cards created the possibility of finding something extra special
beyond the standard contents of a set, making the Pac-Man experience even more exciting.
At the same time, the goal was to increase the artistic quality of the cards
and to create a full-art card.
In comparison to the usual cards, the illustration space is large and expanded,
so it is more likely to be more expressive.
On the other hand, it is also very important to take the balance.
Pokemon cards are the most important thing in the game.
For that reason, even with the presence of the art,
the characters and characters are easy to recognize,
and the characters on the cards were easy to read.
At the same time, maintaining balance was extremely important.
Pokemon cards are first and foremost a game.
As artwork became more prominent,
we continued to prioritize making Pokemon characters
easily recognizable while ensuring card text remained easy to read.
read.
私たちのゴールはコレクション制だけによらずウルアートカードを通じてカードを引き当てる
喜びだったりバトル中にカードを使う楽しさも含めて
ポケモンカードゲームの体験そのものをより豊かにすることでした.
Our goal was never to simply increase collectability.
Through full art cards, we wanted to enhance the entire Pokémon TCG experience
from the thrill of pulling a card to the enjoyment of using it in battle.
So full art cards were created both to enhance the excitement of pack opening, but also to
elevate the artistic potential of Pokemon cards.
How did they continue to evolve from there and become some of the most beloved cards
among fans?
The fun of opening a pack and the art of being a card were born to increase the quality of the flow art card.
I would like to ask you further about how the flow art card has evolved, and how many fans have been supported by this card.
Please tell us about the process.
As a Pokemon trading card game evolved, full art cards gained greater recognition and their role expanded significantly.
A major turning point came in 2017 with the introduction of Pokemon GX cards during the Sun and Moon Era, which were produced in full art form.
GX cards introduced new gameplay elements such as GX attacks and unique abilities which increased the amount of information displayed on the card.
This also created new design challenges.
By using the full art format, we were able to address those challenges while also making the cards more visually appealing.
As a result, GX cards established themselves as cards that players were generally excited to pull and collect.
Thank you very much, Kobayashi-san. Thank you very much.
Saito-san, what would you say was the next major turning point for full art cards?
Well then, Kobayashi-san, thank you very much.
What is the next big weather for your full art cards?
The next major milestone was the introduction of Tag Team Pokemon GX cards in 2018.
The tag team GX cards featured Pokemon teaming up together in ways unique to the cards themselves.
depicting multiple Pokémon on a single card presented new artistic challenges,
but it also allowed us to embrace the creative freedom of 2D illustrations
and establish a new cohesive art style for this gameplay experience.
To better communicate the story's relationships and circumstances that brought these Pokémon together,
on together, we introduced a new concept for full art cards called special art.
As a result, this era not only enhanced the appeal of tagging cards themselves but also greatly expanded the creative possibilities and overall appeal of Pokemon card illustrations.
So I think it's clear that the introduction of full art cards along with several key milestones along the way has greatly impacted the creative possibilities of Pokemon TCG artwork.
How has that evolution continued into the Pokemon TCG today?
The full art card has begun to appear, and the development of the art of the Pokemon card has increased significantly.
So, how is the current Pokemon card connected?
The special art that started with the Sword and Shield series
was popular, and in the Scarlet Violet series,
it evolved into a special art layer that was easier to get by hand.
The special art concept that began during the Sword and Shield era became popular.
And then, during the Scarlet and Violet era,
the introduction of the Illustration Rare and Special Illustration Rare cards
the experiences, these experiences more accessible than ever.
Both illustration rare and special illustration rare cards aim to portray aspects of the
world of Pokemon that cannot be fully expressed through standard card illustrations. Our goal is
to showcase Pokémon in a wide variety of situations and perspectives.
Because illustration rare cards are relatively easier to get,
they provide an approachable entry point for casual collectors.
Special illustration records, on the other hand, remain difficult to find and offer a truly special experience when players finally encounter them.
Together they create multiple layers of enjoyment and have made opening booster packs more exciting than ever.
So now let's take a deeper look behind the scenes of full-art card creation by taking
a closer look into specific examples of recent cards.
They're so cute.
Okay, we'll start with three cards featuring the beloved Burst Partner Pokémon.
Kobayashi-san, can you tell us about the background and the development process behind creating these original first-partner Pokemon Polar Cards?
Now, let's take a look at the current cards.
First, let's take a look at the first three Pokemon from the adventures of many people.
Mr. Kobayashi, would you like to talk about the story of these Pokemon being created as a full art card?
When we began planning the first year of the Scarlet Violet series, there was a tremendous
sense of excitement surrounding the start of a new era.
As part of that momentum, we released the special expansion set Scarlet and Violet 151, which brought the spotlight back to many nostalgic Pokémon.
The set not only resonated with new players, but also with returning players who had deep emotional connections with these Pokémon.
Building on that enthusiasm, we decided to reintroduce cards featuring the first partner Pokémon.
We wanted to appeal not only to casual fans who were drawn to 151, but also to children who would be playing their Pokemon TCG for the first time.
At the center of that effort was the creation of floor cards featuring Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle in their classic and recognizable forms.
Each card depicts a scene from that Pokémon's everyday life encouraging players to imagine how that Pokémon lives and spends its time.
We wanted players to experience not only the fun of the game itself, but also to develop a stronger sense of attachment and familiarity with each individual Pokémon.
That sentiment was at the heart of these cards.
Each first starter Pokemon is depicted in such a vibrant and wild expression and personality.
Do you guys all love these cards? Have you guys seen them?
Yes?
Okay, good, good, good.
Okay, so next, Taito-san, when developing these cards, what perspective did you have
to explore each Pokemon's unique traits and appeal.
And when expressing these ideas through artwork,
what aspects did you consider most important?
In the first part,
I think each Pokemon is drawn
with their own breath and expression.
As for the production,
What are the characteristics and charms of the Pokémon?
Also, when you express it as an art,
please tell us what you are doing when you are doing it.
In this Art Rare project,
each Pokémon has an image of a trainer's room
and they draw a different landscape of the world.
We imagine the rooms of trainers living alongside each Pokémon and portray different scenes
from their daily lives to bring out their individual personalities.
or the atmosphere of the room or the situation.
We are drawing with the relationship between the two of us.
For example, we imagine that Bulbasaur would be relaxing
and sunbathing by a window.
Charmander on the other hand might be carefully watching
the view outside, proudly keeping guard
and intimidating anything that comes close to its home.
Squirtle would probably be playfully spushing around
in a pool and creating a lively and energetic atmosphere.
We express these differences through the mood
each room the specific situation shown and the relationships each Pokemon have with the
Pidgey that have come to visit their homes.
At the same time, when depicting the first partner Pokemon, which holds a special place in people's hearts,
it's extremely important to us to stay true and consistent to the look and feel of the first partner Pokemon
to avoid altering the image that fans already have of them.
With that foundation in mind, we ask artists to expand upon familiar expressions in their own way.
We selected an artist capable of creating a soft, lineless style with a moist plant-like
texture.
We selected a character with a soft, lineless style with a moist plant-like texture.
For Bulbasaur, we selected an artist capable of creating a soft, line-less style with a moist,
plant-like sheen and texture. For Charmander, we chose an artist with an art style that can capture
the warmth of sunlight filtering through leaves. For Squirtle, we selected an artist who can
bring out its playful and mischievous spirit with a more defined linework and pop-inspired
art style. In each case, we carefully choose artists who could render every detail from
background objects to subtle expressions of the Pokémon with great attention and care.
Thank you so much. I think first partner Pokémon are incredibly special, especially to the fans.
Do you guys agree?
So that's why these cards I think are just special and appealing. They carefully preserve
what makes Pokemon feel authentically unique, and while expressing our imaginations, and
allowing us to picture what it might actually be to be alongside them.
Thank you very much.
The Pokemon that became the first partner of the adventure is a very special existence for the fans.
That's why I think it's a card with such a charm that you can spread your imagination as if you were actually living with a Pokemon.
Okay next, let's talk about a card that focuses on building and expressing the world of Pokemon.
So we prepared two beloved cards today, Fido and Umbrian V-Max.
Next, let's take a look at the cards that were given to us by the fans.
The fans also know this card, Papi Mochi and Blacky V-Max.
Saito-san, let's start with Aido.
Could you tell us about the creative intent behind the card?
Let's look at Papi Mochi first.
Saito-san, please tell us about the project of this card.
Yes. In the first episode of the Scarlet Violet series,
the Art Rear Card was included in the first episode of the Scarlet Violet series.
The new world view and the new charm of Pokemon Tatsuna that appears in the game's main screen,
and the Art Rear Card that was included as a new reality,
In the first expansion of the Scarlet and Violet series, illustration rare cards play a key role, not only to showcase the new world of Pokémon, Scarlet and Violet, and expand the appeal of newly discovered Pokémon.
But also to deepen the stories and personalities that Pokémon cards can express through this new rarity.
I can't see it.
What did you go about selecting the illustrator for this card?
The character who is looking back at the Paya, is so cute.
What kind of Pokemon is this?
This is an illustrator of this card. What kind of character did you choose?
When drawing new Pokemon, you need to be able to maximize the Pokemon-like charm and to be able to convey it in a straightforward manner.
When illustrating a newly introduced Pokémon, artists need the ability and art style to
showcase each Pokémon's unique appeal to its fullest and convey it clearly to our fans.
今回の企画ではそこに合わせて新シリーズの舞台となるカルデアの世界の暖かな空気感や
旅餅の持っているモチモチとした体、旅餅の何気ない日常をかわいらしく表現できる作家さんを選定しました
For this guard, we chose an illustrator who could capture the warmth of the Paldea region,
Fido's soft and squishy appearance, and a charming glimpse into its everyday life.
The artist helped shape the piece from the composition stage onwards,
carefully crafting the overall visual narrative.
The artist fully embraces the strengths of this unusual composition.
Although Fido is facing its back to us, it creates an image that highlights Fido's charm in a very distinct and memorable way.
Thank you very much, Saito-san.
It's fascinating how to see full art cards can not only introduce new Pokémon,
but also the atmosphere and the world they live in.
Thank you very much.
The new Pokemon and their encounter
are the charm of the Full Art Card
that can convey the atmosphere of the world.
Next, let's look at Umbreon V-Max.
So, Kobayashi-san, how did the product concept
for this card influence its art direction?
Next, let's take a look at Blacky V-Max.
Mr. Obayashi, what kind of influence did this card's product design give to Art Direction?
This illustration was recorded in the Japanese Sword and Shield series, the concept of EV Heroes.
In Asia, it is recorded in Sword and Shield Evolving Skies.
The illustration was included in EV Heroes and a concept expansion from the Sword and Shield series in Japan.
Outside of Asia, this card was included in the Sword and Shield's evolving skies expansion.
The card was released during a special moment intended to generate excitement for the second year of the Sword and Shield series.
When the EV Evolution's Pokemon V and Pokemon V Max cards were introduced all at once.
World Series. When the EV Evolution's Pokemon V and Pokemon V Max cards were introduced all at once.
We wanted encounters with the EV evolution and the experience of playing with them to be communicated not only through the Pokémon themselves, but also through the settings and worlds in which players encounter them.
and the atmosphere of the city where the Pokemon are.
Our goal is to create a more exciting and immersive experience by portraying not just
the Pokemon, but the worlds they inhabit.
Across the illustrations in the set, we work to depict glimpses of the time where these
Pokemon live, allowing players to feel a sense of the community and lifestyle surrounding
them.
So the card that's going through the center right now,
like the large full moon and the castle backdrop,
makes this Umbrian card especially beautiful.
So Saito-san, can you tell us how the world depicted in this artwork was designed?
This black key card has a large full moon and a beautiful background of the castle.
Saito-san, how did you design the world view of this black key?
To create a special shared world of all the EV evolution appearing together, we established an original setting, a town somewhere in the world where humans and Pokémon coexist.
It's a dream-like town designed to showcase the richness of life shared between people and Pokémon.
The town contains forests, harbours, and is filled with Pokémon of many different types,
living alongside humans and helping each other while surrounded by nature.
contains forests, harbors, and is filled with Pokémon of many different types living alongside humans and helping each other while surrounded by nature.
When creating a special card for a Pokémon B-Max, were there any challenges you faced or what made the Umbreon stand out to you?
Thank you.
What kind of challenges did you have when you were working on the B-Max Pokemon special art?
Also, when you looked at the completed art, did you feel the power of the B-Max?
Please tell us.
In Pokemon's daily life and the special art of deepening the story,
it was very difficult to get the Pokemon's plot to become VMAX,
and it was very difficult to expand the space.
Within special arts that explore Pokemon's daily lives and stories,
depicting Pokemon VMAX was particularly challenging.
We struggled to find a way to broaden the range of expressions possible with these giant Pokemon.
With Umbreon, however, we felt we had successfully captured its free spirit of personality even after it evolved into its VMAX form.
It was a card that gave us a strong sense of accomplishment.
From a gameplay perspective, it was an extremely powerful card that performed in the first place.
It was a very powerful card.
From a gameplay perspective, it was an extremely powerful car that performed exceptionally well in competitive environments.
Yet in contrast to the intimidating strength of its game mechanics, the image of Umbreon VMAX play-free reaching towards a giant moon creates a charming sense of contrast.
Combined with the fairytale-like atmosphere that can only truly be conveyed through illustration,
I believe the result became something very endearing.
It's clear that the combination of powerful game mechanics and a fairytale-like artistic
world helped make this car truly a special car that I think many fans like.
So next I'd like to discuss a Tatsu-Giri card,
where the artwork is closely connected,
not only to the world being depicted,
but also to the card's gameplay role and game mechanics.
This artwork feels completely different
from the cards that we discussed so far.
The eye-catching, vibrant design
leaves a really strong impression.
So what was the intention behind creating this artwork and this style?
special art cards are traditionally focused on exploring the everyday moments of Pokémon
that we cannot usually see, as well as their individual personalities and stories.
However, special art cards have evolved beyond cards for collectors and to appreciate.
Today, now there are cards that players can also put into their decks and use in battles.
ゲームの遊びをより豊かにすることをとても重要な観点になっています。
シャリタツのような環境で活躍し、みんながデッキに入れたくなるようなカードにおいては、
手にとって遊びたくなる、場に出して気持ちいい、持っているとかっこいい、
It's made with the iconic design art that has been visualized.
For cards like Totsugiri, cards that see competitive play and that many players want to include in their decks,
we focused on creating iconic artwork that makes players want to include it in their deck,
feel good when they unleash it in battle, and also feel cool to own it.
So it's not only artistic, it also has been functionally designed to enhance the real play experience.
So, can you tell us how these cards, game play abilities and roles are reflected in the illustration?
It's not only for the art, but it's also designed to be fun to play in the actual play environment.
How do you reflect the performance and role of the game in these cards?
Next, please tell us, Mr. Guayashi.
Yes, it's not a EX Pokemon, but it's a special feature that can be used in the development of battles,
and it's a card designed to design a stable development in the battle environment.
Tazagiri is not a Pokémon EX, but it possesses an ability that allows it to contribute during the opening stages of battle and support various strategic developments depending on the situation.
It also synergizes well with trainer cards that have remained impactful throughout the SD series, making it a key card for establishing consistent game plans within the competitive environment.
Since it is a card that players commonly use on the battlefield, we chose not to depict it through a story-led illustration.
Instead, we focused on making Tatsugiri's presence as memorable and impactful as possible through designed, oriented artwork.
We chose not to depict it through a story-led illustration.
Instead, we focused on making Tatsugiri's presence as memorable and impactful as possible through design-oriented artwork.
As a result, it became a functional piece of art designed specifically to support the experience of gameplay.
Thank you, Kobayashi-san.
Finally, I would like to take a look at the cards that were released on September 16th,
and the 30th anniversary of the expansion pack.
Thank you.
So, next.
Anyone recognize this logo?
Yeah.
So who wants to see some cards from the upcoming 30th celebration expansion releasing on September 16th?
Okay, I love the excitement.
So, let's take a look together.
Kobayashi-san, could you share some cards from the upcoming 30th Celebration Expansion Pack?
Thank you very much.
Let's take a look.
Kobayashi-san, would you like to introduce the cards that will be recorded in the 30th anniversary pack?
Of course.
Of course, the 30th Celebration Expansion includes many exciting cards, but today I looked to focus on a Meowth card set.
What do you guys think?
Yeah, so it's such a charming set that allows us to enjoy the daily lives of these mouths
as time passes through, throughout the day.
So how did the idea of creating a triptych across three cards came about?
And when creating connected cards or cards with shared themes, what do you consider most
important?
It's a wonderful card to enjoy the daily life of Niaz.
How did you come up with the idea of a triptych?
What are the points that are important to you in terms of creating cards that connect to each other and have common themes?
We are considering the set of each project based on the purpose of collecting the products.
From a product planning perspective, we continually evaluate what type of set concept best supports our collection goals.
This time, there was a concept of drawing a day of Pokemon,
so we thought we could create a more matched pose in the form of a Nyan's.
In this case, we began with the concept of depicting a day of Pokemon.
By incorporating the regional forms of Meowth,
of Meowth, we thought we could express each one's personality in a particularly fitting way.
For connected cards like these, we generally focus on each card's role, significance,
and play experience. Whether it's a connection to game text, the joy of seeing evolutionary
progressions, or a shared theme, we intentionally create these cards when they're a specific purpose
that we want players to experience through collecting or displaying them together.
We don't want players to collect them solely because of the artwork. Rather, they're designed
around the significance that every card carries, whether that's a gameplay experience, the Pokemon
Collection experience, or the product concept as a whole. Each card can be enjoyed on its own,
but collecting all three cards creates additional discoveries. So that sense of collection and
discovery is such a unique experience for the Pokemon TCG. So Saito-san, could you tell us about
How creatures collaborated with the illustrator, Okubo, to bring this card to life.
Please tell us how you collaborated with the illustrator of this card, Mr. Saito.
We had vision scenes depicting these Meowth's lives during different times of day, morning, evening, and night, captured from a fixed viewpoint somewhere within a cityscape or a back alley.
When we approached Okubo, we provided only the theme and the situation.
As it turned out, they took the concept in a wonderful free direction,
and instead of depicting exactly what we had initially imagined,
They expanded upon the idea through their own artistic vision creating something that resembled an apartment building where all these meows live
maximizing the concepts overall appeal
So these mouth cards are another wonderful example of how placing three cards together
Reveals an entire story and a way of life
So I feel this is truly a wonderful card
set that contains both the play of collecting and
and the creativity of the illustrator who bring these cards to life.
Thank you once again for sharing those special insights into the world.
Thank you.
insights into the 30th celebration expansion.
So, unfortunately, I think our time together is coming to an end.
Ooh.
So, Saito-san, Kobayashi-san, before we conclude,
could you each tell us what you consider most important when creating full art cards?
Thank you again for your special talk about the 30th anniversary of the revolution.
And unfortunately, the time has come to say goodbye.
Mr. Kobayashi, Mr. Saito,
Can you tell us about the importance of creating full-card art at the end?
First, from Mr. Kobayashi.
Yes.
Our focus is not simply on creating attractive artwork, we're committed to leveraging art to make Pokémon cards even more attractive.
We're also committed to making the game more attractive.
Our focus is not simply on creating attractive artwork.
We're committed to leveraging art to make Pokemon cards even better,
taking into account the goal of delivering an engaging experience as a TCG,
the perspective as a Pokemon producer, and the design of products we want to bring to fans.
Thank you so much for having me today.
Thank you very much for today.
Thank you so much, Saito-san, Kobayashi-san.
So throughout today's panel, I hope you've come to see that full-art cars are much, much more than simply beautiful illustrations.
They are an important element that connects game-pillay experiences, world-building, and the joy of collecting.
So since their debut in 2011, the Polar cards have continuously evolved
while embracing new forms of artistic expression.
And as we've heard today from these wonderful two people,
each of those developments have been driven by tremendous passion,
creativity, and careful craftsmanship.
Through today's panel, you can see that Full Art Cards are not just beautiful illustrations,
but also game experience, world view, and the fun of the collection.
Since the birth of 2011, Full Art Cards have always been a new expression,
and they have been evolving.
So please join me in the big round of applause for Kobayashi-san and Saito-san.
And thank you all for joining us today.
We really hope you guys are having a lot of fun and please continue to enjoy Pokemon XP. So thank you all
I
Hello, and welcome back to Pokemon XP. I'm Anna. This is Glitter, and we just watched
the TCG Full Art illustration panel. We were glued to my iPad watching and just enjoying
all of that Full Art. What are your reactions to that Glitter?
One, we clearly have different Meowth preferences.
Two, I honestly feel like that panel could have been two hours long, and I would
been locked in because learning a little bit more about how the entire illustration process
goes is just so cool to me because you don't really necessarily always get a peek behind
the curtain like that.
Yeah, I was really interested because I think a lot about the settings that Pokemon are
put in and everything, but they were talking about the expressions of the Pokemon and
how they feel like those expressions are important to the people who love those
Pokemon and that they need to think carefully about how they make variations of those
expressions and I just I hadn't thought about that but the expressions of
Pokemon are so important to me on the card like I really collect Pokemon that
look a specific kind of like happy or funny or silly you know I thought that
and and I guess specifically talking about that Umbreon V max that's
reaching up for the moon and how they wanted to make that kind of a sweet
fantastical fantasy illustration I had never really thought about it that
deeply before and I feel like it just it it's just another way that we
as the viewers are kind of getting to see just how much thought and care goes into every
aspect of any piece of Pokemon related content and or physical media that exists because
in the same way that we were shocked at how much thought was put into the personalities
of the Pokemon and Pokopia, now we're seeing the same thing with the thought being put
into the illustrations on the card art and it was almost like you planned it perfectly
because you've got your Tatsukiri plush and we even got to see the floor card
for it.
I was so happy to see that card featured.
I have a special place in my heart for Tatsu-Giri.
You know, I like to kind of give shoutouts
to different trainers or Pokemon with my outfits.
That Pokemon world are now at Pokemon XP.
And one year, I like to theme them as well.
And one year I did Pokemon that are dragon type,
but don't look dragon type.
So cool.
And stretchy Tatsu-Giri was one of my bounds.
And I wore an all yellow jumpsuit
that was very stretchy looking.
So it became one of my favorites.
and I do, I have that full art Tatsugiri card.
What other ones were in there, was that one in there?
Alolan Executor.
Okay.
Which is now one of my absolute favorites.
I'm Master Setting Alolan Executor currently.
Right now, I think as far as I know,
I'm the only Alolan Executor Master Setter out there.
This also ties into the unconventional Pokemon
that you like as well that we were talking about earlier.
Yeah, and Altaria was the other one.
Oh, great.
Yeah.
So, with that, we're talking about Full Art,
we're talking about TCG.
Yesterday I got the chance to go
to the 30th Celebrations booth.
I'm ready.
And it was set up to show off a lot of the art
that's happening for that set.
I got to see it, I had reactions.
And I think we're gonna get to see them now,
so let's see that video.
We're gonna come into the day and night gallery first.
This depicts moments in the days and nights of Pokemon.
So come around the corner, take a look.
It's like a real art gallery.
I'm like emotional.
I think it's so cool.
Take a look, we have the actual cards here.
This will be a first in person look at the cards.
Wow.
So we've got to play Coco,
who was just revealed on Monday as an EX Pokemon.
Tell us about what's in the center of the room.
We should address that right away.
We should address the me and you two in the room.
Yeah, exactly.
These are Pokedex sized versions of the figures
that will be in the figure collection,
releasing later this year.
So we took those figures and we blew them up
to the sizes these Pokemon would actually be.
Oh my gosh.
So we got you with some flowers and you too.
Look, it's pretty cool with some pistols.
It's so soft.
I'm really cool about Pokemon.
Yes.
Also look like, can I stand under this arm?
Yeah.
Like I'm being blessed.
Just me and you two, just thinking about the future together.
That's such an excellent segue into the next room
that we're not going into for a second,
but remember that for later.
OK, I'll remember that feeling.
Don't worry.
OK, do we want to look at all of these as we go?
We can.
Yeah, we're transitioning into night now,
so you'll notice the colors have changed
and the cards have changed on the screen.
Look at the fur texture! It's so beautiful!
You can see the card art enlarged here for display and then we have the actual cards down here.
My finger's itch. I want it so bad.
We have the Suusui and Zoro right here.
It's one of my favorites. So this is one of the nighttime illustration rare cards.
And then depicted next to it, this screen will switch.
But we have the ETB promo, which is one of my favorite Easter eggs from this set.
That is Nidorina, who is Pokemon number 30, and there are 30 Nidorina within that card.
I am master setting a lowland executor.
There aren't a whole lot of a lowland executor cards or cameos.
But look, look who it is.
Showing up specifically for me to celebrate 30th.
That lovely little guy.
Oh, you and Articuno are in the background.
Rachel is going to go nuts.
And this one is not a promo, right?
No, this is not a promo.
So you could theoretically pull either of these cards from a 30 in celebration, Mr.
Pack.
So I will be pulling and pulling and pulling until I get a few of this.
Okay, good.
And all of the 30 in celebration cards are foil, so you'll have a very shiny, exciting
towel.
This is the first in person look at futuristic depictions of Miu, Miu 2 and Pikachu all by
famed Japanese artist Yoshiro Fun.
Whoa!
This is looking towards the future of the TCG.
Wow!
You're right, it is overwhelming.
It's like I could be on the card with them.
You could be, yes.
I'm part of the art.
These are as big as we could possibly make the cards, so that's what we did.
fact the ceiling height of the booth is dictated by these cards.
It's taller than me.
I feel like I got shrunk.
Like I'm a...
Like you're in a binder?
Yeah!
I'm in a real binder right now.
I'll be sleeved next to this one.
Just slide me in.
So tell us a little bit about the collaboration here with the artist.
This is a collaboration between Preachers and Yoshiraten, who is a famous Japanese artist.
He's done a lot of cool stuff with a lot of cool brands.
What's really special about Yoshiraten's art with some of these Pokemon are the colors and the gradients that you see.
So feel free if you want to take some of your favorites.
Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.
I'm going to grab the ball again.
Yeah, of course.
You have any other things?
Ah!
Look at that!
Wow.
I think that one of my favorite things about these cards is the way the etching really
brings out the artwork.
Wow, wow, wow.
So we have the daytime cards there, and then we have nighttime cards, the two Pikachu
or promos, and the ultraframian collections, and we were near to, could be pulled from
the boosters.
Wow.
And the 30th logo looks so cool.
Yes!
That is so...
with the Oshidatlin. He also did the energy cards for the 30th celebration set, which
we're giving away here at PXP to each person who comes through the booth. So they'll get
one at random, and it will be here at your special treasure.
Oh!
I didn't know that.
I exactly like the energy cards that will come in every booster, releasing on September
16th.
So if people are here at PXP, they should come and receive one of those energy
card yes and if they're not at the XP what should they do to look forward to the release of celebrations
uh September 16th is the is the big day so whatever Pokemon TCG cards are sold
thank you so much this has been so much fun
I had so much fun I said oh my god you know sometimes our job is to perform
I did not have to perform. That was purely genuine. But now we have a really great interview. We have someone joining us here on stage
Please introduce yourself tell the people who you are if they're not familiar with you. Hi, my name is slanted gaming
I've made a lot of Pokemon shorts content just talking about how much I love the art of different Pokemon cards
I've been playing the game since 2010. I've been collecting the cards all my life
Wow, oh you're like what's your favorite like original card one of your oldest most like treasured cards?
This is gonna be a weird one
You know the ancient new card that you could get from Pokemon 2000 weird at all. That's amazing
Here's the weird part. I found it at a bowling alley stuff between
No way what stuff between like see cushion. Yeah
What a win!
There was no one else there. It's mine now.
I can't do anything about it now.
That's so cool. I love cars that have lore, you know, that you find.
Alright, so tell us a little bit about what your favorite types of cards are.
When you're making your shorts, what do you like to talk about?
I really like talking about cards that show a look into the Pokémon world
and how Pokémon would interact.
Their slice of life cards that show them just around the house
and how they might act as pets or card to show Pokemon that are working, that have jobs like
metang, raising up these girders for this building or ex-gadrill taking a break with the boys after
digging out a tunnel. I love that. That's some of my favorite too is like Pokemon at home,
Pokemon in their environment shared with us. Absolutely. We were just talking about that.
We were and that's what I was going to ask them. What was it like kind of getting a
a little bit more insight after listening to this panel about how much time and thought
goes into everything, even down to the expressions on the Pokemon and how important that is
to creating the card art.
It was so interesting to hear about how often times they'll have an idea for a card
art first or a specific feeling they want to evoke and they'll choose the artist
based on that.
Yeah.
I like that too.
very interested to hear about that process and how the artist can come second after they
already have something in mind that they really want to evoke.
And I think that makes sense too because how many times are you able to almost recognize
which artists did the art just because of their style alone?
You're able to look at the car, be like, I know exactly who illustrated this.
And I feel like that makes it even more special and unique because then like you're
master setting a lowland executor, you can be like, okay, I want to master set
all of the card art by this one artist you have like a specific card
collection where you're kind of doing something like that for me that artist is
rend right now
we're gonna see how it goes with trying to get the 30th anniversary
they look amazing and I'm sure that a lot of people want that Umbreon and Espeon
however I you know I've done pretty well for myself already with
the initial of course art contest card from 2022 that was their first brand
to the Pokemon TCG and I start collecting from there trying to get all of them. I think
their QT fly is my favorite. That's the one with that depth of field effect. There's a
picky pack and a bunch of QT flies all drinking from the same fountain.
I love that one. It's so cute. Tell us a little bit about what you collect in general. What
are your kind of favorite things that you like to pull or sets that you've completed?
My favorite cards to pull are always those slice of life illustration rares. Just the
ones that make you feel cozy, make you feel like Pokemon could live in our world, you know?
Absolutely. I think that's super cute. Now, obviously, we're talking about, you know,
full-art illustrations, but they were even mentioning in the panel that's something that
didn't always exist if you're going all the way back to the beginning of the card day. So
what do you think that has kind of changed when it comes to how people are collecting or just
how you know you're interacting with these cards compared to the older sets that we saw from the very beginning.
I think what's changed the most is that they've added a lot more context to the scenes
because you look at those initial illustration rares and they're very cool looking, don't get me wrong.
I specifically love uh, Zekrom EX from Best Destiny's, that is one of my favorite classic ones
but nowadays you can set an entire scene in this huge space
that you don't usually have access to
with a standard format card art.
How do you display your cards?
Are you like a binder person?
Do you have some frames up?
How do you like to show them off?
A little bit of everything.
I've got a four pocket binder
that I like to set themed pages on.
I have like my night sky page
and a like green grass daytime page.
you know and and a Pokemon just chilling around the house page I love that I
love to have themed pager pages and we were just talking about some of the
weirdest themes that we have my pride and joy right now is my screaming into
the void page do you have any specific pages other I mean you just mentioned a
bunch but any that you would give an interesting shout out to I don't know
if I can think of any weird ones right now I'm so sorry that's okay I mean
I'm putting you on the spot.
I mean, I don't know if it's necessarily weird,
but I do have an entire page of all of the tops.
Oh!
Yeah, they were a very old collaboration,
but I got into trying to collect the cards
that recreated the main art, the main photo art,
because there were some cards where they had a square.
And you needed all nine in order to create
the matching art from the main card.
And so that's my probably weird page.
I got a set of those.
See?
I love that.
And I love finding, the name of this that is escaping me,
but the ones that are stamped with the little Pokemon,
or the little Pikachu jack-o'-lantern.
Oh!
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
The trick or trade?
Yes, yes.
I think those are so slept on.
I love those, they're so cute.
So I have a page of those as well.
Yeah, those are so fun to collect.
Just a little itty-bitty set that you
can fill in pretty easily, you know?
Or even if you don't like they're not the hardest thing in the world to trade for there's something that you can very easily
Just go up with a binder you'll find them in people's collections and fill out your own
So does that mean you have like a little bit of that completionist in you like once you start a set?
Are you determined to get all of them?
usually yeah unless
You know sometimes you'll look at an artist
An artist portfolio and you'll find that one Japanese card that was only given away at one specific event
You're like, I can't set aside the money for that.
Yep, sometimes.
But with any reason.
Yes, absolutely.
Now, we are here at Pokemon XP.
We can talk about cards all day, and we can.
But I'm wondering if there's anything else at Pokemon XP
that's catching your attention or that you're looking forward to seeing
or anything that's kind of struck you so far.
Honestly, that little skate demo area right back there,
I love skateboarding.
Really?
I grew up during that era like I was born in that era where
X games were popping off
It was still a cool thing to skateboard. I
Mean to me still a very cool thing. I I think I was born in that era as well
I'm really enjoying that. I mean and if you look at the skateboards behind us
I mean, how do you know? They're beautiful with the cards on them and everything. I love that. I own a one
Right that's probably my favorite of the sets. They're gorgeous. I I really am partial to the dark espion
Yeah, we were looking at that play on in dark espion and talking about some some first-edition love that we have for some of these over there
Tell us a little bit about your experience at Pokemon events. Have you been to worlds before? Is this your first big event?
What what do you like to do with Pokemon? I've been to a lot of Pokemon event a surprising amount
I think my first regionals I went to was back in 2012
It was Philadelphia regionals because I you know I lived so close like that was generally my area
And so I you took a day trip went on the train
I you know, I was pretty young so it was with my dad and we got to have a good day out there
You know and then as I grew older
I started hopping in the car for like a road trip across more states with my friends and
I I really loved those car rides just sitting around and chatting as we get closer and closer and then you know
you to get into the term and you know sometimes you scrub out your own three well now you have
side events to play. Absolutely I mean it's not it's not only that though like you kind
of mentioned it too this became you're going to meet up with your friends it's a community
thing we've been talking about that a lot on the desk just how much I feel like Pokemon
is community means to everyone that's been attending here so is that something that
for you you've kind of gained from being a part of the Pokemon community and learning
or meeting all of those new friends and making those friendships?
Yes, I would say the majority of the connections I have now all sprouted from those road trips.
Love that.
I mean, I assume we're talking about competing in TCG, is that right?
Usually TCG.
I gabbled a little bit in VGC.
I played a little bit of VGC for a while, but mostly TCG.
That's where my knowledge comes in.
I think sometimes it's fun to talk to people who have an emphasis in either,
I collect because I like to think about how playable these cards are or I collect just because I like the artwork on them
Someone who kind of blends both of those what what is your your favorite way to look at cards?
Do you still see some and you're like oh, I like what this card can do or are you really more like it's more about the
Art for me now. I like when they print new cards that reference back to old mechanics
Stuff that I used to play
Stuff that grabs energy from the disc card for example because I used to play Dinomotor eels and
rails back in like 2011-2012.
Nice. Nice. I mean, outside of obviously the card stuff, we're talking about, you know,
the competitive side of things. What are you looking forward to kind of watching here from
a spectator perspective?
I'm not quite sure. I mean, I'm going to be there in the stadium. I loved the energy.
I was actually there in the stadium last year as well, and I loved the energy there
so much it the way everyone cheered when those finals ended it was just a it was
the place to be it was so cool that arena oh my gosh and all the all the
fireworks pop and the music swelled oh yeah did you see the opening ceremony of
this one yes oh my god opening ceremony is usually my favorite parts of these
events because you got the whole event out in front of you and that that music
also gets you hyped up.
I had the remixes of the songs from throughout the generations.
Oh, it was incredible.
It got you hyped up.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
And we were talking about that earlier,
just like how impactful the music really
is when you come to these type of events.
It kind of sets the stage for an entire weekend
filled with Pokemon fun.
Like if you had to choose, is there
a specific tune that you kind of associate the most
with your Pokemon experience?
I I don't know if I could tell you I've played through so many different generations. I don't know that I could name like I could sing you some of the songs but it's really hard to tell you oh that this theme is called this you know I think that's fair I think
I think what stands out to me most right now is the Generation 8 gym leader theme.
When you just get that crowd yelling in the background of it.
I love that one.
And I think that one says like, get ready for a competition, the most of anything right now.
What are you ready for here?
Are there any other plans that you have for the rest of the weekend that you're looking forward to?
I'm not quite sure.
I, you know, I took a little look at that 30th anniversary museum downstairs earlier.
earlier. I took a look at the Pocopia panel. I enjoyed both of those a lot here and about
the development of Pocopia of course. Can we talk about the 30th celebration stuff?
Are you excited about anything in particular that you saw in the museum?
Oh, apologies. I might have, I went to the museum showing off like the timeline stuff.
Oh yes, yes, yes. The retrospective museum. There are two, there's the 30 years of Pokemon
one and I'm just so I'm so focused to be fair but what about I mean celebrations
in general are you looking forward to any cards have you seen anything yet or
are you keeping keeping it for later what have I seen I've of course seen the
new futuristic rares and the hollow pattern on that video that was playing
those look incredible in person yeah I I know if I pulled one of those I might
screen loud enough to break the sound.
I love that. Yeah, honestly, I feel like just kind of being here all weekend long is going to really fill up
everybody's cup when it comes to the joy of experiencing all of this together as a community.
You were mentioning that you enjoyed the the Pocopia panel as well.
Is that something that you've been playing a lot?
Oh, yeah, I played a lot of Pocopia. I was so interested in the story of that game that I just
had to rush through it when it came out and get every single little document or piece of lore
and theorize about how it connects to everything else. You're in very good company. We've been
talking about the more kind of it. Rachel, she's not here because she loves to talk about her
theories about who the real good guys are in Procopia. Do you have any observations,
maybe not to spoil anything, but your favorite observations about the story of Procopia?
I do really like how you get those exclusive Pokemon like of course
Professor Tangrowth among others and Pikachu and how they can give so much
personality by creating a slightly different design something slightly new
from something old you know. Oh absolutely. How do you feel about your
builds in Pocopia? What kind of a builder are you when it comes to like
setting up the habitats for your Pokemon.
So before the DLC that added the dive mechanic came out,
I was trying to build an underwater bitch.
Amazing.
And so I figured out, OK, I can go this far down
before I void out and I have to respawn and get back.
And I built a couple houses underwater.
I made it happen.
That's impressive.
Lapras lives in one of those now.
I love that motivation.
That's like, I envy that.
I tried to build just like a kind of a pool area
and I drowned so many times.
It was shallow waiting for a little moron.
It's fine.
We don't have too much more time.
So I just want to ask, where can people follow along
with you, find your content, say hi to you on the internet.
I am slanted gaming on YouTube.
I'm slanted gaming YT on Twitter.
I'm slanted game in without the G at the end on Twitch.
Yeah, those are the main places to find me.
Awesome.
and any any shout outs you want to give any advice you want to give people who
are maybe attending their first Pokemon event anything you want to say
I'd say that everyone at these events is so nice and understanding like anyone
you talk to you already have that commonality of your both Pokemon fans
they will get you they will understand you. That's so so true.
Thank you so much for spending so much time with us.
It's been so pleasant and y'all don't go anywhere because we have more
interviews coming your way after a quick break.
Hello, and welcome back to Pokemon XP.
I'm Anna.
This is Glitter, and we are joined by another illustrious guest.
Would you please introduce yourself to the people at home?
How's it going?
Yeah.
I am Charlie Rosen.
I'm the conductor and band leader of the 8-Bit Big Band who just performed this
morning at the opening ceremonies, two medleys that I put together of amazing
Pokemon music, along with my friend Carlos and Saint of the Rain music, who's
another video game music artist that I love. How did that feel performing at the
opening ceremony? I mean it's thrilling. It's very very crazy. You know, I've
been a gamer my whole life and I've also been a musician my whole life and
never in my life would I thought those two worlds would like collide in
such a like monumental way to basically be it like the super bowl of
Pokemon performing the opening ceremony. It's like the Olympics, you know?
I feel like I had the pleasure of performing last year at the opening
ceremony as a vocalist nice and I was telling people is like I think this
genuinely might be one of the best moments of my entire life and I don't
say that lightly I don't say it about much but I was singing and dancing and
hosting at the same time it was such an amazing feeling so I feel like I can
relate a little bit tell us about like what that means to you as a Pokemon
fan yeah totally as a Pokemon fan and video game music fan in general what I
I like to talk about with our band, the 8-Bit Big Band,
kind of like our mission statement is,
we are now living, we're 30 years into Pokemon, right?
Pokemon.
We're 30 years into Pokemon.
And that means that a whole generation
has grown up with a set of music
that has become like a canon body of music
that a whole generation knows.
And this is like a classic thing that jazz musicians do.
Any time throughout history,
they take bodies of music that are appreciated by generation,
could have been Broadway cast albums, Motown,
The Great American Songbook, film scores.
we take them and we reimagine them and put them in new lights because we have such a strong
association with the positive memories of this music that now as a collective body of
gamers or appreciators we can now play with the music and rearrange it in cool ways to
make it even more full of vibrancy in life and like that's what jazz musicians have always
done, that's what we're doing here and the fact that we have a large enough, clearly
large enough body of fans to do that kind of thing with music through video games
and through in this case Pokemon is truly amazing.
How does it feel to kind of be entrusted with that because I mean you're you could see how big of a fandom this is
I mean this is a big thing to kind of take under your wing knowing. Yeah, just how
Important and nostalgic it is to so many people. Yeah, totally and what's really cool about this moment particularly is in this band's history
It's been about eight years. We were already covering Pokemon music
I was already from the bottom of my musician gamer heart covering Pokemon music
And so now that on an official stage at Pokemon Worlds, we're being asked to do the thing that we've been doing
basically out of love anyway in an official canon context is like a real achievement, I think for both the music and for the family
Yeah, it feels like Pikachu themselves was like please join me on my stage. Yeah. Really? Yes. True very much
Tell us a little bit more about how you came to 8-bit big band how it became what it is now
Yeah, the short version of our origin story is I've always been a gamer always been a musician always
I've always loved my main career as I work in like Broadway musicals and doing arrangements and conducting for that
But about eight years ago. I took a very quick trip to Japan the short version isn't I took a lesson on the shami-san
Which is a traditional instrument not shami-san teacher runs a band called Femi Koto that does video game music Japanese ensemble arrangements
And he gave me his album. I was so inspired by that. I thought man. I love video game music
I've always loved it. I am this guy who does like classic theater and Broadway and Hollywood sounding
orchestras, I would like to put those two things together. That was about eight years ago and
we're five albums in and two Grammys deep now.
Wow!
For what?
Tell us about your awards.
Our first Grammy was for another video game franchises arrangement that we did and then
the second one, so we've won two Grammys for two of our arrangements and we've been
nominated for best large ensemble jazz album that was two years ago now.
Wow!
That's incredible.
That's very cool.
I mean congrats.
Very thrilling. Thank you.
Like the music of video games coming into the forefront in a major way
Absolutely, and now that you've been doing it for so long
Does that mean that somewhere along the way you have chosen a favorite arrangement?
Are you even able to do that? Are there too many options?
Well, in terms of Pokemon, which is what we're here to talk about today, I'm assuming. Yes. Yes, yes
I am
Uh, I'm like a Pokemon old-head. I'm like a red blue yellow guy, you know
And so that soundtrack specifically is always going to be my favorite and it could be the remakes too
It could be, you know, Fire Red, Leaf Green.
It could be Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee,
but that's like, I'll always play a remake of those games
that contains that music, because I love it so much.
So we have, and it was in today's performance,
but the like, the trainer battle theme specifically to me
is very thrilling and like music theory-wise,
incredibly complex and interesting to arrange.
It's like full of like, really avant-garde,
like musical lines to pick apart.
It's really cool.
All that, that whole original soundtrack
is an amazing feat of musicianship.
Tell us a little bit about that.
I know that many of our viewers may not be huge music theory
knowledge holders, but in layman's terms,
maybe, what's kind of really interesting about that arrangement?
Yeah, so that arrangement and that whole original red-blue-yellow
soundtrack, there's a lot of the melodies in it
and the sort of chord changes to use,
that's probably the deepest term I'll use music theory wise.
Chords that these melodies use are really unusual.
There are things that sometimes we
associate with like very contemporary classical or jazz but they're they're
like highly unusual like the Mount Moon theme for example is weird. It's creepy
it's a weird theme you know and the fact these composers were able to like
convey so much interesting melody and harmony through at the time
technologically only literally being able to play three notes at the same time
for this little device they were so inventive it's like it really is again
It's like a compositional wonder that it exists.
Do you think that that kind of contributes to the reason
that it's been able to stand this has a time for 30 years
and still be just so iconic?
I 100% do, because I think that, like,
there's a beautiful thing creativity-wise.
If you're, like, working within very strict parameters,
sometimes that forces you to be more creative, right?
And so we're talking about three notes at the same time.
That's it.
So the raw ingredients of things that we like about songs,
their melody, their groove, and their harmony,
and their chord changes.
That's all.
It's like that kind of like early eight-bit composing
is the raw elements of I think what makes music great.
And so it's gotta be really strong.
And I do think that's why these like classic era chip tunes
and game tunes have really withstood the test of time
have become main like flagship themes for the series.
So when you're taking melodies like that
and arranging them for the big stage,
what do you think about what do you try to do
to kind of make it your own?
First of all, let me say
these are really, really great questions.
I'm not used to getting questions this specific about music, and I really, really appreciate it, it's amazing.
So, you know, the best thing about arranging this early 8-bit chiptune stuff is, like I'm saying, the raw ingredients of the material is so strong, it had to be.
So if, like, the composers of these games are, like, they're the architects, right? They're designing the structure of the house, right?
They're building the foundation and the scaffolding. They've built, like, rooms, but the rooms don't have function necessarily.
I do as an arranger, as an orchestrator, you might say,
producer, whatever you want to call it.
As I say, I see what you were going for.
I see the feeling and the intention
that you wanted in those melodies,
but you didn't have the technology.
This sounds so now I have, as an orchestra member,
in this orchestra, a full palette
of every color I could possibly want.
So I'm like, I'm the interior designer.
I say, this room's great.
We're gonna get a new couch in here.
We're gonna paint the walls.
We're gonna put a carpet down.
We're gonna hang some curtains.
We're gonna get some updated, like, you know,
a new sink.
We're gonna blow out this wall
We're going to make an open floor plan.
It has the same feeling.
It's maintaining the structure of the original,
but it's just making it so much more vibrant.
Or to use another metaphor, they're doing a line drawing.
And I'm the illustrator.
I think all the colors I now have that they didn't have,
and I can fill in the background.
It's like, I'm the Bob Ross.
That's the ground.
That's how I explore, yeah.
It's the first visual now going on.
I'm here for this.
We've just been talking about our Pocopia build
so much, so I'm like, oh, so it's like, you know,
you have the build.
And then you take in which couches you want to go for.
Yes, it's like if you combine the right instruments
in the right way, that will give life to that area
so Pokemon can move in, use it, at least, to kick in.
Yes, that's great.
I want to ask too, we don't talk a whole lot
about dance in Pokemon, and it's something
that has been present the last two opening ceremonies
that maybe we haven't gotten to talk a whole lot about
because everyone who plays Pokemon
interacts with music in some way,
but maybe not as much about dance.
And I know that you're mostly focused on the music,
but we did see the dancers dancing to your music.
Do you have any impressions of what that was like?
Absolutely.
And you know, to be frank, I didn't really
see the choreography until I got here this morning.
But it was an amazing surprise.
But I do, since I work so much in musical theater
and Broadway, like I have me and choreographers
always have a very tight relationship.
And what I really appreciated about the choreography this
time is the visual and dance language
that they utilized was clearly so inspired
by what kinds of events take place in the game.
And so it's like the pantomime of what they were doing during the various themes was like
very, very, not just random, not just like people moving for hype or for excitement,
but like informed itself by the movement language in the games in a big way.
I got to see a smidge of rehearsal yesterday and as I was in there, they were working
through the timing of the transition between two songs where it was bop, bop, bop, bop.
And they were trying to get those moves just the right time.
And I was like, this is the language I want to see.
Totally.
Pokemon spoken.
It was so, so very cool.
Really great choreography.
Really cool.
What about the setting overall?
Having your whole band there on stage,
and the dancers dancing, and the audience in front of you,
what did it feel like?
I mean, it never gets old.
I gotta tell you, it's really cool.
You know, me and the big band,
we're used to playing in concert halls, which
is really beautiful.
They're always very beautiful spaces.
There's a stage.
There's some risers, and then there's the musicians.
And we're playing, and we're an orchestra.
And that's fantastic.
However, again, I'm a man of the theater.
I like set design.
And this is clearly a all bells and whistles, no holds bar set
to be performing music on it.
Just like, again, the visual, the same metaphor.
It's like the arrangements themselves
are both highly lustrous and Technicolor.
And that impact is even more supported
by the incredible, colorful, LED-paneled, various sets
and structures and flowers and a grand walkway.
It's like, yeah, this is honestly,
I wish I could always perform on this stage. It's so beautiful.
I think that's one of my favorite things about Pokemon in general is that it's immersive.
You're going to show up and you know that you are getting thrown directly into the world
and there's no confusion about where you're going or what you're doing.
So now even outside of the performance now that you've kind of gotten to explore a little bit,
what have you just been enjoying about the vibe of Pokemon SP?
Yeah, the thing is, what I love about going to conventions, and this one specifically,
there always is some kind of like confluence of fellow gamers and musicians where we meet up together,
you know, and this is no exception, there's plenty of other. I've already run into tons of friends
of mine who are other musicians that play video game music and play games like myself. That's
when you saw the community element of it all. To me is always like the coolest thing. But again,
it is the thing I really like, again as a Pokemon old-head, is like seeing all of the like,
the art direction, like the original artwork, crediting the artists, crediting the graphic
design, seen the museum, I had to go to the museum, the line is still very long.
It's cool for me to see the development of the entire world building of It Come to Life
over the last 30 years, which makes me feel old.
Feel experienced.
Thank you so high level.
I'm a high level 30, I'm a level 36 lady.
You're a historian of Pokemon.
The keeper of the flame.
Are there any things here at Pokemon XP now that you've done the opening ceremony?
Are there any other things on your plans?
You know what?
ever being at Pokemon Worlds ever so I if you ask me again in a couple hours I
think I'll have a better answer. I think I just now that I'm like free of
responsibility I will go find out. Yeah exactly it's a huge ceremony everyone
if you haven't been you gotta come that's that's the bottom line. Also so
much goes into preparing for an opening ceremony like that I mean we're
talking about like now that your job's over but I think people maybe
don't realize how far in advance we've probably been preparing and can
you talk a little bit about the preparation for it? Yeah I do think that
out of maybe any show I've ever worked on.
This is the most emails I've ever sent about a singular event.
This is like, yeah, this, we've been planning this for like,
I've just the music opening ceremony portion.
We're talking about, you know, 15 minutes of music,
which is not that much.
It was incredibly, a huge amount of work
that required a ton of people.
We were talking about this for eight months,
the conception of the arrangements,
the arrangement of the making of the demos,
running them by all the important people
that need to make sure that they were up to par.
Then there was the choreography.
It had to go to the various people
for all of the design elements,
putting together a multi-genre, multi-disciplinary show,
even if it's literally 15 minutes,
takes the better part of a whole year.
Yeah, wow.
And it happens every year,
so they probably will get started on the next one
the day after this finishes.
Are you ready?
I'm so ready, yeah.
I've never been more ready, honestly.
What other Pokemon things do you like to engage with?
You said about original Pokemon video games.
Are video games your favorite?
Do you dabble in cards?
Do you like plushies?
What are you into?
I'm definitely Games Forward.
I'm a Games Forward guy.
I have, from my youth, still a great deal of cards and binders.
I love when people say that.
I know that at some point, I feel like if I get them
professionally graded by one of those card companies,
they'd probably be highly sought after cards.
One of these days, I'm like the person that the card
collectors want to meet where they're like,
oh, I've got a box of old cards in my face.
Well, they're worth anything.
You could just have them.
But I do know that there was.
Were you a careful child, like when you pulled them,
did you carefully take them and put them in binders?
Oh yeah, oh they're in sleeves and binders.
I'm the ideal card hunter.
I'm a target, I've got a target on my back.
Yeah, now you've told everyone, now they're gonna come to you.
Exactly.
I'm ready to find your card.
Mom, I'm sorry.
That means the 30th is like right up your alley though.
Yeah, I know, it is, it totally is.
It's really cool, it's really cool.
Celebrating 30 years of Pokemon,
you said, you know, it makes you feel like a historian.
Thank you.
Nice word.
What do you look back on as one of your key Pokémon memories or moments that kind of let
you know it was going to be a big part of your life?
I remember, I actually fairly well remember going to um, it's called KB Toys.
Yes!
I went to KB Toys, yeah.
I remember getting Pokémon Blue and I remember buying the Prima Strategy Guide along with
it.
Oh my god, that's amazing.
I remember the car ride home and like studying that strategy guide like it was like my life to head it
Like it was the Bible, you know, yeah, I gotta know everything because all my friends were doing it
And I also remember
Buying these little like plastic figurines that I took to school in the next day
And I lost my shit my sand shoes somewhere
And I was very distraught I was incredibly distraught that day
Understandable.
Someone find a sand trough.
Please.
And bring it.
Archaeological dig.
Yeah.
Find that Pokemon.
I'm figuring.
Well, you've mentioned you've gone to a lot of conventions.
We only have a little bit more time with you, but I wanted to see if you had any advice
or observations for people who maybe this is their first convention.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think the thing that I, again, I love the most about these conventions is everybody
is here and everybody has like a common interest.
And that is like such a great jumping off point for you to a little bit, like
just engage in a friendly conversation or a game with somebody I would say, like,
Don't be worried about, you know, being shy, being judged, being, you know, this is a real
come as you are environment, all these conventions, and I think that is a really beautiful thing.
All are welcome.
Mm-hmm.
Great.
Where can people follow along with you and find you on the internet?
Absolutely.
So, my band name, one more time, is the 8-Bit Big Band as in 8-Bit Games, you know.
We do video game music covers from all generations, we've got five albums out
on spot, anything you stream.
Our main page, YouTube at the 8-Bit Big Band, Instagram at the 8-Bit Big Band,
We got a discord anywhere where you consume music or videos the 8th event is going to be awesome
Yeah, thank you so much for spending time with us. We really appreciate it amazing questions
Thank you so much really great. All right now don't go anywhere
We are bringing you everything from Pokemon XP live right here. We'll be back right after this
Welcome back to Pokemon XP. I'm Anna, this is Glitter, and we have another very exciting guest with us to continue the talk about music.
Please introduce yourself to the people at home.
I am that DJ Vega. I'm Vega, that DJ Vega, or just DJ Vega.
I have a lot of names.
It's important, you know, not this DJ Vega, that DJ Vega.
Very specific, yes.
And what is it that you do, DJ Vega?
I'm the DJ for the XP stage, like right down the way.
the way so yes we heard some of your your stuff it sounds awesome tell tell
people at home what kind of stuff that you would hear if you were here at
Pokemon XP you're gonna hear everything Pokemon related so it's gonna be you
know anything from Sun and Moon to Diamond and Pearl to black and white and
then whatever extra seasoning I add into it yeah we were just talking a
little bit about seasoning that Pokemon music with a big big band talking
about how you know we have these amazing constructions of music that
then you as an artist get to say,
how would I kind of decorate this?
How would I change it for myself?
What do you usually do when you're thinking about that?
A lot, actually.
I'm thinking of where I can drop a certain beat,
where I can drop a song at, and all that kind of stuff.
I'm doing a lot in my head.
It's actually kind of scary sometimes.
OK, well, then this might be a little bit random.
But do you have a favorite transition
that you've made from song to song,
where people did not see it coming?
And you were like, yeah, that one really hit.
OK, so kind of sort of.
I just recently, so I'm from Seattle.
And on the plane down here, I was just on my laptop
just making edits and doing a bunch of stuff like that.
And I did this jiggly puff, like down south.
I'm Memphis.
It was something that I made.
And I finished it and literally got off the plane.
And I put it on my phone.
I'm listening to it.
I was like, I like this.
I've been playing that for the past was only day two,
but like I've been playing that all weekend so far
and people are coming out of the woodworks.
Like I've had so many Jigglypuff, like cosplay,
everybody's like, oh my God, I love this.
And I'm like, I made this, you know?
So yeah, that's probably it.
That's such a cool feeling as a creative
when you're like, I made this and I like it.
You know?
Yeah, and then other people like it.
I get to see like movement from it.
And I'm like, oh, this is really cool.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
No, I'm sorry.
I keep staring at your fit because we've got a Kanto hat,
we've got a Blastlery Spaceball jersey.
If we're talking about favorite era of music,
are we going all the way back to like OG 151?
Is that because that's what the fit's giving
or is it actually something else?
I mean, yeah, like I'm going to do the original 151 music
majority of the time, but at the same time,
I dabbled everywhere.
I've been playing Pokemon my whole life.
So it's like, I know all the songs.
I can definitely jump into every era
and kind of do some stuff.
Like I'm playing champions music over there.
I'm doing a bunch of stuff.
Tell us about your Pokemon origins.
What are some of your favorite Pokemon memories?
Ooh, aw man, I'm about to age myself,
but like playing the Game Boy in the car
and the street light has to come over.
Yes!
You know what I mean?
Yes!
That's literally my whole entire start
is like being in the car, playing Pokemon,
having to plug in the little light yeah all that kind of stuff I thought I was
from the beginning and what about your music origins when did that start I
actually that started kind of close to the Pokemon stuff to be honest yeah like
I got some turntables I took some of my like uncle's vinyls and stuff like that
a long time ago and I sat in like my room for like three summers and was
just trash as a DJ for so long and then got good and I was like okay built
on it. So yeah, that's such an important piece that I feel like I always need to hear as a
creative is that people I look up to that are like at the top of their game. They're like,
I was once really bad at this for a while. I tell people all the time. I'm like, yeah,
don't don't worry about like just jumping up and being good. Like you're going to
be trash for a long time. Yeah, you know, work on it. I mean, now that like obviously
all that hard work has paid off, you're here at Pokemon XP, you're playing in front
of this massive crowd. What is one of the most rewarding things about being here and
playing sets for everybody? I was just talking to a friend about this earlier.
This is literally my Disneyland if anything. Yes. Like we were talking about if
we were kids and this was around at you know in 1999 ageing myself again but if
this was around for us back then amazing you know. So honestly just
being here being able to see like different kinds of artworks I went
through the museum, and I aged myself again.
I was like, oh man, I had those cards,
and then I'm looking around, and I'm like,
1999 was a long time ago, so.
I feel like a lot of people have been saying that up here.
They're like, oh, I mean, I'm outing myself as old.
And I'm like, every time someone talks to them,
I'm like, no, you hold the history of our community.
Like, this is important stuff.
I feel like I wish I had had more access at that time
to Pokemon, so I think that's really, really cool.
And I think it's cool that they're showing it off
here for us to go and be nostalgic about.
Is there anything else you saw there on the floor
that you're really excited or that you are excited to see?
Well, yeah, I got lost.
This is massive down here.
I didn't realize how massive I went.
What was the thing in Pokemon?
Was it the Team Rocket Tower or hideout
where it's like you hit a switch
and then you end up over here and open doors?
That's what I felt like downstairs.
I literally went down one escalator
and I was like, oh, this is nice.
This is cool.
And then went up another escalator,
figured out that I was in the same spot and I was like okay so I'm trying to find
everything to be honest I haven't got there yet are you you know you said you
played the video games on the Gameboy do you like cards plushies are you into
any of the other things you can find around here every time I get a plushie
for myself my daughter takes it so I'm kind of cutting off for the plushies
cards as always everybody does the cards games I'm not as good as I thought
was competitively I'm like mid-heights here so it's like you know I do I do
everything I do all of it yeah yeah tell us about your book up your bills um
let's see so so far the one that I'm proud of is I'm at a treehouse but I
have to go I have to do touch-ups on it like I would never really see it I did
like the platforms of the treehouse and made it out of the wood blocks I
a bunch of cool stuff. But at the same time, I'm not ready for anybody to see that at all.
I took, I saw someone, you know, on Instagram with this amazing build of a treehouse. And I was like,
I'm going to build that for my EVs. And I built it. And it just did not look like the inspo.
I tried so hard. But I feel like I used the wrong wood blocks. Did you use the round ones?
Yeah, yeah, though, the it's like rare little tree stumps. Yeah, I think I used the wrong
ones I use the like what's called puffy wood or something I I thought yours is
better than mine and it's we know what and even if you don't love it you can
always abandon it and start a new project about the basin exactly yeah yep
and I'll just be everywhere else leave that there whoever wants to live
there live there we've been asking everyone who plays pokopia which
Pokemon are the ones you like to have live with you in your house okay so
I'm a big ditto fan so I'm already happy that I get to be a ditto in
I'm definitely my roommates, let's see. Squirtle is coming with me everywhere.
Everywhere I can take a Squirtle. I can't remember his name. I always blank on his name.
The little chubby fighter. Blue gloves. He has a thing on his head.
He's yellow. No. Red cheeks. I can't remember his name.
Anyway, the chat is probably saying it right now.
All of us are just giving blanks.
Thank you, chat.
You're absolutely correct.
Good job.
You're right.
Those two are my go-to.
Those two are my roommates every time.
Any crazy builds other than your treehouse that you've
done, or any that you tried and you were like, never mind.
Left it alone halfway through.
Yeah, no.
I definitely saw one on somewhere on social media
where they did an underground tunnel
under the water all the way to this land.
I know it's just like that looks really cool. I took two hours. I gave up. I said this is this is too intense. Yeah
Yeah, exactly just the graveler just roll in like that. I was like no
I'm done
The rollout honestly has saved lives and when it comes to mass clearing out space for any sort of a big field like that
But outside of pocopia obviously we're talking about what's going on on the rest of the floor
Have you gotten a chance to walk it at all? Yeah, I've I've probably hit like a third of everything
That's the one I'm happy to go by the Lego booth. Yeah, see another thing too intense. I don't know if I'm gonna do that
Yeah, yeah, I like I like Legos, but those builds are the crazy so
You're very excited about it. I can't wait to talk about it. I just wondering if you saw, you know the life size
They got a requaser. Yeah, they got a whole bunch of different. I'm I'm scared
There's a build of Ray Quasar happening behind us. Mm-hmm. That's going from start to finish by the end of the weekend
Mm-hmm. It's it's gonna be epic to intense. I'm scared of that. I love I love a challenge. That's that's crazy
Well, what about music what other things are coming up for you with music um, let's see
I'm all over the place. Um, so like my DJing career, I guess like I've done done radio
I do weddings. I do bar misfas bar misfas
I've done everything and right now the last two years
I've been really diving into like the convention, so I almost said con convention. Anyway, I've been dealing with the conventions and stuff like that
So like all over the country. I've been to DC. I've been to Texas. I've been to Virginia
I've been all over the place. They had Detroit all kinds of stuff like that
When did you realize that you were like, I think that my love for Pokemon and my love for music are going to
Meld into this thing I'm doing. So I didn't know if it was ever gonna work
But I've been this way forever, so it's like I have my my other like moniker and all that kind of stuff is the nerd at the
Cool table, so it's like I've forever like high school all that kind of stuff. I've been the same person
I've been just a nerd so it's like I've always tried to figure out how to
Take whatever is considered nerdy to everybody else the you know the Pokemon the video games the anime
Whatever I would take it over here and like well, this is cool. This is what I like to do, too
So I've been doing it forever and honestly it probably just hit me within the last like
Two years where it's like it actually worked, and I was like, oh, so I'm still kind of soaking it all in
Because you were involved with the world championships last year as well. Yeah
That was a that was crazy. That was um, I was in front of the Pokemon Center and it was just a bunch of
Everything I've met a lot of people
I'm honest really probably still soaking that into the beyond
It kind of took me for a loop where I ended up being here and I was like I got the call to be here
And I was like way you guys like me
It doesn't feel like that long ago world yeah, not a lot I was gonna say I think I've seen you on stage
Like orbiting each other on the on the soundtrack last year
Yeah, I feel like we never quite got to be in the same place at the same time
But yeah, I was singing on stage and I would see you from afar and be like, that sounds sick.
Yeah.
And now you're brought together on the same desk talking about music, all things Pokemon related.
I'm hearing music right now too.
I don't know what's going on, but something very...
We're missing, I feel like, something, there's a performance about to happen.
Oh, it's a parade.
Is that what's happening?
Yeah, you can probably hear that through our microphones.
But there is so much happening here at Pokemon XP and I think that we've been talking about
celebrating with music so much and now we can't even ignore the music that is
happening behind us but we will do our very best to continue chatting for you.
So is there anything that you would like to tell other people who are coming to
this convention that you want them to particularly look out for? I mean I know
you said like the things we all have in common really bring us together but
like tell us a little bit about Pokemon XP and if somebody is like oh I'm
coming tomorrow or oh I'm watching from home and I want to make sure I
I don't miss anything. What would you tell them?
Get a map. That's that's the first thing. I was like get a map stretch
Yeah, be prepared, you know have the right mindset to just have fun
Like kind of keep an open mind to be like I'm a kid again. Yes. Yes, you know
I also don't think we've got a chance to ask me've been asking everybody as they come up on the desk
But I don't think we've asked you your favorite. Oh
You know what that's easy. I usually have a top five
There's so many right now. I really love Tinkerton
Tell us why Tinkerton cuz she's gangsta she's so like I
Was yeah, I was just having this conversation like I mean Blastoise is always gonna be in the top three at least right?
But Tinkerton is just so dope. It's a little you know little cute pink thing and she beats up Corvina
Like she just takes and makes hammers out of it. That is the crazy like I love her
Yeah, tell us a little bit about the lore of Tinket time
We were just talking about how a lot of people maybe don't realize just from looking at like you pink thing with hammer
What the lore of um so I mean if I'm if I'm correct. I remember that it's like from birth
From a child. She is like chasing down corporate which is the steel bird and all that kind of stuff. She's actually
actually killing. I don't know if I should say that, but like she's taking them down.
Yeah. And she's making her weapons out of their bodies.
Helping to build your cities in Hocopia.
Exactly. Yes.
Construction made in. Doing a really good job at that. That's a good shot. We haven't had anyone else bring up Tinkerton.
What about the rest? You said Blastoise also. So roll out the top five.
Um, so if it fluctuates it moves a little bit, but let's see um
Tinkentine last voice
Um, Scyther is up there. What's that? There's three
um
Blaziken is up there
and then um, it's a tie between Celebi and uh, Jarachi
And really similar energy Celebi and Jarachi. Yeah. Okay. Tell us about Blaziken
Um, I like Blaziken just because like
it's a karate chicken. That's just the dopest thing. Every time I've ever played I've
got to get the torturic and all that kind of stuff and it's like I always go,
that's my spicy nugget. I just name them that and we're running the town.
Wow that's really good. One thing I love about Pokemon is that there
really is someone who's like every Pokemon it's someone's favorite.
Which is why I love this question because we've asked so many different people and
And we've gotten a different answer every single time.
I know I was the first EV, which is kind of rare.
Yeah, I know.
I'm here for it.
All right, well, we want to let you get to enjoying
the rest of the convention.
Thank you so much for spending time with us.
You're going to be at the wharf stage, right?
Is that where you're at?
Okay, tell people where they can find you
if they're here at Pokemon XP.
Follow the music.
I was gonna say, usually that's me.
80% of the time, that's me.
But yeah, the XP, the wharf stage, I'll be there.
I have my own little section and stuff like that,
and I'm gonna be doing everything in my power
to make a memory and make sure that people are like,
hey, we're out Pokemon, you know, worlds
and the DJ up there was amazing.
Like, that's what I'm trying to do.
Yeah.
If you enter Rayquaza Road right out here,
just head that way and you'll find DJ Vega.
And where can people find you on the internet
follow along with your stuff?
Everywhere, it is that DJ Vega.
So yeah, all social media, that DJ Vega.
Awesome.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you for having me.
to spin on the stage and don't go anywhere because we will be back with even more
Pokemon XB right after this.
Hello, and welcome back to Pokemon XP, where the fun
does not stop. You can see behind us that there are so many Pokemon dancing and singing
and we are sitting right in the middle of it here on Rayquaza Road. I'm Anna, this is
Glitter and we have a new guest with us today. Please introduce yourself to the people at
home. Hi, my name is Steve, Pokemon podcast and I stream and I report on Pokemon news
and now I'm here doing all of that. What got you into that? What got you started?
I was super into podcasts when I was in high school and I listened to a bunch of gaming
podcasts and there wasn't one that was doing just Pokemon and I was like, oh, I think I
can do this and I've been doing it since.
And how long is that?
Since HeartGoldSoulSover came out, so a little over 15 years now.
15.
I love that.
Amazing.
That means that you're another person we've had on the desk that's going to
that you know they've been here for a very long time and make them sound like they're
right to old but you're not living here talking about all this stuff how has it
been you know taking all that and then coming here to Pokemon xp for the first
time this is this has been absolutely fantastic like you I saw the world's
like growing and growing every year and getting bigger and bigger and it just
made sense to turn into what this is have you been to world many years
previous. I think this is my eighth one. The first one I went to was during
Black and White in San Diego and the Pokemon Center there was just like a
single hotel room. Yeah, yeah. It's so different. Yes, absolutely. So, you know,
as you've seen that change happen, but tell us a little bit about it for people
who may be here for the first time or only a couple years. Tell us a little
bit more about that evolution you've witnessed. Yeah, I think I remember
Even with the first worlds I went to I went with somebody who wasn't a Pokemon fan
And they they walked away buying a DS buying the car. It's getting the game and I think that that's kind of what worlds in cap you
encapsulates like not only the the hardcore fans or the
Just Pokemon fans in general, but it's easy to bring in new fans
And they can come and they can see and they can they can relate to the energy and then walk away being like this is awesome
Yeah, what do you find here? What are you looking forward to most?
Well, I was having fun with the pin rally and I'm very into that.
I brought pins to trade for later.
Nice.
This is the first year I brought a card binder.
I spent a week organizing my cards thinking like, which ones am I going to bring?
Which ones do I want to trade?
Which ones do I want to look for?
So I'm excited to do that this weekend as well.
I think you're the first person we've talked to you about pin trading specifically.
Tell us a little bit more about how that is here at Worlds and XP.
last year they did it at Anaheim and that kind of just got me hooked and so I
got a bunch of pins from last year and then I acquired more pins this year and
I loaded up a lanyard for specifically that okay these are duplicates or these
are extras or you know I'm looking for Pokemon I like a little bit more than
the ones I have yeah I need that you're searching for yeah I don't think
I think they make a lot of Kram-Rant pins.
No! Kram-Rant spotted!
We've been talking a lot about Pokémon Pokopia.
Yes.
And specifically Pokémon that change your opinion of them by being around Pokémon Pokopia.
And Kram-Rant was one that I never had any interest in until the cute little dummy just followed me around.
He was so great!
And I just came to love him so much.
Now he has a whole page in my little binder and everything.
So tell us why you love Kram-Rant.
Oh man, you know, prior to Kramer and Kippengall,
when people would say, what's your favorite Pokemon?
I would always have like a different answer.
I was like, whatever I was feeling that week.
And then when I first saw Kramer and I was like,
oh, this is what it feels like to have a favorite.
This is the permanent favorite since, yes.
Like love at first sight, it's so sweet.
And I remember exactly, I was in a hotel room
in Yokohama and I saw like they unveiled him.
And I was like, oh my gosh.
Oh, that's, I love that story.
That's so good that you were wait your,
The place in your heart was open and waiting for Krameran.
Yes.
The Dene has moved pretty high on my list as well.
Oh, nice.
Ooh, the Dene is a good one.
Do you have a top five rounded out for yourself, Lynn?
The top five, I think, does change.
But it's probably like Krameran to Dene.
I like Dragapult.
I do.
I like Incineroar.
I've always been an Incineroar fan.
I really like Golden Go.
Oh.
Number 1,000.
Interesting.
All right.
What do you like about Golden Go?
I think he's just silly.
You silly.
I think he captures the same vibes as Krameran.
I think they're just silly Pokemon.
That's awesome.
I think that we have similar love for silliness in Pokemon.
Because Dragon Pulse is another favorite of mine too,
because it's really silly to throw your babies at people.
Yeah, he's great.
Take this one.
Yeah, pew-pew.
I mean, that also kind of ties into
what we've been talking about a lot on the desk,
is the fact that, I mean, this is all about joy.
This is all about fun.
This is about the community coming together
and having such a good time.
What has been some of your favorite community-based experiences since you've been kind of walking around here for the first time?
Oh my gosh, just like getting stopped is is always like very heartwarming and very humbling.
And there's everyone stopping to like see Mimi Q come out or see.
I saw I saw Lapras like try to scoot away and everyone's stopping.
It's like you just don't get those moments a lot in life where everyone just like focused on the same thing.
Like this is awesome, even though it's just so simple.
Yeah, I saw the Lapras mascot Pokemon has been around and they were coming from pretty
much kind of backstage and even back there where there's not a whole lot of hubbub, everyone
quietly just went with their phone, followed Lapras, everyone was just joyfully looking
at their phone.
It couldn't be any cuter, that's why.
So cute.
And it just moved, it's like the perfect size.
Everything about every single mascot we've seen is actually wonderful.
For you, is there anything that you've seen on the floor so far that has just really surprised
you with how much you've enjoyed it?
I saw them last year, but seeing them again, seeing the Maraidon and the Karaidon motorcycles,
just seeing them in person and even the Karaidon blinking.
It's just so neat.
Some people may not have seen those.
Can you describe them or tell what they are?
Yeah.
I think it was Honda made the Karaidon and then Toyota made a Maraidon just like
in Scarlet and Violet, and they're rideable, although we can't ride them, the mechanics
who built them can ride them, but they're working motorcycles made by Honda and Toyota, and they're
so cool to see.
They're really, really neat.
And even with Corridon, the legs move and everything.
I know, I have no idea how you go about building something like that.
Is there anything that you haven't seen yet that you're trying to make sure you
do go see?
I have not seen anything in the Yerba Gardens area yet.
Yeah, yes. Yeah, it's right over there. In fact, I saw it only before it was built. So I haven't seen it yet
Yeah, no same. Yeah, you might have to make a little
excursion on over and by the way if you have been to your Bwena Gardens, please show us a photo at Pokemon
Xp. This is how we're we're getting paid back for bringing you all of this these cool interviews and things
You have to show us what you find at Pokemon Xp. Yes, you mentioned bringing a trading card binder
Yeah, so I was just at the
Pokemon TCG 30th
Celebration booth and saw some of the new stuff coming out. I've been really into trading this year as well
Tell us about what you brought to trade when you got into trading cards. What do you what do you like about cards?
Oh man, I I remember getting like bass set and and fossil and jungle
And my dad got into it, but I think my dad moved on from like beanie babies to Pokemon cards
It was like that time.
So he doesn't keep up anymore.
But for cards, I tried to collect all of them.
I want the whole set.
All of them.
Of every set?
Yes.
The whole set of every set?
Well, when I was a kid, that's what I did, right?
And then there was a year or two I was out.
You got maybe a bully.
Didn't middle school for liking Pokemon.
It's cool, though.
It's cool now.
And so now I build binders around just Pokemon I like.
I got a whole Krameran binder.
I got a whole Demy binder.
I want to do like Tandemouse and Mousehold.
I'm really into those two.
Yeah.
I just think they're so funny.
Are you trying to like master set those Pokemon?
Yes.
OK.
Yes.
And there's like certain sets.
Like I finished 25th celebration.
Mm-hmm.
Nice.
And they're smaller sets.
So I think maybe possible with 30th.
Yeah.
So now my trade binder is just a lot of illustration rares,
a lot of like full art trainers.
You know, duplicates that I have,
but I think other people would like appreciate.
And what are you seeking?
If people are watching and they're like,
ooh, I'll trade with you.
Ooh, my Dedenne, my Dedenne stuff is not finished at all.
Oh, okay.
So Cramorant's pretty close to being done.
But people know what you're looking for for your tree
and it's like, come find you.
But maybe like any of the terracilized Dedennes, I mean.
Ooh, okay, right.
Okay, right.
The role of him with his little crown.
Are there any new cards coming out
in the 30th celebration that you're really excited about
or have you not seen any of them yet?
I haven't like looked at them.
Okay.
going into sets being like surprised. They have kind of a day and night theme
that's really cool and I saw some some cool EV adjacent things in there. Did you see his bracelet?
Oh yeah, I have the EV bracelet. Is that the one that did you get at the Pokemon Center? Yes.
I should have gotten it. It's so colorful. It's so cute. Alright so we've talked about
about pins, talk about cards, talk a little bit about the video games, do you play currently
any of the video games?
Yeah.
Or is it more of kind of your origin?
Yeah, I started off with like really into the games.
I think Sword and Shield is up there for me, for just like the music, the amount of
Pokemon I like from Sword and Shield, like I love Grimmsnarl, I love Deregapold, I
love Kramaran.
So yeah, Scarlet and Violet, I still do the Seven Star Raids, I still do the
the mass outbreaks that happen.
Pocopia is, maybe came out the wrong time for me.
I was so busy for Worlds and the Bubbly Basin DLC is so neat.
So I have like, here's eight projects I have to do
when I get back from Worlds.
I was gonna say that might, you know,
you might have to get back into it,
start building some underwater stuff.
Now for, I wanna go back to your podcast for a second.
Are you going back every day
and then reporting on your Pokemon XP experience
for your podcast?
Is this something you're going to do a podcast on at the end,
kind of round it all up for everybody?
How does that work?
We usually, we've done it on Sunday nights,
like right after closing ceremonies,
but it always comes, runs like later and later.
So, and we want to get the show up on Monday.
So we're actually going to do a podcast Saturday night.
So that's what that one's ready for Monday.
And that's just going to be just XP, just worlds.
And then one after will be any announcements that happen.
Nice.
You know new Pokemon for champions or whatever they decide to announce. That's great. That's really cool
So there's just so much I try to keep the show 90 minutes and it's like
Asking cuz I'm thinking like yeah all this stuff to talk about how do you squeeze it into one show right?
So they're gonna get a bonus show. I love that. Yeah, are you are you already thinking some things are gonna make it into the show?
From that you've seen so far. Yeah
Do you know what to say? Yeah, I think I would I think I would talk about just like the
the Stern pinball was like shocking and the TCG pocket booth is really cool.
I think this is like, I think it's just like telling people what they missed,
but like I don't want them to feel bad that they missed it,
but just like trying to like fill in that experience that they're like,
okay, I'm so glad you did the podcast because I couldn't be there or I couldn't make it.
So.
Yeah. A little bit,
I want to ask you about this because I think that a lot of people here are fans of Pokemon,
but maybe not as many of them have Pokemon as their job,
you know, or something that they do as a service
or something that they do as a career.
Tell us a little bit about making that
into something that you do, so to speak.
Oh yeah, you know, it was never supposed to be a job.
Yeah.
Right, when I started podcasting,
there was, I feel like there's no money in podcasting,
but definitely 15 years ago,
there was no money in podcasting.
So I just put out the podcast.
I had no clue what my listeners were.
I just put it out in the ether and then sometimes people would email me saying like love the show. I'm like, Oh, I'll keep I'll keep doing it
then yeah, that's it
And then I ended up losing my job before COVID even happened and I was already streaming on Twitch
I was doing the podcast I had like a small patreon and I was like, hey
I'm gonna you know, give this a shot and all my audience supported me cool and so now I get to do this full time
That's amazing and it's it's it's still unreal every day
Like I don't take it for granted like I understand that I'm very fortunate and very lucky to do this
Yeah, there's something to be said about being able to do what you love as your job
Yeah, genuinely show up today. Have a great time and that's your work. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing
Does it ever make it difficult to you know, does it ever feel like a job or?
No, I don't think it does that's right
I think the learning something new like learning how to like edit in YouTube or like learning maybe like oh
You know tiktok's like the newest social media even though it's not that new anymore
But like learning a new platform is always like a struggle, but like the core sense of like Pokemon and new stuff coming out
It's just like that just feels second nature. What is your mission? What are you trying to bring people through the podcast?
For for the the podcast it is just news
I think some people just don't want to read a huge article
They just want it summarized when they're driving to work washing the dishes. They're just like, oh, I didn't even know that happened
missed it. And then for the Twitch streams I think it's just being able to like play with
like-minded people and like building that community and having people feel safe and having people be
I'm surrounded by people that get me and I think building that on Twitch and just live streaming
is the goal there. So even with something like seven star raids like having people to raid with
instead of like trying to do it by yourself.
Yeah, I mean that's what Pokemon XP feels like to me is just all of us getting to do this together instead of by ourselves and that feels great.
We're unfortunately out of time. I feel like we could chat even more but before we go, can you tell people where they can find the podcast,
where they can find you, how they can follow along?
Sure, sure. You can find the podcast. It's called It's Super Effective on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube.
And the same thing.
So my handle is just short for Pokemon podcast.
So if you just Google Pokemon podcast,
it should be the first one.
Awesome.
Thank you so much for spending time with us.
Have a great time at the rest of Pokemon XP.
And you at home, don't go anywhere.
We'll be back with more Pokemon XP right after this.
Welcome back to Pokemon XP here in Windy San Francisco! We're here on Ray
Quasarode. I'm Anna, this is Glitter, and we've had such a fun full day of
interviews and panels and everything so far. Yeah, I've been having the time of my
life and we're only in day one. We have to do this for two more days after this.
It feels so full. It feels like every minute is full of fun Pokemon stuff.
Yeah, and I feel so like pleasantly overwhelmed by that. Like I don't want
it to stop. Keep bringing in people to chat about Pokemon, like more.
Pleasantly overwhelmed is exactly the right thing people keeping like how do you feel and I keep going like ah
Like it's good, but I don't know how to describe that the level of stimulation
It's so so fun and honestly, I think a lot of you are feeling the same way
We have some tweets and some posts to look at so let's see what you're telling us on socials
We've asked for pictures of pokopia and pictures of what was going on. All right wig liar says obsessed with these Pokemon ads
This is the trucks that are driving around here in San Francisco.
I haven't even seen this.
This is so cute.
Look here, Froslas!
We saw Garbodor one the other day, too, for garbage take-up.
There you go!
That's it!
That's the one, Garbodor Garbage Collection.
And these are just like ads that are kind of around just for fun.
I think it's so cool that they're decorating the city like this.
But this is the Polish artist.
These Pokemon City ads on the Muni bus shelters are just too much.
The Garbodor one is my favorite item.
And this is what we were talking about. It goes back to the level of immersion that you're going to get in a Pokémon event.
I mean, it is not just Rayquaza Road. They truly are taking over the city.
It's surprise and delight everywhere. It really is decorating San Francisco for us.
Oh, Philly Pizu, what's up? Pokémon XP Pikachu Astronaut Pika is literally my favorite Pikachu ever.
You know, it might be one of mine too.
I was just gonna say the same thing. She's just so cute. She's really cute literal perfection
I mean the the the stars on the top of the suit. It's honestly
We also don't get specifically the lady Pikachu tail super often. Yeah, and that's a huge detail for me
I really like that a lot, which is why I was so jealous shout out to Necra for getting a shiny in Pokemon
Go already!
Oh, so jealous.
All right, Pedroazl says ditto panel at Pokemon XP.
Look at all the dittos in the chairs.
That's the plushies that they were holding.
Oh, they look so good.
Honestly, it counts that they belong there.
Wasn't the one that doesn't have a plushie on it?
That was Professor Tango.
It was.
Yeah.
And honestly, the stage is gorgeous too.
It had us going like, we need some more plushies
for our stage.
All right, Andres L1997 says,
got all the Pokemon XP Pokemon home medals.
Wow.
Wait, what?
Look at all of them.
I haven't even started on those.
This has more stuff to collect.
I know.
And you need to see the pins?
No.
Okay, yeah.
I'm behind.
Whenever we get a break,
we need to just immediately go collecting.
I agree.
No enjoyment only collected.
I agree.
Oh, what?
That's us!
That is us!
Devanon says, who let Team Rocket
on the Pokemon XP stage?
Stop Seltzer please from stealing that slow poke.
I hope you're having fun here as well my friend.
Joe Brown hosting on the XP stage if I'm not mistaken.
Yes.
Love that.
Aw, thanks Joe.
I hope we get a chance to actually shake your hand but hello from over here on the
Pokemon XP stage at Rickraiser Road.
Aw, look how cute we look.
Just some ladies at the desk who just look so happy.
We are so happy.
talking about Pokemon. This is the best, this is the best.
We've had so many conversations that I feel like I would just have over dinner.
Yeah.
You know, just hanging out.
I was thinking about the who's your favorite Pokemon question and how it's kind of the
go-to, but we've talked to so many people about what you would recommend for your
first convention. You know, this is the first Pokemon XP. There's a lot of newcomers
to the convention scene, and they've been saying, you know, just chat with people.
have a lot in common and I think that the who's your favorite Pokemon question is
such an actual good place to start with getting to know someone because it's like
what do you like do you like silly things do you like cute things do you have a
story about something you can share with me yeah like it almost sounds like it's
like a like too easy of a question but it's genuinely not because it's the
icebreaker that you need right because the answer then informs 50 follow-up
questions exactly and especially with what we've gotten so far we've gotten a
different answer from so many different people that it's fun to ask why. Like how did that
end up being one of your favorites? Like it's great.
Yeah. I want to ask you how you're feeling about your experience here at Pokemon XP.
I mean, it's everyone's first XP, but you know, you've come from a long career of
eSports events, gaming. So this is a world you're very familiar with, but maybe the
first time that you've gotten to sit in this seat for Pokemon. So how is it feeling?
Yeah, I, when I tell you, I screamed like I had won the lottery.
When, alone, by myself, when I found out that I got to work with you guys on this, I was
like a kid in a candy store and then I freaked out a little bit.
I was like, oh my god, am I going to be good enough?
Am I going to be able to survive this?
And I was like, no, we get to go talk about something that everyone all genuinely loves
to talk about.
This is going to be nothing but fun and trying to just convey what an amazing time we're having
with an amazing community of people and just all enjoying that together.
It could not be any more exactly like the best case scenario that I envisioned in my
head.
So I am just, I told you when we were rehearsing I was like, I'm just so happy to be here.
That's my mantra all weekend.
I am happy to be here.
And it has been going absolutely stellarly, if that's even a word.
Stellerly sounds good to me.
And speaking of Stellar, we get to hear the voice of someone very, very exciting in our
next panel.
We have a conversation with Mr. Ishihara next.
And I have actually no idea what the context of that conversation will be, but whatever
he has to say, I am very excited to listen.
So let's go to that panel right now.
Oh
Welcome back, Pokemon XP crowd!
How are we feeling?
Alright, hope you enjoyed that little break.
Hope you enjoyed the Pikachu Dance Party as well, but for now, we have a very special
panel.
We have Producing Pokemon, a conversation with Mr. Ishihara.
So we need to get loud.
We need to get excited as we introduce our moderator, Lucy Jane.
Hello, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us here today for the panel, Producing
Pokemon a conversation with Mr. Ishihara. As Joe said, I'm Lucy James and I will
be your moderator today. Now, today we are here for a very special opportunity and
that is to have an in-depth conversation with the president and CEO of the
Pokemon Company, Mr. Ishihara.
Now, we're going to talk about how Pokemon became such an enormous global phenomenon,
how it has evolved over time and its influence on pop culture and technology.
Not only that, we have a rare Q&A with Mr. Ishihara, where he will be answering questions
submitted directly from you, the community.
Incredible, very rare opportunity, so excited.
And now, a little bit of housekeeping before we get going.
Promise this won't take very long.
This panel will be conducted in a bilingual format.
I will be asking questions in English.
Then our interpreter, David,
will repeat them in Japanese.
Then he will translate Mr. Ishihara's responses
into English.
Okay, enough from me.
Please join me in welcoming to the stage Mr. Ishihara.
Applause
Thank you so much for joining us. We are so excited to be speaking with you today.
Now let's start by going right back to the beginning and the early development days of Pokemon.
Now we understand that the development of Pokemon Red and Green took about six years.
What were the biggest challenges during development and how did you overcome them?
I heard that the development of Pocket Monster Red and Green has been going on for about 6 years.
What do you think?
How did you overcome the biggest challenge and problems?
It's a story that's been going on for more than 30 years.
I'm not sure if it's just an interesting story for everyone.
Yeah, I mean, it's 30 years ago, so he's very old talked,
but I'm not sure if it's gonna be super interesting to everyone,
but I hope you'll listen.
I think a lot of people feel he may not have been born yet, but...
The question is how many memory sizes we can use to make a game.
We had a Nintendo version of it.
Especially the memory size,
and the problem was that the game had a static ram that could activate the collected Pokémon.
The goal was to clear the game,
but if we could only activate 30 Pokémon,
The red and green Pokemon have 150 different colors, so they don't all have the same color.
I was wondering if that would be enough.
Nintendo's hands.
And the area that really caused the biggest concern
was the size of the SRAM or the static RAM
that was used to store the Pokemon that players would catch.
If the goal of the game had merely
been just to complete the game, 30 or so Pokemon
probably would have been sufficient to catch.
But with Pokemon Red and Green, we
had 150 Pokemon, over 150 Pokemon in the game.
And with such a limitation, we wouldn't
be able to have that catch them all gameplay experience.
So we had to ask ourselves, are we
Okay, with this, can we keep this limitation?
In the end, though, it was thanks to Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto
of Nintendo who actually approved the use of SRAM size
That was eight times larger than what we were originally using, so that decision really
did enable the Gotta Catch them All gameplay experience that we all know.
I mean, only 30 Pokemon, that would have been a very different game, were there any other
challenges?
Yes, I think it was a completely different game experience with only 30 players.
Is there anything else that you remember?
Yes, there is one more thing that I can't really remember.
I can tell you one thing that maybe I know it's kind of an episode that maybe I don't really want to remember so much.
I don't know what to do with the people who play the game.
I have to make a game with everything I can.
So I have to deal with any kind of problem.
But during the debug phase that we were told that the implementation we came up with couldn't
be approved.
It wasn't kind of an acceptable implementation and that we needed to have designed it really
with the assumption that players are going to try really anything and everything.
So whatever system we come up with, we needed to be able to handle even the most unexpected
behavior.
What happens is that if you take out the cable while the communication is on the way,
for example, if you take out the cable while the light is on, you can get two types of results.
One is the light from both games and the light from both games is gone.
So to go into the specifics, obviously, what's going to happen if someone unplugged the Link Cable
in the middle of a trade.
So say two players are trading a Pikachu and an Eevee
with each other.
And if the cable gets disconnected
before the trade is complete, there's really
only two possible outcomes.
Either both of the Pokemon disappear from both games
and are just gone from existence.
Or both of the Pokemon, they remain in both games
and the trade completes.
So you're kind of duplicating Pokemon.
And it really was just like this for us, at least
at the time, was an unsolvable problem
that we just couldn't figure out.
But we needed to to get the feature approved.
And at one point, we just were
feeling that maybe we couldn't do this and we were kind of close to giving up on trading altogether.
unplugged, we spared on the side of duplicating the Pokemon and allowed that to happen under rare
circumstances, or at least we thought rare circumstances. We did everything we could to
minimize that, kind of introduce randomness into the timing of the communication, but
of course after launch, millions of players are playing the game and discovering ways to
reliably trigger this duplication. So that kind of was an issue for us, but at the same time,
we don't regret implementing it all. Because I think implementing trading in the video games
really allowed us to connect so naturally into the Pokemon Trading Card game which was launched later.
Well, speaking of Pokemon began as a video game, but obviously the Trading Card game and the anime
were also developed. How did these contribute to Pokemon's growth?
Of course, all of this started with the opening of a Pokemon game.
Of course, the original Pokemon games developed by Game Freak, those are the core of the Pokemon brand.
So, card games are not just about video games, they are about the same time that we were developing them.
So, the idea of card games comes from the game, and there are many other things.
For me, it is like a brother.
at the same time and I would say they kind of grew up more like siblings in a
way that's how I like to think of it they as we develop them alongside each
other as they really influenced each other and a lot of things that we were
working on in the trading card game like types and weaknesses, resistances,
like Pokemon rarity, how all that worked with influence how that worked
in the video game and sort of vice versa so and I'd say you know
together the Pokemon battles and both the digital and physical formats
really kind of evolved into this highly strategic gameplay together.
And with this being the 30th anniversary, I think we've been seeing a lot of the original
Game Boy gameplay footage.
And as you see, back in the Game Boy, it was limited to just kind of more rougher black
in white pixel graphics that couldn't fully portray what we, you know, our minds looked...
We had in our minds for what Pokemon looked like and what their environments looked like,
the environments in which they lived.
But the trading card game really played a strong role in bringing that rich world of Pokemon
even further to life through these beautiful illustrations.
And, you know, that whole core of, you know, collecting Pokemon, trading Pokemon, battling
Pokemon, those became the shared foundation of both experiences.
Well, thank you for telling us about that, but I want to know how did the anime come to be?
Thank you very much.
How did the anime come to be?
As I said before, the game and the card game have a different story, and the hardware is a bit higher, but it's difficult.
I was playing as a junior high school student and a junior high school student.
So yeah, actually, we were just talking about Pokemon.
We were really just talking about how the video games and the trading card game,
you know, there's the story elements, you go through the story and complete the game,
or you know, go into like the battles and whatnot, but I would say that, you know,
those were the main elements of those games, of course the characters are there, but
they really required players to, I don't know, have learned kind of battle strategy,
you know, be able to read, and that made them a bit more, I'd say, demanding for kind
of an age audience. And we had initially anticipated that Pokemon, the video games,
trading card game they'd be more appealing to like older elementary school students or middle school
students at the beginning but for younger you know like preschool preschoolers we're just learning
how to read we felt that the you know it'd be a little bit difficult for them at the time it was
actually then that Shogakkan approached us with the kind of a proposal an idea to create an
animated series based off of the games we were working on and I think it was really that
animated series that helped lower the age of entry into the world of Pokemon.
The young Satoshi from the main character comes out on a adventure with Pikachu,
and grows up as a Pokemon trainer and a Pokemon master.
The TV anime is the best content for Pokemon.
I started watching anime and playing games and playing Pokemon cards.
That's how I started learning about the process.
to be this kind of gateway to the world of Pokemon,
introduced what it was all about.
And I think thanks to the animated series,
this kind of really easy natural progression
through Pokemon emerged where children would first watch
the animated series, they'd go on to play the video games
and then maybe collect Pokemon cards.
I mean, the impact across the pop culture landscape
was significant.
Did you ever imagine that Pokemon would become
such an enormous global success?
And what do you remember most about that journey?
I don't think it's possible to measure the impact of the pop culture of Pokemon.
Did you expect that the world's success would be so high?
If you have any plans for the future, please let us know.
To be honest, I didn't expect that the world would be so vast.
Yeah, I would say that at the time we had no imagination or inclination that it would be such a big hit around the world.
I really wanted to do it.
I think there was a small business in Yamashi,
but I wanted to do it later.
At that time, Iwata Satoru Iwata,
he was the president of Nintendo later,
so I asked him if he wanted to do it.
Once Pokemon Red and Green were launched, and as a development team, as a producer, they had become successful, they were selling very well, we moved on immediately to the sequel, so we were working on, completely focused on developing Pokemon Gold and Silver, and to be quite honest, we had no resources or bandwidth to take on the localization work for international expansion.
But the president of Nintendo, Mr Hiroshi Yamauchi, he had a very strong desire to see Pokemon
Reduce released internationally.
And I'm sure he had his reasons at the time to believe that it would be such a big hit
and it turned out to be right.
But from our side as the developers, we kind of felt like our priorities should really
be on the next one.
We need to strike the iron why it's hot.
But it was actually then that Mr Satoru Iwata of at the time, HAL Laboratory,
He would later go on to become the Nintendo president.
He came and asked us,
hey, would you like me to take on the localization project?
And he actually then kind of worked on it more,
almost it was like a hobby,
kind of a weekend hobby project.
That's why the Pokemon was able to perform overseas.
And the Nintendo in Japan analyzed the floating patterns,
and instead of Japanese standards, they first developed the anime,
then released the game software, and then released the card game.
And at that time, I became a very active person.
I thought it was a wonderful marketing analysis.
and spreads in Japan, and they concluded that the best release order would be to
start with the animated series, then release the video games and then come
out with the trading card game, and their strategy worked, you know, exactly as I
think they anticipated and it really led to Pokemon being a tremendous success,
so I think that they, yeah, their analysis was spot-on.
And I think, given that we are talking here today, in San Francisco at Pokemon XP,
We're all very glad that the effort for localization happened.
What lessons from your early career as a video game producer have guided you throughout your career?
What are the things that make you feel like you're in a good mood?
This is what I mentioned earlier,
I was talking to the president of Nintendo,
The game is either interesting or boring,
that's all there is to it.
If you buy a game, it's either interesting or boring,
it's a judgment based.
So, you can't buy it because it's cheap.
You can't buy it because it's cheap.
The game is always interesting and fun to play, but I can't live on it.
I guess this is something I've always wanted to do.
and only games that are just kind of overwhelmingly truly fun
and compelling are the ones that survive.
And that lesson has been something that's always
stuck with me.
But as a producer, you know, you're working on the game, you're in the kind of weeds with the developers, and long development cycles can come up and create pressure to make the game more powerful.
But of course, as a producer, you know, you're working on the game, you're in the kind of weeds with the developers and long development cycles can come up and create pressure to release a game.
Maybe before it's quite ready. You know, there's contractual deadlines and development costs that you have to consider, of course, platform considerations and, you know, pressure from other competitors.
So there's many factors that come into play.
At that time, the team that was developed was working very hard to finish it.
There are still some things that I want to fix, but it's not good to erase them.
There are more and more people who come back to London.
It's about time to do it.
We have to protect the contract, manage the schedule, manage the budget,
It's in those difficult development cycles that it starts as a producer, it becomes easy to tell.
It's in those difficult, I'd say, development cycles that it starts as a producer, it becomes kind of easy to tell yourself that it may be time to release.
worked incredibly hard and you know it may not be a perfect game there's still
issues we want to fix but certainly not bad and you know there's even some of the
game testers who say they're having a lot of fun with it so you can start to
tell yourself that maybe it's good enough to ship but you know of course as
a producer you need to honor contracts you know manage schedules as you've
committed to them and stay with in budget and of course you know deliver
results you're not you know creating a burden on the marketing and
different support teams otherwise you can't really call yourself a
professional producer. But it's really, you know, whenever you launch something
after kind of talking to you, talking yourself into accepting kind of
compromises like that, that the product you launch will inevitably fail. So that's
really, I'd say, the most important lesson that I've learned over the
years. Yeah, I think we can all agree it's a very important lesson to learn. Now,
we've talked a little bit about the early days and the journey to now. Let's
Let's dive into what it means to oversee such a beloved brand.
Your corporate philosophy is enriching both the virtual and real worlds through Pokemon.
Do you have any personal memories or stories where you've seen this in action?
This is my 30 years of experience.
When I played the red-green monster,
I was playing the character of a human being in a game called Steam.
I was also playing the Pokemon effect.
I also got the nickname Kamonegi from Osho,
and I still remember it very well.
今現実世界にいる友達とPokemon交換すると Game中の人物と現実の人物が同じ役割を持っていることがよかった。
この仮想世界と現実世界を一体したりしたような不思議な体験が生まれたんですね。
この体験が出発点となって、それが社税だ。
This is another kind of core memory of mine from like 30 years ago, but it's something that left a really lasting impression on me
And it's when I was playing the original Pokemon red and green games and vermilion city
You encounter an NPC or a non-player character that you can trade with and they I remember receiving a far-fetched
nickname oh show in Japanese or think ducks in English from one of the in-game NPCs and
Later when I would go on to trade with my friend in real life an actual person
I realized that that friend was playing the same role as the NPC in the game.
So it was really like this kind of moving between the virtual world and the real world
that created this very unique and memorable experience for me.
And that experience became the starting point for everything and really is kind of the basis for the company's philosophy.
And when did you start to see this expand to a global scale?
What do you think about the world's hope for the future?
In the beginning, the Pokemon era was the era of the Red and Green,
and now it's the era of the world of the Earth,
and it's the era of the local and cultural world.
From Kanto, Johto, Galavia, and Haldia.
The players are trying to find a way to get closer to the real world,
and know the depth of the world.
Even going back to the beginning, since the days of Pokemon Red and Green,
Pokemon's always drawn inspiration from real-life locations.
Of course, the Conto and JoJo regions are inspired by real-life regions,
but all the way up to Galar and Paldea. We do this in a way
that helps players experience a sense of familiarity
while they're enjoying this journey deeper and more
expensive virtual world.
I think the concept brought the real world and the virtual world closest together.
At least in Pokemon products.
That arrived in 2016 with Pokemon Go.
And I think the Pokemon world was kind of layered on top,
directly on top of the map of our real world.
And you could go out and encounter laparists or magic
carp near bodies of water.
You could find kengis con in Australia, for example.
And I think that really gave people the feeling that the
world of Pokemon and its habitats had sort of merged
with our real world.
We are living in both the real world and the virtual world.
In other words, virtual world and the virtual world are both in the real world.
It is not the right choice to access the virtual world in the real world.
While we are talking about the real world and the virtual world,
we should send a more powerful life among the communication.
We want to become a Pokemon that connects it and uses it as a bridge.
And thanks to advantages and technology today, or maybe due to advantages and technology today,
we now, I think, a lot of us just in our daily lives live in both the real world and the virtual world, we could say.
Another way to put it is that the virtual world has kind of begun to seep into the real world more and more,
and also vice versa, the real world seeping into the virtual world and kind of merging almost.
And I don't believe the answer is to focus on completely eliminating the virtual world living just in the real world,
in the real world, or retreating entirely into a virtual world.
It's really, in my opinion, we should move back and forth between both of these worlds
and enrich our lives through doing so, and I really want Pokemon to be one of those bridges
that connects the two worlds.
Well, speaking of connections, that first generation of Pokemon fans, they're now
in their 30s, 40s, they're introducing Pokemon to their children.
How has that influenced your approach to producing Pokemon?
In the sense of connection, the first generation of children who were playing Pokemon at the time of their childhood were now in their thirties and forties, and they were able to make their own children.
I think there is a wide range of situations where they are introducing Pokemon to their children.
What impact does the wide range of generations have on the current Pokemon producers?
As you all know, the red-green era was the 151st type of Pokemon, but now it's more than 1,000 types, and it's always been a new type of Pokemon.
Pokemon started from Nintendo games,
card games, anime, movies, smart apps,
and many other large-scale games.
As a game and card game player,
we, who have been separated from Pokemon,
have recently started to grow into new Pokemon
in the field of art and art.
So, you know, during the era of red and green, we started with 151 Pokémon, and of course now we're all the way up to over a thousand Pokémon species.
So, you know, we continue to create new Pokémon experiences all the time.
And Pokémon, it really began as a Nintendo, you know, video game on Nintendo's platform, and has continued since then to expand into all sorts of other media,
creating card game, obviously, animated series, different films, smartphone apps, all sorts
of merchandise and different other kinds of entertainment and experiences.
What I'm seeing now is even parents who maybe played when they were younger and no longer
engaged with the core games primarily, they are kind of rediscovering Pokemon through
things like craft exhibits or different like, maybe forms of art, for example.
For example, my son and my mother, who is very hot in the card game,
are walking along with the dragon and looking forward to it.
The connection between the two generations is the same as the Pokemon.
When I was little, my father taught me how to speak English and Shogi.
My father and I have the most important thing in the game.
The reason why my parents are so close to me is that playing is really important to me.
of their walks together. So you see these kind of connections that are spanning generations
through playing Pokemon together, forming. And even when I was a kid, I remember my father
teaching me how to play games like Go and Shogi and teaching me the rules. And those really
remain some of the best memories of my time with him. So I firmly believe that this idea
of playing together is just such an important thing that can connect parents and children
to form these kind of deeper bonds.
Yeah, it has been really special seeing how Pokemon
can bring families together.
It's something I've experienced in my life
with my nieces and my godson.
And I've seen plenty of it at the event.
But given that we are in San Francisco, Silicon Valley,
let's talk technology.
major technological shifts in handheld gaming and wireless connectivity over the years.
There is one thing that I want to talk about in this video.
It's a game machine that one person can use to play.
Actually, the smartphone is in the center of the game,
but it didn't have a smartphone in 1996.
One person can use it to play a game.
In the game, you can collect a Pokemon,
and you can grow a Pokemon,
It's a game boy, and it's a handheld gaming experience on the Game Boy, which is of course a handheld gaming console.
And that handheld nature remains really essential, I think.
It's just one of the franchise's kind of foundational elements.
Today, when we think of personal portable gaming device,
we often, I think, first come to mind maybe
is like smartphones, which, of course,
we didn't have those in 1996 when the game came out.
But each player, they would have their own personal game boy,
and they'd walk around with it, collecting
Pokemon, catching Pokemon.
It was almost like their own digital bug catching cage
almost.
And Pokemon could raise their Pokemon,
and sometimes trade them or battle with them.
And that core, I think, style of play
was born thanks to the handheld nature
of the Game Boy and continues today.
So, the main series of Pokemon games are Red, Green, Gold, Ruby, Sapphire, Diamond, and Fire.
And the Scarlet Violet.
From the very beginning, we have been making it all the time.
And we have sent out pocket pikachu, pocket walker, or pocket mongo plus, and other gadgets.
I really like the way the game is designed, and I love it.
So I think it's really fun to think about devices and gadgets like that.
Wherever they go and we've crossed to create a lot of companion devices such as you know pocket Pikachu was at the Poco Walker
Pokemon go plus device and personally I've always loved
Handheld gadgets and toys just in general and I'm particularly passionate about this area
So just such a joy for me to imagine and kind of come up with ideas and create these devices and gadgets
Well, the concept of a mobile device with a smartphone and a mobile phone has changed quite a lot.
Before the smartphone, from the 90s to the 2000s,
The device was originally a device that was used to add a sufficient function.
On the other hand, the smartphone input changed all functions to make them work on the smartphone.
Specifically, we have all the communication, cameras, videos, and GPS.
We have all of them connected to our smartphones.
That's why we decided to make an app.
Functionality that the core devices
With which they would pair did not have so kind of augment that functionality
But once smartphones arrived they really took all of the various functionality that people wanted and packed them all into a single device
So you know communication features photos and video
GPS and all sorts of other functionality really just became integrated into a single device
So the value then really became from developing like mobile apps
apps that would take advantage of the functionality that was in the device.
So yeah, after smartphones arrived, we had to change our approach a little bit with the accessories.
accessories and the companion devices became more about connecting with the smart phone
through like BLE, Bluetooth low energy technology and the Pokemon Go Plus is a really good example
of that. I'd say in the past these gadgets or companion accessories were kind of like
these cool secret weapons you could pull out of your pocket and do something really
cool with but today I think going forward maybe a challenge for us is going to be
figuring out how we can integrate Pokemon more with some of the wearable technology
smart watches and smart glasses or even smart rings for example.
Well, beyond gadgets and toys, after more than 30 years producing Pokemon,
what continues to inspire your creativity?
What do you think about the things that are all the same?
Well, from the very beginning, the Pokemon game that Game Freak has been making
has been amazing, so it means that it is very fun for me
to be able to meet new technology, new creators,
I would say that just the core concept of the main series Pokemon games that Game Freak
continues to create today is such a just a strong game concept and finding new ways to
be able to expand on it and new ways to express it.
It just continues to be enormously enjoyable for me.
Maybe the greatest source of inspiration for me, just day to day comes from exploring these emerging technologies and meeting new creators and coming up with ideas to transform those encounters into new experiences.
Well, we've talked about the last 30 years of Pokemon, but let's look at the next 30 years and beyond that. What do you hope Pokemon and the people who carry it forward will become?
I don't know.
I've been playing Pokemon for 30 years now,
but I'd like to know what you think about the future of Pokemon.
Even after 30 years, I've been making new games.
We asked the fans to submit their burning questions for Mr. Ishihara and the fans delivered.
So are you ready for a round of community questions, Mr. Ishihara?
I would like to ask a question to Mr. Ishihara from the fans.
I have received a lot of interesting questions.
I would like to ask a few questions from them today.
He's ready.
All right.
What Pokemon would you want as a partner and why?
I would say this is the question I get asked the most, but it's also the most difficult question.
It's cute, so it's a lie.
Actually, you can't choose a single partner Pokémon.
If you discover new Pokémon next time,
what kind of creatures will happen if you travel together as a partner?
With this, your imagination will gradually expand.
If you were playing Pokemon for a long time, such as Mushy, Corridon, etc.
If you become a card game, you become a future Pokemon or if you are a Pokemon, you become a decan.
So it's impossible to choose a Pokemon.
I like to say Pikachu, of course, because it's very cute, but I think I would do it.
Just kidding on that one.
The truth really is that I simply, I can't just choose a single Pokemon, that's my favorite.
New Pokemon are being discovered all the time as the new games come out, and whenever
I see a new one, my imagination starts kind of running wild, like, oh, what's it going
to be like adventuring with this Pokemon?
And, you know, what if our travels together, depending on what game we're playing, what
is it going to be like?
I would say that over the years though, some of the Pokemon I've spent the most time with would be like
Executor, Corridon recently also
When it comes to the trading guard game, it might be like Meeridon actually, one of my favorite Pokemon
And recently I'd say that Pokemon, Pokopia, Tinkaton
Definitely one of my favorite Pokemon in that game. So choosing just one Pokemon
I'm sorry to say is impossible for me. Very fair. It's very difficult for all of us.
Next question, what is the best part about being CEO of the Pocobac Company?
Being able to play the games just a little bit sooner than everyone else.
I think this question could come from most people in the room.
How can I work for the Pokemon company?
So the Pokemon Company, we have many offices in different regions, whether you're interested
in working in Japan or in the US here, or maybe even China, first find out where you'd
like to work.
Obviously, the different companies have different hiring requirements, different roles depending
on the region.
We'd love for you to join our team of course if you're interested and if you're really knowledgeable about Pokemon
You've already kind of cleared that first hurdle, so please go check the job stages and recruiting information
We'd love to have you join us
Incredible well thank you for those answers and thank you to everyone who submitted questions
Thank you
Well, Mr. Ishihara, thank you so much for your time and sharing your memories and your insights.
Thank you all so much to everyone here in the audience and all of you at home who couldn't be at Pokemon XP and the World Championships.
We really appreciate you tuning in. Thank you so much to everyone for joining us here today.
Please join me now in giving a big round of applause to Mr. Ishihara.
Thank you and enjoy the rest of your weekends!
me
I
Oh
Hello, and welcome back to Pokemon XP here from San Francisco.
We are on Rayquaza Road.
I am Anna.
This is Josh and Glitter, who you've met before, and we also have a guest with us here
on the desk.
Would you introduce yourself to the people at home?
I would love to.
My name is Glaxon13. You could call me Glax. You're not going to talk to me through the TV screen,
but I usually stream on Twitch. I am a huge Pokemon fan and content creator,
and shout out to all my fellow Shiny Hunters out there. I see you and I represent you here today.
I love to hear that. I love to hear that. Now, just a couple of things we want to address,
because we want to dive in and ask you a bunch of questions, but we did get some lovely
gifts from the folks at Funko. We got Funko'd, as you can see. You're sitting behind Rachel's
I like the blonde, maybe I should pull it off sometime.
Some exclusives feeling really excited about that.
And then also we just heard from Mr. Ishihara,
which is such an honor and a gift, such a pleasure.
Glitter, what did you think of that?
I think for me just the biggest takeaway was
how much gratitude we were seeing out of him towards the community.
He was so emphatic in telling everybody at home
how appreciative that the entire Pokemon Company is
with everyone sticking with them for 30 years and the thing that I was very
excited about was the fact that he was emphasizing the fact that they do not
want to become complacent they want to push for the 50th for the 100th anniversary
can you imagine we're here for it yeah it's really great to see that type of
legacy and it's been built upon a huge amount of investment from a variety of
different people but when you have strong leadership that really understand
and why this is so magical.
We get to see that here in the presence of thousands
of people and everybody watching from around the world.
But when you have strong leadership like that,
you can really see from the top down
why Pokemon is such a force to be reckoned with.
You have a lot of revolving doors
with bigger heads of companies,
but he's been around for so long
and he's been loved for so long.
It's great to see how much he loves Pokemon as well.
I'm just gonna say for the 50th,
I'm going to be here for the 50th, thank you so much, really appreciate it.
Soverting from the nursing home.
Yes, I'm 20 years I know.
No, not you, oh my gosh.
That's why you gotta do yoga now.
We're speaking to you this morning.
That's right.
That's right, it was fun.
I love that.
Alright, let's talk about you, Glaxon.
What do you do?
So in the daytime I am a teacher of 8th grade math students in a public school, but during
the night I am a Twitch streamer, I love hanging out with my community, and we Shiny Hunts
together.
We are out there getting a whole bunch of different colored pixels on all of your favorite
Pokemon, so for those who don't know, Pikachu is like a nice little orange or yellow mouse,
but when you find the shiny version of it, he turns like this burnt orange.
It's like different colors. They're rare. They're fun to collect and that's what I do basically for a small living
What do you what game are you trying to hunting in right now?
So right now I'm focusing on getting the last legendaries I need in Dynamax adventures in Sword and Shield
So I'm still back in 2019. Wow. How does that feel? Oh, it's great
I mean the fact that these games are still being played for so many years later
It's great to see you're not just stuck in Scarlet and Violator champions
We're all the way back in the 3ds games and the early switch games. It's awesome to see it's so many secrets
Even before we had a high speed internet to try to find out. Okay, where are these specific Pokemon?
Yeah, unlock it and sometimes back in the day you had to share with another person to make that happen imagine talking to people
That's all we got Pokemon go
I need to ask them. What's your favorite Chinese? Oh my favorite Chinese the honed edge line
phone adj to slash interesting black and red they look awesome we have not heard
honed mentioned that's awesome is it a favorite Pokemon of yours or just
favorite he's my second favorite clearly I have a favorite I'm probably the only
person that will ever get the shirt made from the Pokemon server but you know
I'm glad that they let me do it not a whole lot of hit Monly merch probably not
No, there's not. So I had to make it myself.
I love that. I love that.
I love that you can.
We have been noticing that all day
we've been asking people what their favorite Pokémon is
and not a single person has been a duplicate.
Wow.
Not yet.
That's the beautiful thing.
I mean, you have thousands of them now,
but like, that's the best thing about Pokémon.
Like, everyone is somebody's favorite.
So, I just happen to be the hit-mom-ly one out there.
What has been your hardest shiny to find?
What has been the one that gave you the most epic journey?
Okay, so I'm glad you asked because every shiny hunter has this story. Yes
So mine happens to be pukimuku. Okay in Sword and Shield
There is one location that you can get it and you have to fish for it
So in Sword and Shield they introduced the overworld spawns where you can like pick and choose which ones you run into
It's not random like in the grass, but in fishing it's random
So it's just a small chance that you get a pukimuku. So I spent
14,000 encounters to get my Shiny Feudal.
14,000?
You counted all of them?
And yeah, I was long and arduous, and I streamed the whole process.
You know the amount of hours it took?
Oh God, I couldn't tell you, but it was one day a week for like a year.
It was like fishing Fridays.
And I fished every Friday 14,000 encounters until I finally got my little green guy.
But how did it feel when you finally got it?
I would love to show a clip right now of me just yelling and screaming in my basement,
around so excited to get that thing it is still to this day the community is
just like this doesn't live up to be committed that's gotta be one of the
ones where you get up out of your chair right yeah we have a whole thing
called JSC in my chat which is jump spin clap because that's what I do I jump up
spin around and clap yes and you got to share that with your audience so they
got to experience that with you the clip is available online it is and to
have that type of social experience is really important you know you get
to prove it to everybody, but I'd love to know what is your experience so far here at
Pokemon XP.
Oh, I'm sharing this experience with you all too.
So I mean, living vicariously through the creators and whoever sharing is part of the
experience if you can make it out here, but it has been so overwhelming in the best way.
There's so much to do every turn.
Oh, gotta go do that.
Gotta remind myself to do that.
Gotta get this over here.
It's so much.
And I haven't even been in one of the halls yet.
So yeah, it's so busy in the best way.
There's not a whole lot to collect that's specifically shiny here.
And that's what I would love to change in the future.
Interesting.
If we ever could, we'd like to make us the niche shiny hunting community, we'd like
to make that a little bit more, you know, present.
What do you hunt when you're here then?
Pokemon Go mostly is what I'm doing.
Yeah, that makes sense.
There's a lot of shiny to be had there.
Exactly, yeah.
Have you gotten the shiny?
I got both shiny costume.
Oh, it's awesome.
Man, I did.
one's with backgrounds though. Just half the day I would say. Just in the line to get
out of Pokemon Center, I did two raids back to back. Boom, both shots.
What? Okay, maybe it's over by the Pokemon Center we have to back.
We've done so many raids and have not gotten a Shiny yet.
It's insane. There's the inside scoop everybody. Head over to that section.
Go to the Pokemon Center.
They're there.
Catch us lurking over there.
Go back on camera. No.
No.
Gotta get this done first.
Gotta get the Shiny first.
Priorities.
Absolutely.
Just what your Pokemon journey was like.
We've been sharing a lot of Pokemon memories, what got us here, what made it part of your
life that was so big that it became a stream.
So I'm Unc.
So I've been here since Gen 1.
I have been playing since Red and Blue.
That Christmas was a magical Christmas in 1998.
And I've been hooked ever since.
There was that awkward time where like you're a teenager and true cool for kids stuff.
So I kind of skipped Gen 5 when it came out, but I was there for everything else.
So it's been so cool to have adult money now to be a part of this.
Instead of relying on my parents buying me everything Pokemon, see, my adult money brought
me here.
And you know, it's just so cool, like, how such a small thing, seemingly, when you're
a kid, it just blows up and everything just becomes super popular right in front
of you.
early at the first of its kind for Pokemon XP, so what has the experience been like between
the floor and Requies of Road, and how do you know the community, just all of it?
It's cool to see what other people are interested in.
Like I know what I like, but coming to an event like this, you get to see what is important
to other people.
And I think that's one of the coolest experiences.
What has struck you that's important to other people?
A lot of people are just collectors.
Pokemon is about collecting, right? Completing the Pokédex. Gotta catch them all, right?
That's what people are here to do. They're here to collect either exclusive merch, exclusive
pins, exclusive, like, whatever, plushies, everything. So the home medals and the pin
rally have been the most surprising things to them.
Oh, geez, yeah, they've been huge.
They have been insane. I got notifications all day through my app saying, oh, this
pin's gone, this pin's gone, this pin's gone. So it's cool to see what people
are interested in.
I know I went for the Umbreon pin and they're like, ah, good luck to all. I
We only have 20 minutes.
No.
No, sorry.
Back in Charizard.
Nope.
Yeah.
No luck.
Not yet.
That's right.
Not yet.
We still got a couple more hours today.
We still got two more days after this.
There's plenty of chances.
That's the best part.
So we're only getting started.
Yeah.
Now one of the elements for Pokemon XP that a lot of people have been excited
about is TCG Pocket.
And I know you have a lot of insight about that game.
Tell us a little bit more about your love for the game and what you find so appealing
So I'm going to be very brutally honest right now the state of the TCG
It's very hard to get your hands on physical cards right now
So pocket does an amazing job of scratching that itch of like I got to get some cards
I got to open some cards. Mm-hmm. You could do it twice a day for free and
It's so cool the art that they recycle and that they make brand new for the game
is really exciting, like just you never know when your favorite Pokemon is going to be featured and you never know what art you're
Going to pull next you never know
Like if you're going to get a God pack it's good
You know it's just so much fun it does it does scratch that itch and Anna and glitter
We're having such great reactions earlier on seeing a lot of the artwork that was made for the card game
And yeah, and first really see again the leadership and the protection of these different characters
So when you see a
Squirtle and a different element on the beach like how do we make sure that this is still the squirtle that everybody loves right and it
Takes a dedicated team to do that
Well, we get to really enjoy the benefits at the end of the day to see all the energy that's poured into that art and to make it another
Collectible exactly and that's the cool thing about card art is that you can put these Pokemon in all these different scenarios
Just off your imagination you like the the sky's the limit when it comes to card art
You could do whatever you want with Pokemon.
It's so cool to see them in those environments.
What has the community around TCG Pocket been like here
at Pokemon XP?
Have you met other people who like to talk about it?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I actually, as part of the standing in line,
someone was opening a 10 pack in front of me.
And I was like, I'm going to watch it.
Yeah.
I'm just going to give it a go.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, they got a rainbow border.
And I think they actually got the immersive rocket.
So I was so excited.
Okay, so does that mean you've been opening the new Rocket packs?
Oh, yes, of course.
I love the overhaul.
I did not expect to see that.
You open the app and suddenly it really feels like Team Rocket took over the entire app.
I love that so much.
So I'm looking forward to other collaborations like that, just like really surprising us,
because they have the power to do that.
I love the, can I watch you open the pack thing?
Best.
What I'm doing, like, that's what I love to do.
I love to see other people get stuff that they want to get.
That's what the Shiny Antic Community is about.
You know, it's like, what shiny have you gotten?
What are you hunting?
How many counters are you at?
It's like we're always interested in what everybody else is doing.
It kind of reminds me of the like,
do you want to come over and watch me play my video game?
You know, because it's like now we're carrying our game
along with us.
And honestly, if ever anyone's like,
do you want to watch me open this pack?
Or like you said, can I?
It's so normal and I love it so much.
It's been normalized.
Yeah, I love that because everything we do
is just broadcast everywhere on the time.
So might as well get some conversation going
and celebrate those wins for everybody.
That's the best part.
Before you know it, you've got new friends.
You've met and you're open-ended together now.
We're going to be here for a couple hours,
so might as well like each other.
Yeah.
And for some people that maybe are a little bit more
on the competitive side, they want
to enjoy that battle system.
So for somebody that maybe hasn't really
died into a TCG pocket, can you describe what
the battle system is like for us?
So in the basic TCG, like the physical game,
You have a 60-card deck, and it's a lot to keep track of,
and it's a lot to build with.
But in TCG Pocket, it's way more simplified.
So it's only 20 cards in the deck,
and they're easier to collect
as you get free packs every day
instead of having to hope that something
drops on Pokemon Center one day.
You get through the queue, and it's really cool
to see just people building so many different decks
with only 20 cards.
Like there's so much variety
when you wouldn't really expect it.
But yeah, I think it's simplified.
The rules are very similar, it's just watered down I'd like to say, but in a good way.
It's simplified.
Very approachable.
Very.
And is there a specific type of immersive card that has eluded you at the moment that you're
trying to get?
Oh, I have been hunting the Buzz Swole one for a very long time, but I'm glad I pulled
the two muses that were in the last one that had a regular and the shiny one, you
know, gotta have it.
So, yeah, I like that.
That was a surprise.
back to C2, but one was just shinies and one was regular.
So that's amazing.
I wanted to ask before we got off shinies,
what ended up attracting you to shiny hunting?
Because if people aren't familiar,
shiny hunting is a very specifically demanding hobby
where you have to do the same thing over and over.
A lot of the time you have to spend a lot of time
waiting and looking.
It's kind of like wildlife photography almost
where you just have to spend most of your time waiting.
What is it that brought you to that
and makes it so satisfying to you?
So one of the coolest things and the way I describe my streams and a lot of other shiny hunting streams is that it's just chatting
There's a category on Twitch. That's just chatting. You're just talking just just yapping away with your community
And then sometimes something happens
That's that's what shiny hunting is on stream. So it's just about building community
and a more serious answer is I'm a teacher and
You know students will find out whatever they want to find out so they found my stream
So to save my neck, I decided, you know what, maybe I shouldn't be playing JRPGs with weapons and swords and stuff, so
I'm gonna move to Pokemon, and I did that and I fell in love with it, and it's what I've been doing ever since.
Oh, that's really cool.
So yeah, yeah, I had to protect myself a little bit, and I was, the move to Pokemon was the best choice I ever made.
As a math teacher, the statistics of Chinese are really good. I feel like that's educational.
I'm a numbers guy. I'm a numbers guy, I think luck is a statistic.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I love every aspect of it. It's just so
Satisfying when you get what you want and you have other people celebrating with you when it happens
You know, it's just such a cool thing. It's just like, you know
It's like opening card packs on a video or stream
You know, you're waiting for them to get the big hit and like get the reaction like that's that's what's all about
You know 30 years ago when we saw our teachers at the grocery store. We're like what?
How you exist
Now that they can tune into your stream and enjoy Pokemon collectively, have you ever assigned homework on the streams?
I was just thinking this year our curriculum changed and we have probability back.
No.
So we might have to make some tweaks.
Is this how you tie it in?
I might.
We're gonna try to get it. It's like not until the end of the year. So I got some time.
If you have 14,000 encounters.
Literally, like, yes. How many average encounters do you get a day? How many? Like, yeah.
You can get so many you can do with it.
do with it. That's so cool. If you were giving advice to one of the kids you teach
or even an adult who's coming to an event for the first time what would you
tell them about how to fully enjoy an event like Pokemon XP or engage with it
or what would you tell them for their first time? Alright I'm gonna give you a
real answer like just hard truth you have to go into something like this
realizing you're not gonna get to everything. There's just so much to
do so using the app is probably my number one thing. The app has been a
a lifesaver just knowing where things are first off in a venue so big so the map
has been helpful but also just picking and choosing the events that you really
really want to get into I think it's it's it's easier on the mind to narrow
things down and you know go in with like a clear picture what should I do today
yeah and for some folks they're gonna be waiting in line for some of these
activities and you get to meet friends talk to the staff talk to
different developers but perhaps and we have had a number of experiences
we have made lifelong friends at these events and that's a really important
part, a really beautiful part about it. Has there ever been a very impactful
memory in the world of Pokemon throughout these last 30 years that you
can maybe rise to the top because we've talked about that to a number of
different people and it's kind of really tough to choose. It is. I'm not gonna be
any different. I would say again just being able to share my love of Pokemon
because when I was growing up, you're nerd, you like Pokemon, right? But now like, there's
50,000 people here, like, that you're sharing that experience with. So they exist. People
that love what you love, they exist. And with Pokemon, it's easier now than ever to find
those people.
That's such a great place to leave it, unfortunately. We are out of time. But before we go,
I want to let you tell people where they can find you on the Internet, how they
can stay in touch with you.
So you can find me on any of the social medias out there, but mostly on Twitch at Glaxon 13 XII I it's a
13 in Roman numerals. I do YouTube. I do Twitter Instagram all that stuff all the same name
So thanks so much for spending time with us. Thank you guys enjoy the rest of Pokemon X
I will and we will keep bringing you more from Pokemon X feet right after this
Thanks for hanging out with us here at the first ever Pokemon XP.
I'm Anna.
This is Josh and Glitter.
We're here at the desk with you on Rayquaza Road.
We've been having such a great day.
So many things have happened.
If someone asked me, like, what was the highlight of today, I would have way too
many.
The list is long and we're not over at all.
Even for today, we've got two more days.
This is a pretty big highlight, I think.
I need a minute to talk about this.
Please.
This is the Funko people came over,
and they Funko'd us for us with these exclusive,
event-exclusive Funkos.
Look at my cute little red hair,
and I'm holding a microphone.
How cute is that?
I feel like we didn't get a moment for that,
so I really, I'm sorry, I just had to talk about it.
It was such a huge surprise for all of us.
We had no idea they were gonna do this for us,
so thank you very much to Funko,
and I don't even wanna take it out of the package.
This is going to go on the mantle forever.
And for the celebration, really, the energy here
has been fantastic.
And Glitter, I know you've been having a blast just
checking out the different activities.
But also a lot of great interviews here on the desk.
So shout out to Chat that have been really
appreciative for all the different insight
that you all have been able to provide today.
It's been a blast.
We've talked to so many cool people.
It's only the first day.
I have already developed an emotional attachment
to my Funko.
And this will be following me everywhere
for the rest of the event.
I honestly can't even begin to imagine how it's going to get better than this, but I know it's going to it has been really
amazing the level of
Not only insight, but positivity and joy that has come from all of the interviewees
I feel like every time we ask them a question and we're like we're kind of excited about this
They're like oh my gosh, I'm also really excited about that
And that's why it's so cool because it's it's been different categories every time right whether it's
Pokopia or the card art or the animated show or pocket or go or literally
Music anything that we've gone up here. Everyone is so passionate about the thing that they love that they're here for
Mm-hmm, and I feel like it makes us get even more hyped about it, too
Mm-hmm, and how inclusive it has been for everybody, especially those that come from the og side
It'll realize okay. There's some Pokemon
I don't really know yet from the later generations,
but there's so much more to learn.
And that experience, especially to see the fan favorites
that are currently out right now,
the different games that are out, the animated films,
and they all come together for this weekend.
And as we were talking about earlier with Glaxon,
we feel this is going to continue for quite some time.
So the celebration of 30 years,
there's plenty to celebrate,
but also, as you said,
and just the positivity of everybody being around us
and also San Francisco hosting us.
They have been just absolutely lovely the entire time it has been so cool to be back here
There's so much good nostalgia here. My first world was in San Francisco. I used to live here when worlds was here
And it has really felt so welcoming and so exciting
But I don't want to let you off the hook because we were talking about some of the stuff that spark joy
And we haven't seen you in a while. Yeah, so I would like to know what spark joy for you today, okay?
Okay, I'm gonna give you all a little bit of a preview of what's gonna be happening
maybe tomorrow or day three, but I was able to hang out with Jimmy Paul. Jimmy Paul is a
fashion artist from Amsterdam and he's been collaborating with Pokemon on a number of different
pieces. Now Jimmy Paul has worked with a number of different celebrities and he was able to debut
these pieces in London and a lot of these pieces are actually here today and there is a specific
jacket, a Mewtwo jacket that I am just falling head over heels over. I was able to try on the
jacket and I almost just left and said goodbye guys I'm out of here and to see
the level of artistry from the fashion side being able to be expressed in the
world of Pokemon and the way that he was able to really advance what these
different Pokemon meaning and how they're represented through color and
design into something that was really meaningful especially with his own
lineage from his family and how that was manifested in the pieces and to
have that type of celebration which you would think a number of years ago
fashion and Pokemon together. Yes, yes, they definitely belong together and I'm
excited to have that presented a little bit later. I believe tomorrow in our
broadcast and there's a number of other things I would love to reveal but I have
to be a little bit tight-lipped about that for now but that's one more so I'll
give you guys but I know you've been around, literally you've been around to
enjoy a number of different booths and activities here at the event. I
have been and I think one of my favorite parts about it is that when
And we do get to actually find a little bit of time and kind of walk around the floor.
And also, from a distance, I'm watching Anna run into people that know her from the community
and she's getting time to say hi to the fans and just like watching how much love there
is for everyone who is part of the Pokemon community.
So yes, we're enjoying all of the amazing booths that exist.
But as we're doing that, I'm watching in real time the very genuine human interaction
and enjoy that everyone is finding and just all being at the same place and loving the
same thing has been really cool for me from like the outside perspective.
And speaking of fashion, how fantastic you all have looked today. I'm representing the
professors of Pokemon with my suit and tie, but I have been most impressed with the presentation
that we've been able to bring with our collective celebration around Pokemon. And that's only
day one. And shout out to Rachel as well representing Team Rocket.
We miss her. Nailed it.
Funko holds her place for the moment and we are going to be bringing you more
Pokemon XP throughout the weekend but it doesn't stop now we have another
panel coming up it's gonna be all about TCG pocket so stay tuned we're gonna go
to that right now
Xp crowd! How are we feeling?
We are getting towards the tail end of our day one coverage here with one panel to go.
We've had a lot of exciting action on the stage today, but it's only the first day of Pokemon XP.
We have so many more fun things planned for you for this weekend.
Pin rallies, cozy games, collecting trade, and of course, don't forget about the Pokemon World Championships happening as well.
But for right now, let's talk some Pokemon, TCG pocket.
How does that sound?
All right, let's have a big cheer
for our moderator, Stuart Pagan.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to our panel.
My name is Stuart Pagan, and I'll be your moderator today.
In this session, we'll take a behind-the-scenes look at the evolution and future of Pokémon
TCG Pocket.
Joining us today are the members of the DNA, creatures, and Pokémon Company development
teams who contributed significantly towards building the game into what it is today.
Before we begin, I have a few announcements.
This panel will be conducted in a bilingual format.
I will first ask questions in English and then interpret the same questions for our Japanese
panelists.
Kat, my interpreter, will also then interpret the responses into English.
Welcome, everyone! Today's moderator is Suwato Fegen.
In this panel, we will explore how Pokemon Trading Card Game Pockets have evolved,
and how they will evolve in the future.
Today, we will talk about the development of the creatures, the DNA, and the development of the game.
Kat, would you like to join me on stage?
Kat, please go ahead and introduce yourself.
Hello, everyone. My name is Kat Cox, and I am your interpreter for this panel.
I work at the Pokemon Company International in Seattle as well,
and I work on Pokemon TCG Pocket-related projects.
Hello everyone, I'm Kat Cox. I'm the head of the main panel.
I'm working as an international partner for the Pokemon TCG Pocket project.
Alright, thank you Kat. Now, before we jump in, let's take a moment to introduce our panelists.
So let's introduce the panelists before we start.
Thank you.
Tatsuya Iguchi
Kiyo Tsuji-Kawa
Kiyosuke Hanawa
Thank you very much.
Now, let's start with Ibushi-san.
Yes. In Poké Poké, we have a development team producer.
With Ibushi-san and Chris-chan's producers,
we are thinking about what kind of direction Poké Poké will be developing
and what kind of game cycle it will take.
At Pokémon TCJ Pocket, I serve as a producer on the DNA development team.
Together with producers from TPC and Creatures, I work on developing the overall direction
of Pokemon TCT Pocket, including its game cycle.
As for my background, I've been involved in game operations and development since I began
my professional career.
In terms of Pokemon-related titles, I am also serving as a producer on Pokemon Masters ES.
Tsuchikawa-san from Creature.
I am the director of Creative Director, who watches all the cards in the game design department.
In the past, I worked on the game design and product design of the physical Pokemon cards,
and in the third series, I worked on the card design department.
At Pokemon TC Pocket, I serve as a creative director, primarily overseeing planning, game design, and part experience.
Prior to this, I was extensively involved in the game design and product development of the physical Pokemon Trading Card game,
and served as the card game director for the Pokemon Trading Card game, Sun and Moon series.
I serve as a director on the Pokemon Company development team.
In this role, I focus on producing the title within the emphasis on making it appealing to Pokemon fans
and ensuring that Pokemon are portrayed in an engaging and compelling way.
Prior to working on Pokemon TCG Pocket, I was involved in marketing and events for the physical Pokemon trading card game, where I worked on the Sun and Moon series as well as the Sword and Shield series.
Thank you.
Thank you for your time.
Since last October, we've had tons of exciting new expansions that are released in Pokemon
TCG Pocket.
Mega Rising, Fantastical Parade, Falsing Aura, and Ruler of the Skies just to name a few.
Has everyone in the crowd been enjoying the latest Pokemon TCG Pocket expansions?
I'm glad to hear it.
For this next segment, I'd like to speak with the developers about their experiences
developing the past year of expansions.
次のセグメントでは開発チームの皆さんに
今のシリーズの拡張パック開発について
追従で得られた経験やエピソードについて
お話をいただきたいと思います.
花生さん ゆぐしさんへの質問です.
What updates, including new features or specifications,
have been implemented in the past year to enhance collecting?
過去1年間ポケポケでのカードコレクション
より楽しくするために
どのような使用変更や追加機能など
update, or something like that?
In this year, we have added a variety of updates,
but to make the user enjoy collecting,
we were able to say that
we were able to change the function and trade of the game.
We were able to include the function of the present box pack,
and we were able to collect it.
Over the past year, we have implemented a variety of updates.
Among those aims specifically at making card collection more enjoyable for users,
are the introduction of the sharing feature and adjustments to trading.
Updates such as enabling bulk receipt of packs and gifts were also well received.
We have introduced updates and feature improvements under the broad goal of making it easier for
our users to collect cards.
Improvements to trading and winter pick features, as well as the implementation of the sharing
future were introduced in line with the school. When thinking about what updates can be made
to Pokemon's CCC pocket, we aim to strike the right balance in ensuring fans are able
to collect the cards they want while still maintaining a sense of excitement.
Thank you, Kat. For Iguchi-san and Hanawa-san, what update was the most memorable and
why? We'd also appreciate it if you could touch on updates that are positively expressed
by users. Iguchi-san and Hanawa-san, what was the most memorable and why?
For me, the Mega Rising update released in October last year was the most memorable and included
the implementation of sharing, changes to trading, and improvements to Wonder Pic.
Until then, it was a situation where the card collection was so difficult that it was hard to get the pack to be released.
However, it was a discussion that we thought that it would be possible to enjoy the collection until the very end.
Prior to this, due to the way paths were structured and how cards were distributed,
collecting cards became increasingly difficult, the further users progressed.
While we wanted players to enjoy collecting all the way through,
we recognized the gap between the goal and the actual experience being delivered,
and we had many discussions around this.
As a result, we decided to expand opportunities for users to collaborate
and fundamentally increase the chances of obtaining cards they did not yet have.
The first anniversary update was created based on this approach.
In practice, we received a large amount of feedback from users saying that collecting has become easier,
and we saw an increase in the number of users who were able to complete their collections.
We believe there is still room to further enhance the appeal of the game as a collection experience,
and we are continuing to explore additional updates along those lines.
For me, the addition of the share feature also left a strong impression as well.
What I find particularly interesting about this feature is that while only one person is receiving a new card during this experience, players still enjoy engaging with this feature.
physical Pokemon trading card game.
Tsuchikawa-san, what kind of battle experience did you aim
to deliver to users in Pokemon T's TG pocket?
Additionally, what kind of reactions did you receive?
How did you feel about the game design and product design of the Pokemon Trigger Game?
How did you feel about the battle experience?
And what was the user's reaction to that?
I'd like to deliver a more casual and easy-to-play Pokemon card battle.
The deck has a victory point, energy development, and tempo control.
It's easy to do, but the important thing is not just to do it easy,
but to leave the fun of connecting to the physical Pokemon cards.
As a result, there are more battles to come,
so I think that many people knew about the rules and basics of Pokemon cards.
We aim to deliver a Pokemon card battle experience
that is optimized for casual and quick play.
While elements such as deck size, victory conditions, energy generation, and overall temple were streamlined,
the key was not simply to make the game easier, but to preserve the depth and the enjoyment of that connect back to the physical Pokemon trading card game.
As a result, we've seen more players engaging in battles, and we feel that has helped a wider audience learn the roles and fundamentals of Pokemon TCG.
What was the biggest surprise?
What was the most surprising thing about it?
Yes, it was a lot of fun to play with the players who were interested in physical games.
I'm very happy to have both of them play with us.
We're very pleased that many users have also developed an interest in the physical trading card game,
the Pokemon TCG Pocket, and that they're enjoying both experiences.
Team Rocket has finally appeared in Pokemon TCG Pocket.
Firstly, I think fans are pretty excited, but it sounds like you guys agree!
That's great!
Tsukawa-san, what is your favorite new card out of the Pokemon TCG Pockets' latest expansion, Team Rocket's Ambition?
Please also tell us why.
The Rocket Gun has finally appeared in the game.
I think the fans have been waiting for this for a long time.
Please tell us what you like about the new Rocket Gun in your new card this month.
Thanks for your input.
I'd like to pick some of them, but I'd like to pick Rocket Gun's barrier first.
I like the fact that I can't say anything about the Rocket Gun.
It's hard to choose just one, but I'd say Team Rocket's Mr. Mime.
I really like its indescribable expression that conveys the ambitions of Team Rocket.
It feels like an expression that could only be illustrated in this expansion pack.
Next is the research team of the Rocket Team.
In the history of the Pokemon Card 30,
it's actually the second time, but if you've seen it,
if you've heard of it, I think it's a very rare Pokemon Card.
and recognize how long it's been since its last appearance at a first glance,
I say they're an incredibly knowledgeable Pokemon card expert.
Tsuchikawa-san, among the cards making their debut in Team Rocket's ambition,
could you tell us if there are any that you particularly like users to pay attention to?
Q. Can you tell us about the card you would like to pay special attention to?
A. It's quite difficult, but I think it's the Rattai-X of the Rocket Team.
Rattai-X has the characteristic of being able to take away the enemy Pokémon's energy.
I'd say Team Rocket's Radek Ex. This card can steal energy from your opponent's Pokémon.
And in the physical game, this would be difficult to implement since energy cards from both players
could get mixed together, potentially disrupting gameplay or even being taken home by mistake.
However, unlike the physical game and Pokemon TCG Pocket, these processes can be automatically resolved.
So we decided to experiment with the unique card concept.
Because Team Rocket's ambition is themed around Team Rocket, this kind of gameplay challenge felt very appropriate.
We hope that players will enjoy it as a unique, self-contained experience that captures the playful feeling of role-playing Team Rocket.
With this recent update, Team Rocket's designs were also added to areas such as the homescreen in the shop.
Iguchi-san and Hanawa-san, could you please talk about the intentions behind these changes?
While our card was added to the team, we also updated the main screen and shop.
Could you tell us about the new features and thoughts that Iguchi-san and Hanawa-san added to the team?
First and foremost, we wanted to suffice users.
One of Pokemon TCG's pocket strengths is its ease of entry.
You can jump in at any time and it's easy to understand what to do.
Simply open packs.
On the other hand, we also felt that the experience blackness tends to surprise in the moment.
You open the app each day.
As a player, we wanted players to feel this is different from usual right from the moment they open it.
The Team Rockins' ambition update was a challenge aimed at delivering that kind of experience.
This was something we really wanted to take on to surprise players.
We're really excited to see what kind of reactions we receive from users.
Depending on that feedback, we may consider exploring more ways to create these kinds of surprising experiences in future development.
As Yugi-san also mentioned, at Pokemon TCG Pocket, we place a lot of importance on delivering
a sense of freshness and surprises to our users.
We felt that the release of an expansion pack themed around Team Rocket would be the best
opportunity to provide that kind of experience. And the development team
worked on the concept with a great deal of excitement. Thank you, Yuji-san. Hanawa-san.
Next, I'd like to ask you one more question. What's your favorite new card
added with Team Rocket's ambition and how will it impact the play environment?
Yuji-san, Hanawa-san, please tell us about your favorite card in the new card you just added.
It's really hard to choose, but Team Rocket's boss is my favorite. I have a strong attachment to trainer cards, and I've always liked the various villainous teams, so this is a character I'm particularly fond of as well.
I also like Rocketland's boss, and I think it's a card that's suitable for the name of Rocketland's boss.
I also like Team Rocket's boss.
I believe it's a card with an effect that truly lives up to the name,
boss of Team Rocket, and one that players will feel embodies that title.
Another card I'm particularly fond of is Team Rocket's Slow King EX.
It's a card that grows stronger as you increase the number of cards in your hand, offering
a satisfying gameplay experience that feels new compared to anything we've had in Pokemon
to do pocket so far. Thank you both. And now we have a big surprise for you all. In addition
to our panelists, we have some special guests that will be joining us on stage today.
We heard that some devs are looking for a battle.
A battle?
Audience, would you like to see the devs battle our community representatives?
I don't know, Dan, are you up for a battle?
You can start to cancel them, you guys.
But I'm going to show up.
Yay!
But I think we'll need an announcer.
Is there anyone here who could help us with that?
I absolutely love to announce these matches.
You know, I cast for the World Championships just across the way,
there's nowhere I'd rather be than on this stage right now, watching some pocket.
Sounds great. Thank you. All right, Spraggles, what are the rules?
Well, you're putting me on the spot, but what I think here is it will be a simple battle here.
A best of one between the community and the developers. They will pick their favorite decks.
May the best player win!
in. Pretty good, pretty good. Now that we've heard about the rules, let's take a look at
the decks that we will be playing today, starting with our community representatives, Princess
Diana. What are you bringing on to the battlefield?
So today I will be using one of my favorite mega evolutions because it's adorable, mega
ulterior and the overarching goal of this deck is to help everyone get their beauty
sleep and put everyone to bed. Yes this is one of the meanest stacks in pocket in
my opinion able to put your opponents to sleep with a glee pop the extra damage
of the dark cry mega ulterior. I hope you win this is a tough one to beat.
All right, Seya let's take a look at yours. Well I love Sceptile and the goal
for me is to get ramped up super quick and do some really big damage for
mega Sceptile and also keep myself safe from status conditions with
Ogre Pony X. I love it. Tell me a little bit about the Celebi in your deck.
Well, you know, Robo has this amazing move and we can snipe the Bench and if I have Celebi out,
well, you know I can access that move as well.
Amazing. Alright, I cannot wait. Stuart, we got to hear about the Devs decks.
Alright, let me ask him.
Ikichi-san, what kind of deck will you be playing today?
The goal of my deck is to force Pokemon on my opponent's bench with Team Rocket's boss and aim for big damage with Seekune EX's Crystal Waltz.
Another strength of my deck is that I can attack Pokemon under bench with Greninja's ability, Water Shuriken.
Oh my gosh, incredibly mean and from the news that, I love it Stuart.
Excellent. Alright, next Tsuchikawa-san, let's face also about your deck.
The goal of my deck is to interrupt my opponent's strategy with Radek's EX, while building up
Mega Lucario EX on my bench.
Once Mega Lucario EX is ready, I'll overwhelm them with its powerful moves.
Wow.
Alright.
Unbelievable.
We have two incredibly powerful decks, and two incredibly powerful decks from the
devs that I cannot wait to see.
Alright, you guys.
Who wants the devs to win?
Let me hear you.
Pretty good, pretty good. Alright, who wants our community to win? Let me hear ya!
Alright, this is gonna be fun. Alright, any last words before we battle?
I hope everyone's ready to get some rest.
Good luck have fun.
Much nicer than I.
Any last words from our dance?
I'm the type of who likes to have fun with battles, so I'm going to enjoy it to the fullest.
I'll do my best to win using cards from Team Rocket's Ambition.
All right everyone take your positions. Let's get this thing started here. I cannot wait to see it
Brand new cards team Rockets ambition. They sound incredibly mean. We needed to make Greninja
Suicune more powerful, and that's what we're gonna see here in this first game. Are you ready community?
I'm ready. Are you ready devs? All right. Let's start the battle here. We go
Leave me, Altaria.
Unbelievably mean as well as we're heading into our game right here.
I cannot wait to see how your deck starts, Diana, because it could go very, very well
for you.
It could also go very right for me.
That's right.
And here we go.
We see both of our decks here.
On the left, we're going to have our community.
On the right, we are going to have our devs indeed start for the devs.
There is that Iggly Buck right away with Espeon on the bench.
This feels pretty good for you right here, Diana.
And you're going to be going second.
Oh, no, sorry.
You're going to be going first.
Wow, this is excellent.
This is a dream hand.
How are you feeling?
A dream hand, honestly.
A dream hand where you'll be putting your opponents to sleep.
Let's see it right now.
Grabbing you two Pokemon, an Eevee, and a Swablu.
It looks like you have everything but a dark cry ready to go.
And we're going to go with the sleep ball to buy right away.
The indeedy in the active spot is put to bed.
And now we're going to see what the devs are doing here.
This is the first time I've ever heard anyone clap for
Angley Buffs put stuff in the bed in pocket.
It's great.
I absolutely love it.
And we've got some new parts here, soothing shore right away.
This is the stadium that was released in the last set with water
energy on these Pokemon. They're gonna heal every single turn. So even though
this has taken some damage, they're not too stressed about it.
Copycats throwing their hand away, grabbing some more cards. We've got the
rare candy, we've got the Cyrus. We've got the sweetcoon and we've got the
Greninja. Here we go. The question is how are they gonna play this? And they
are gonna move Indeedy out of the active spot right away. Sweetcoon is
in. That means they're drawing an extra card at the end of their turn.
But we're going right back to the deck that puts you to sleep
What do we got what do you get what do you get?
Fun little hand over here hold on hold on. Oh my god. I'm so welcome you right now. I'm very jealous
Mega all-teria on the bench
We also have espion ready to go
And you have an interesting play. Yeah, I was wondering you're gonna break your opponent's stadium
Put down your own at the training area more damage for all of your stage one Pokemon the instant retreat
Espion is powered it's crazy amounts of damage and sweet coon goes to bed
That's 50 and sweet coon is asleep. It's gonna take them a while
But they're away
And here we go. I know we thought Diana had a quick start with no dark right in the health first
is going to kind of lack some damage.
Yeah.
This has been great for Diana so far.
The only thing would be that dark cry.
If she had that dark cry, this would be perfect.
However, this Indeedy right here,
keeping them very healthy on the side of our devs,
they're powering the sweetcoon now.
And they've got a pretty big hand of cards.
They're not too worried about what they want to play here.
Considering the giant cape, which would give them extra HP,
considering their other sweetcoon as well.
And there they're gonna fill their bench and they're gonna wait on their next card over to Diana. Oh, very scary car
All right Diana, okay another professors
Almost all your cards it feels like are in your hand right now
I'm looking for the right one though. Yes. You are looking for a very important card that would do extra damage
however, the sleep has
Oh, man.
You got a little port, look.
Oh, man.
Oh, my day.
They made the game.
That's how it goes.
And it's just how it goes sometimes.
All right, let's take a look at their next place here.
Smeekun's going to be ready to fight right now.
The question is, are they going to get more cards on their bench?
What else could they consider playing here?
Energy ready to go.
for our developer.
Looks like a lot of thought is going to the next move.
Altaria can come in.
Looks like a lot of thought is going to the next move.
Yeah.
It's a big move.
I'm a little scared, guys.
They recognize that this could go down, right?
Oh!
This is a big card.
And here we go.
One great thing for the developers right here
is we have a very full dense but look at Diana getting insanely aggressive. Here comes the mega
Pokemon with mega harmony and down goes sweetcoons. Our developer right now in a lot of trouble.
This is going to be tough. They made a lot of great plays though. Saving the cape gives them
enough HP to withstand this.
Broke, now hits the bench.
We're going to have a ton of damage here
from this sweetcoon onto Altaria.
Can Diana do something about this sweetcoon now?
100 damage over to Princess Diana.
That Altaria is very vulnerable right now.
I got to trick up my sleeve.
Oh!
This is Sabrina! Unbelievable!
The ace in the hole! Ready to go!
Mega Harmony once again!
Congratulations!
Stand-off area win!
Wow! Wow! What a great game!
What an exciting deck with the devs.
I think every single play that could be made to save the devs there
was made 100% correct.
It was just running into mega all its area, ready to go.
Really incredible stuff.
Let's get our second game ready.
Congratulations, Princess Diana.
Thank you.
Wow.
I'm not going to lie.
Backstage, we're talking and we're saying, all right,
it's Grinninger's week and we think, how do we beat this?
We're going over it over it.
I'm so glad we're down.
They were strategizing.
I was scared.
Well, of course, you get them to sleep right away.
All right, Seiya, you ready?
I'm ready.
Devs, are you ready?
Thanks.
All right, game number two.
Let's go, battle, baby.
Start it up.
We got a Subtile family crowd.
I love it.
Absolutely, as we're getting ready for our next battle here.
Mega Subtile and Mega Altaria, two incredibly powerful Pokemon.
Both of them able to attack for only a few energy.
But what the devs said about their deck, I think it's pretty scary here. Are we going?
No, let's go. Oh, we're searching. Oh, we're searching. Okay, great.
First thing I was, did I not say go? It feels like I might not. Yeah, I cannot wait to see this.
I'm worried though, because they will steal energy from Septile and Septile loses energy
by attacking. So that's very, very vulnerable for you as we're getting ready to head into
this match here. I'm excited to see this new Rocket Deck. We didn't get to see a
ton of the Rocket Cards in the other deck and I have been opening packs of Team
Rocket's ambition. I could tell you Raticate is one of the meanest things
they have put into this game so I am excited to see it here in this next
battle. It looks like we're heading into it.
Here we go.
All right guys, who wants the devs raticate deck to win? Let me hear it.
They need a win, right? They need a win. I think they do need a win at this point.
And who likes Megaceptile again?
Vubz Megaceptile. This guy loves Megaceptile.
All right, he really likes Megaceptile. I hope you win.
I really hope you win because someone will be very disappointed if that does not happen
All right, we're getting ready for a battle
Going between these two decks make a septile incredibly strong
You have a really interesting variance of it. I would say with Celebi
I love that card the ability to hit your opponent's Pokemon and then you know the evolve them. That's very exciting
Yes, I love it. Love it. Love it
I
Think we're heading into our match now between these two
Stewart who do you think's gonna win this one? Do you have to say the devs are you getting trouble? It's a good question
I don't know this right? Yes. I've never seen before so I don't know how that's gonna perform
But I do know the mega stuff out that gets pretty strong. Yeah, mega stuff tile is very strong
No consistent how it evolves, you know, so I think that
Both sides have a good chance, but my money might be on MegaSephalia X.
I mean the community did so good in that first game, so I would not be shocked to see them win again.
The Raticate card I absolutely love. Every time you evolve from Rattata to the Team Rockets Raticate,
you steal energy from the Pokemon in the active spot.
It's so mean it forces your opponent to never want to put energy there, to never decide to attack until they are ready.
It is a really cool card in the new set.
I think the new set is themed incredibly well.
I love what they've done to the game,
obviously changing the loading screen and all that.
I think all that's exciting.
But I do love a set that feels like the whole idea
behind it is finding new ways to disrupt your opponent's
hands, finding new ways to take their energy.
I think a good rule of thumb in any game
is if my opponent doesn't like that I'm doing this,
it is the right play.
And Team Rocket's ambition has a lot of that in it.
So I can't wait to see it here.
I will say, if this deck does well, I'm going to steal it.
I'm going to steal it.
I'm going to make a video about it.
I'm going to pretend it's mine.
There you go.
I don't think that's what I'll probably do.
And all of you are here for it.
You all saw that I will make that robbery.
As we're heading into our game here,
we are taking a look at the perspective of our step tile.
They have the Rotata in the active spot.
Now it's interesting here.
We're going for the professor's research right away and there we go
We have a mega on the other side. We can see what's in our opponent's hand
It is pretty exciting to see what they've got here. They've got some pretty powerful cards the other treat go
So not every septile deck is gonna be running two lines of
Septile but this one is the great thing about that if you lose one treat go you're still good to go and you
Have that powerful mega Pokemon available
Profesers research from our devs, Hitmon Lee, Riolu, a lot of options in this deck for our fighting player.
Team Rocket's Ratata once again.
It's going to be tough, Saya. They're telling you you can't put any energy in that active spot, my man.
I see it, I see it.
Hitmon Lee, and they are powering Lucario.
Mario. And now it's just a time where we wait. The question is, oh, this is, oh, this is
good. It's very good. Fragrant Forest able to grab a basic brass Pokemon from the deck.
We did it. You're lucky. The Crown Rare Salami. Impressive. And we're powering the
I think this is very smart obviously. We see what can happen with this Raticate right away.
And now it really just feels like it's a game of chicken almost between these two players.
Who is going to move in and start fighting first?
Mega Lucario right now with two energy on it.
And something amazing about this Raticate card, they don't even need to do it.
The X speed. We're getting aggressive from the developers.
Here comes mega Lucario right away. He's saying if you've got septile prove it my dude
I think both
big I
Don't think I need to remind you this is not great
This is a tough spot to be in
He's going right for it. Oh
We have the mega septile we have the energy on it
we're swinging with the terminating tail crazy amounts of damage to this
Lucario if you're able to keep energy on it you can beat it it can't take you
down fast enough however your opponents may have a trick up their sleeve and
they do there's the brand-new card team Rockets Raticate EX with the absolute
brutal ability to steal the energy from the active spot mega Lucario is
It's powered the training areas down for extra damage.
Here we go.
We are swinging 150.
It is poisoned.
So it's gonna be taking damage, but not enough.
Not enough.
Do we have anything?
What do we got?
The fragrant forest.
All right.
Lily.
Maybe, maybe we can do it.
Oh!
We go for the pound!
We go for the 20 damage!
The poison's gonna lead them at 10!
I don't know if we, let's see.
Our devs right here with the fighting pulse,
they're gonna swing for 140!
Oh!
It's enough.
Man, it is enough.
Congratulations to our devs!
Amazing, great work!
And today's winner is...
Today's winner is...
It's a tie!
I don't think you guys appreciate how good a tie is.
So we're going to try that one more time.
It's a tie!
Good. Very good.
Congratulations to all of our players.
Congratulations.
Thank you to Spragals and to the community representatives who joined us on stage today.
Thank you guys. Love you. Goodbye.
Thank you to the fans who helped us to participate in the battle.
Please give them a big round of applause.
Baby tell me about me
Me
Baby tell me about me
Baby, baby, help me to go
Me, oh, me, oh
Baby, baby, help me to go
Here we go.
I
I'm done.
I
Oh
I
Welcome back to Pokemon XP.
It has been such a fantastic day and it's only the first day.
We've only just begun friends.
I am Anna.
We have Rachel Glitter and Josh here on the desk with us.
We just saw a panel.
I want to talk about it briefly.
And then I want to talk about your whole day.
But we have the TCG pocket panel.
I heard there was a tie.
There was a tie.
We saw Raticate hit for 20.
And chat went crazy, but it turned out to be a tie.
So it was really great to see.
And also to see the fan reactions and crowd reactions
in the room.
So hopefully, we'll see a lot more of that action
throughout the entire weekend, along
with a number of different features we'll be having
for the different games that are available here
at Pokemon XP.
Awesome.
I also want to hear from each of you a highlight of the day.
I don't want to say your favorite moment
because way too many.
I don't like choosing favorites,
but a highlight moment of the day for all of you.
Wait, I don't know mine.
Okay, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, okay.
So, one dresser room over from ours, get this.
Oh, God.
All the Pikachu, Lapras, Mimikyu,
anyone you could dream of all the most famous attendees of pokemon xp the
pokemon themselves
are in the dressing room over the nps uh... every once in a while i walk past
lapis in the hall
and i i don't i'm not a person to get starstruck
i'm not a person who recognizes other humans very well
but i can recognize all the pokemon
and lapis is so adorable all the
costumed pokemon here are so wonderful so big shoutouts
I was coming out the door to come here
and Lapras was coming out the door ahead of me
and I was like, oh please, after you.
Yes, take your time, Lapras.
Yes, thank you.
Much time as you need.
What about you two?
Glitter.
I think for me, actually now that I've had a moment
to think about it, might be getting to chat with Charlie
about all of what goes into creating
not only that opening ceremony,
but just reimagining all of the Pokemon music in general.
I thought that was so fascinating,
so interesting to get chat with him.
I think you and I could have probably continued
interviewing him for another 10 minutes. Yeah, absolutely. That was kind of the case with a lot of the people we interviewed. Yeah
What about you Josh?
Plaxton, the interview we had, he's a teacher and for him to be able to share his love of Pokemon with his students and
also to go into probability this year as part of the curriculum and to
understand probability in a way that makes it fun and engaging and also part of your life when you're involved in Pokemon.
I think it's not one of the not only one of the best ways to have an educational forum,
but one of the biggest reasons why we love video games, trading card games, and the world of Pokemon and Gemini.
So to really feel his energy, his love, and how that radiates through his channel as well, was another reminder why we do this.
Absolutely. I think one of my highlights was talking to Liz the last about Pokopia.
Yeah. I felt like we really just got to do our job, which was sit up here and
and giggle about Pokopia.
And I felt so understood by it.
There's so many things where, you know,
when you're playing alone at home
or even searching the internet for inspiration
or other people who play,
it doesn't feel the same as when I make a noise
from Pokopia and all of you are like,
oh yeah, yeah, that's true.
It's true.
Everyone's been so great today.
I'm kind of shocked by just how
much has happened today.
I mean so many different communities coming together and yet the same community and I just I keep explaining to the
They're like how are you doing? I'm like I'm really pleasantly overstimulated. I'm just so so much is happening so much
Yeah, that point you said about different communities coming together
We often think of the Pokemon community is one big community
But never do you realize how truly diverse Pokemon fandom itself is so you come to something like this?
And now we have XP which celebrates all the different ways that people love Pokemon, not just the competition.
And we are seeing cosplay, we are seeing some very creative people who come up with magic harp coins to give out,
or just special little treats, just any way you can connect to other Pokemon fans.
Even if you're a stats person and I'm a lore person and you're a design person and a fashion person,
this is the place where all of that comes together and you see so much creativity.
Have a good time.
What has impressed you all about the fans, the community? What have you noticed about them?
I would say the electric feeling everybody has right now. Just to engage, to have the interactions with the card battles, to see people's excitement about seeing the costume characters.
But overall, the pleasantness and joy that people have to be here, to where we can take a break from the rest of the world for a little while
and really enjoy the immersiveness that is everything Pokemon in a way that feels not
only fun but functional. What I mean by that we have an incredible team that has put all
this together and yeah the lines may be a little bit long for some of the pins or things
like that but the organization has allowed these tens of thousands of people to be able
to enjoy their experience here and also for everybody watching on Twitch and on YouTube
I was fun to interact with chat for a little bit and you know half the chat is okay
How do drops work? How do I get my job?
The other half was to comment on the engagement that we had with a number of different guests
that we had here on our desk and also the panels,
and to see a little bit of behind the scenes of what it takes in terms of not just the willpower,
but the talent in order to create this universe.
I mean, for me, I think we talked about it a little bit earlier on the desk.
For me, the biggest takeaway is just how kind and genuinely welcoming this community is.
community is. Obviously this is my first Pokemon event and even from the small things of as
people are passing, they're waving to us while we're sitting here on the desk talking about
stuff to the people that we've been interviewing to Twitch chat. I mean, it has been one of
the most least stressful kind of bringing into the fold situations for me. I have
enjoyed every single second of every interaction both virtually and in person.
Well, and to say that it's your first Pokemon event is a little wild because this is
the first Pokemon event that I think has made so much space for all the different types of Pokemon fans.
I have talked to you about Pokemon so many times. You've watched all the shows.
You've been collecting. You were my number one trade partner in TCG Poggy.
And I can't believe this is your first Pokemon event. But you know what?
This is my first major Pokemon event, too. I've hosted Pokemon Go,
the first Go Fest. I've hosted Pokemon Go Trap.
I've never been here. And, Anna, you've been holding on this secret for 10 years.
It was no secret, I wanted you here.
Now is the first time that we can have everyone here.
And I feel like the sharing and the just wanting,
there's like a show and tell culture here,
you know what I mean?
Like we had some people walk by with these
Rallet vending machine backpacks,
and we're literally up here at the desk
and we're like, oh, that's cool.
And they're like, here, let me show you.
And that's like all we wanna do.
We wanna come here and show and be shown things
and just enjoy them.
We're all on the same level here.
I have just been stopping people in my time walking around
and being like, you're dressed as Cynthia,
you're dressed as Yellow,
you're dressed as this very obscure background character
from the manga.
And I'm like, it's so alive with what we love.
I am so glad it's day one because-
Yeah, I don't know what I'm gonna be doing on day three.
Yeah, I don't know.
That's looking lovely, it's all the time.
You'll be making a bed.
You'll be setting up an apartment on the floor.
Yeah.
You're ready to move in.
You don't have Lapras, hacking myself into the one of the Pokemon boxes.
For all the plushies we're going to get, their own room probably is what's going to happen.
And yeah, and also some of these pins that I'm seeing people starting to collect
and to be able to showcase, you know, some people's favorite Pokemon.
I think it's been my favorite question of the day because every answer has been different.
That's crazy.
It's so incredible that we haven't had a single repeat favorite Pokemon.
Surely we're going to get one eventually.
eventually you would think I mean there are some more popular Pokemon than
others you would think I mean I'm wait I'm pleasantly surprised and I'm yeah
we didn't even get a second new no Josh and I both like me oh that's right okay
okay all right go the the artwork as well that we have seen showcase
physically here on Requizal Road but also during some of the panels is really
breathtaking and to see a character you know mouth that's been around since
day one, but the way they're able to create a new art card in a scene that encapsulates
really what cats like to do, but it's a world of Pokemon for Meowth.
It just shows that there's so much more creativity still in the world of Pokemon that people
are going to be bringing, and to see the surprise on people's faces of like, here
we go again.
There is more that Meowth can do that I didn't think would be possible.
Here we go again.
Love that song.
great song for the opener that we heard this morning. Yeah, it's really good.
I should listen to it. I really love that song.
You know, that's a great song on the soundtrack for this year. Speaking of
showing and telling, I had someone come up to me and say, hey, I got a whole
bunch of cards and I wanted to pay them forward. So they gave me, wait what, a
present. Yeah, they wanted to just pay it forward and I was the lucky
recipient of that and they were like, yeah, open it when it feels right.
And I was like, you know when's gonna feel right the end of the day on the desk
It's right now. So we're gonna crack this pack
I had to get I got special permission to crack this back. And I don't I don't think I've ever actually opened a prismatic evolutions
I never have either. Oh, there's some things in here that might excite you. Is it one to the front for prismatic?
I've never opened them. I haven't gotten I haven't got yes
All right ready do you see this where are we looking?
there. There. Okay, ready? Left.
Can you see? Low punny.
Friends in Paldea. There we go. Adjusting, zooming,
Bronzor, and we're going in. Enhance. Enhance.
Oh yeah, move it down your shoes.
Where do we go? Where do we go? We must catch the moment.
All right, Bronzor.
Executor. Oh, you love those. Oh, it's not a lowland executor.
That's not for my master set, but it is a cute one.
Really, really no thoughts on that one.
Oh, there you go. Perfect.
Okay, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.
Binding Mochi.
Okay.
Oh, rescue board. Okay.
Getting, we're getting close.
Couple of those behind us.
Oh, a cute little Whammy.
Oh, the reverse all the way to the end.
I mean, I'm going to be happy at this point
with this pack, period.
I mean, this is a great card for me
for my Evolutions binder.
I also collect cards with Pokemon I like
with flowers in the background.
So this is just a double whammy for my binder.
love this hollow pattern.
OK, who did?
Oh, with flowers, with flowers on the other side.
Oh, and Blood Moon or Saloon.
All right, you know what?
No big hits.
But for me, I was going to say
that the evolution is just a win.
Yes, this is this is a really,
really good card for my binder.
That's very nice.
In fact, the the person had a couple
other cards and was like,
do you want this Joel Tian?
And I was like, I have a lot of evolutions.
Pay that one forward instead.
And so I feel like I got rewarded.
Beautiful.
I got my EV evolution.
Oh, does it work?
Deserve it.
Just a small moment, an example of the kindness,
the friendliness.
People are going around here just trying
to make everyone else's day better.
So cool.
And definitely succeeded with the bed.
That was so cool.
I'm going to just pile my shiny cardboard here
for a second.
And while I do, let's check in with our big Lego
build behind us.
The Requaza has been being built all day.
Let's check in on the progress there.
Oh, laying a big foundation for this.
So I've been wondering how this was going to happen
because you obviously can see the mini example
of what will be the large Rayquaza build
by the end of the weekend.
And I was wondering how much realistically
you can get done every day
because this is going to be massive.
Yeah, yeah, and for that type of structure
to have that solid base, I mean,
that's the most important part, laying the foundation,
but making sure that every piece is in place
and then building from there.
So we'll have an update on day two and day three,
but again, really looking forward to see
what the final product is gonna be.
So you got it two in all weekend long
and you'll see the final Reqweza on day three.
Sam, I don't want to so fear and doubt here,
but there's a lot of Reqweza in there.
Yeah, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.
We're gonna get it done.
They're gonna do it, right?
We're gonna get it done.
And if not, I'll be over there for half the day
trying to help them out.
Okay.
Well, speaking of day two,
when you'll have to tune in to see
how the progress of that Rayquaza goes,
let's check out our day two schedule.
Again, from this desk,
we're bringing you a look at Pokemon XP.
We'll be going out on the floor to bring you videos,
but we also are showing panels from Pokemon XP.
So tomorrow we get to do celebrating
10 years of Pokemon Go,
Pokemon Battle Bracket Bonanza,
Lego Pokemon, you're the trainer now,
and Pokemon X Jimmy Paul by Diffuse,
fashion, show.
What a day. Wow. Are you guys excited in particular for any of those? All of them.
The fashion show in particular, but yeah, I would say all of them, Rachel.
The Jimmy Paul, I mean, I have the Gengar, not jacket, sweatshirt, hoodie from Jimmy Paul.
It is probably one of my favorite, if not my favorite right now, pieces of Pokémon clothing, which is saying a lot.
It is a really great piece of clothing. I've encountered my favorite piece of Pokémon clothing, and we will see that tomorrow.
It really blew me away, and I'm just gonna probably dream about it tonight and see if I can get my hands on that jacket
It is something else. You gotta go shop. I know I'm ready. Alright, let's go. Let's just go shopping
I've been staring at that Gengar hoodie for so long
You know what we're done. We're gonna go shopping, okay?
But do tune in tomorrow
We'll be back tomorrow and the next day with more from Pokemon XP and to leave you today
We have a very special trailer which is a mystery. I don't know what's in it. It is a trailer from Pokemon TCG pocket. Let's find out
you