The Pokémon Company and UNIQLO are teaming up with renowned artists Meguru Yamaguchi and James Jarvis for a new line of clothing featuring a new take on Nintendo's perpetually popular pocket monsters.
As revealed by ManTan Web, the new collection features shirts emblazoned with Pokémon from across the franchise's 25 year history, including favorites such as Pikachu and Gengar, rendered in each of the artists' iconic styles. The collection has only been announced for Japanese UNIQLO locations at this time, though many of the company's previous anime collaborations, such as their Shonen Jump and Mobile Suit Gundam collections, as well as their previous Nintendo partnerships, were also sold internationally, so there's a good chance these shirts will also be available worldwide at a later date. The first shirts will hit Japanese UNIQLO stores in August, with the full collection arriving in sometime in September.
The Pokémon franchise is currently celebrating its 25th year since the premiere of the original games that started it all, Pocket Monsters: Red and Green, which were released on the original black-and-white Nintendo Game Boy in Japan in 1996. In the ensuing quarter-century, Pokémon has become a multi-billion dollar franchise, spanning multiple anime and manga adaptations, a popular trading card game, and an on-going series of video games that continues to sell millions of copies with each new sequel and spinoff. The latest game in the main series, Pokémon Sword and Shield, was released for the Nintendo Switch in 2019 and sold over 20 million copies.
The collaboration with UNIQLO is just one of many recent partnerships The Pokémon Company has announced during the franchise's big anniversary year: Netflix recently revealed that they are working on a live-action Pokémon TV series. The company will also be the exclusive streaming home for the next season of the Pokémon Journeys anime, which sees Ash revisiting old friends, Pokémon and regions from the series' 25 year history. Nintendo also partnered with Chinese conglomerate Tencent to develop Pokémon Unite, Nintendo's first attempt at breaking into the highly competitive but very popular MOBA genre of games.
More Pokémon news will be revealed on Aug. 18, when The Pokémon Company and series developer Game Freak are scheduled to livestream new announcements regarding their upcoming Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl remakes, as well as new details for the highly anticipated Pokemon Legends: Arceus, which will take the series into a fully 3D open-world for the first time ever.
Source: ManTan Web via Crunchyroll
