Pokémon

When Pokémon Get Too Much Training

Dugtrio really needs to cut back on those gym hours. Singaporean game developer Lai Sen recently did this human muscle anatomy study, using the ground-type Pokémon for the character models’ heads. Now we know what’s underground. Pink nipples! Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan,…

Pokémon Snap is coming to the Wii U Virtual Console in Japan. Priced at 1,028 yen (US$9.17), it’ll be out in the region on April 4. No word yet about an international release.

It’s Been A Mythical Month, Celebi

Time’s almost up for the second Mythical Pokémon in this year’s monthly celebration of two decades of pocket monsters. As collector fever begins to ramp up, we say goodbye to the toys of Pokémon #251. I was wandering around Toys’R’Us the other day, as you do, and noticed a small swarm of toy collectors circling…

Bowser at His Most Precious

This digital painting, created by veteran artist TsaoShin, will be used to demonstrate art techniques at today’s Anime Boston 2016 convention. It’s also amazingly cute. Once you’re done obsessing over Bowser’s widdle pink bandaid or his pet baby Chain Chomp, you may want to check out TsaoShin’s DeviantArt gallery for some more great fanart. Here’s…

UK Artist Makes Enormous Pikachu Mosaic Out of 12,987 Pokémon Cards

In possibly the most ostentatious celebration yet of Pokémon’s 20th anniversary, UK artist Quentin Devine has created a Pikachu mosaic out of nearly 13,000 different Pokémon cards. This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK The thing is about 10 meters tall and 7 meters wide, and was unveiled in Paris yesterday. Photos via The Pokémon…

It’s a high-tech encyclopedia! Celebrating Pokémon’s 20th birthday, 3D artist Jason Voet created a rather good-looking 3D Pokédex model in the span of a couple weeks. Look here for work-in-progress shots. Dayshot is an image-based feature showcasing some of the prettiest, funniest game-related screenshots and art we can find. Send us suggestions if you’ve got…

Toads Are Pretty Good at Pokémon Cosplay 

Just as long as they stick with Venusaur or Ivysaur. Twitter user Shuka Moe, who’s doing research at the Tokyo University of Agriculture, has proven just that. If you are curious how the outfits were created: Which leads to: Then, there’s this: Shit just got real. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture,…

(Maybe) Your First Look At Pokémon Go

John Hanke, CEO of Pokémon Go developers Niantic, gave a talk at SXSW Gaming over the weekend on the future of AR (Augmented Reality) games. Shortly afterwards, this video showed up. Of course, with no official video of the talk available (or a transcript), we can’t be 100% sure that this is something actually shown…

Pokken Tournament: The Kotaku Review

If you’ve ever wished your Pokemon battles could be more exciting than a pair of Pokemon taking turns making battle animations at each other, Pokken Tournament is your game. This post originally appeared 3/15/16. Basic Pokemon battles haven’t evolved much over the past two decades. The combatants have gotten prettier, the attack animations more elaborate,…

Man Makes Up For Never Collecting A Charizard Pokémon Card As A Kid

Back in the good old days, everybody knew that Charizard was the only Pokémon card that really mattered. The unspoken understanding among Pokémon fans was that if you didn’t have a holographic Charizard, your card collection was shit. Sorry, it’s true! Not everyone was lucky enough to actually have a holographic Charizard, however. In the…

The Total Sales for Pokémon Are Staggering 

This year marks Pokémon’s 20th anniversary. Starting in 1996, when Pokémon Red and Blue launched in Japan, the world has purchased millions of Pokémon games and its spin-offs. Over 279 million, that is. Think about that number for a moment. Dual releases aside, it’s incredible. According to Famitsu, that’s the latest global sales figure for…

Pokémon Designer Killed In Freak Accident

Veteran Pokémon artist and designer Eric Medalle died Sunday in Seattle when a massive tree collapsed onto his car. He was 42. As reported by KING 5 News in Seattle, Medalle had been driving with one of his two daughters near a park called Lost Lake Trail. A significant windstorm knocked over several trees in…

Reminder: Pokémon Is Incredibly Popular in Japan 

Don’t ever forget this. In Japan, people really, really like Pokémon. So today, when the newest Pokémon Center opened in Kyoto, there were massive lines to get into the store. Yesterday, when I visited the shop to check out its limited goods, I kind of thought, hey, people will come tomorrow. Did they ever. As…

The Most Traditional Pokémon Center in Japan

This week a new Pokémon Center opens in Kyoto. At first glance it looks like any other Pokémon Center that dots Japan, but it’s not. This is the most traditionally Japanese of them all. The store’s centerpiece is a statue of Pikachu riding Ho-Oh. Hardly an accident, the statue has a deeper meaning as a…

Not The Pokémon You’re Looking For

Or are they? Japanese Pokémon Centers and Amazon Japan (viaSiliconera) will begin taking preorders for stuffed pocket monsters featuring the tell-tale smile ofDitto duplication on March 26. Cutest body snatchers ever.

Magikarp’s Stage On The Pokémon Fighting Game Is Pure Fire

Magikarp isn’t a fighter in Pokkén Tournament, but damn if it’s not stealing the show anyway. So, there’s a stage in the Pokémon fighting game called “Magikarp Festival,” which you can see below in GameXplain’s video. You’ll note that the stage takes place on a fishing boat, and you can see Magikarp floppin’ about everywhere.…

New Pokémon Game, New Fake Magazine Scans

Whenever there is a new Pokémon game, you can count on two things: Excitement and phoney magazine scans of the new Trainers and the three Starters. Pokémon Sun and Moon will be no exception. There are numerous examples of this in the past (hereand here, for example), but as Japanese site Hachima Kikou points out,…

Stardew Valley Mod Fills The Game With Pokémon

I’ve always wanted to play a Pokémon game where, instead of being a ten-year-old warmonger, I got to settle down and participate in other aspects of the Pokéconomy. Now, with the help of a Stardew Valley mod, I can. Pokedew Valley is an ongoing effort to collect every Pokémon-themed Stardew Valley mod under the sun…

New Pokémon Experience Headed to Smartphones in Japan

Unveiled today, Pokémon Co-Master is a board game-style Pokémon title for iOS and Android. According toThe Pokémon Company, the game is Pokémon meets jinkouchinou (人工知能), which is the Japanese word for artificial intelligence. The combination, The Pokémon Company says, makes for a new Pocket Monster experience. The game, which is free-to-play with online, is a…

A Ten-Minute Tour Of Pokkén Tournament Wii U

The Wii U version of Namco Bandai’s Pokémon fighting game has landed at Kotaku, along with strict time constraints on how much video we can share. So here’s quick look at training, fighting, customization and Amiibo unlocks of Pokkén Tournament. Before review day arrives we are able to share 30 minutes of direct feed (non-streamed)…