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Pokemon

As many people know, Pokemon is an incredibly successful franchise today. But that wasn’t always the case. Before Pokemon exploded around the world, there was uncertainty as to how it would perform in the United States.

Game Freak’s Junichi Masuda mentioned to USgamer in an email interview that the team was told “that the Pokemon were too cute to be successful in the U.S. and that we should change the design of the characters.” He had also some concerns that Pokemon wouldn’t be accepted “for what it was” outside of Japan.

Polygon recently spoke to longtime Pokemon developer Junichi Masuda about the early days of the franchise’s development. During the interview, Masuda recalled one interesting story about how all work on the original games was nearly lost.

According to Masuda, a computer crash almost caused everything Game Freak had done on the project to vanish. The PC had all of the game data, Pokemon, and more. Masuda eventually figured out how to get back what was thought to be lost, but if he hadn’t, there could have been a massive setback that the team may not have been able to recover from.

Two new Pokemon 3DS themes are now available in North America. Lapras Ride and Boss Outfit Pikachu have joined the themes shop, priced at $1.99 each.

Both themes will be out in Europe starting tomorrow as well.

Source: 3DS Theme Shop

Build-A-Bear is expanding its Pokemon offerings once again. On September 13, the store will launch an online exclusive Alolan Vulpix bundle that includes a 13-inch Alolan Vulpix plush, an Alolan Vulpix Cape, an Alolan Vulpix Sleeper, an Alolan Vulpix 6-in-1 Sound, and a Build-A-Bear Workshop Exclusive Pokemon Trading Card Game (TCG) card.

The Make-Your-Own Alolan Vulpix plush and Alolan Vulpix Cape will be available for purchase separately at all U.S., U.K. and Canada Build-A-Bear Workshop stores.

Detective Pikachu

Detective Pikachu will be the very first, official live-action Pokemon movie. Yet even though Ash Ketchum has largely been associated with the series thanks to the anime, the film will feature a different character instead.

When asked by IGN why Ash Ketchum isn’t in the movie, director Rob Letterman explained:

At the Pokemon World Championships today, a small update was given for the Detective Pikachu movie. The final title is simply Pokemon Detective Pikachu, and we have a first look at the logo above.

Pokemon Detective Pikachu will debut next summer.

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We’re sad to learn that Ishizuka Unshou, the longtime Japanese voice of Professor Oak in the Pokémon anime series, has passed away due to complications with esophagus cancer. Best wishes to his friends and family.

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Pokemon the Movie: The Power of Us

Pokemon the Movie: Everyone’s Story debuted in Japan earlier this month. It was only a matter of time until an announcement was made for the west, which happened today.

The new film is coming west as Pokemon the Movie: The Power of Us. Here’s the first English teaser:

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Pokemon logo

Ken Sugimori has been working on the Pokemon series since the very beginning. In the Pokemon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon Essential Setting Information book that came out in Japan at the very end of last year, Sugimori spoke about how he goes about balancing designs when finishing up Pokemon. According to Sugimori, he may “try adding something uncool to a Pokemon that is too cool, or I might add something cheerful to a Pokemon that is too serious.”

Siliconera provides the following translation:

In this week’s issue of Famitsu, the magazine will be publishing an interview with Game Freak’s Junichi Masuda. While we don’t have our hands on the full discussion yet as the issue hasn’t gone live, some early quotes have leaked out early. We’ve translated the tidbits thus far.

First up, a general comment from Masuda on the upcoming project:


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