Kicking off its 25th anniversary, today The Pokémon Company is out with a bevy of new announcements on what to expect from its trading card game and beyond. Alongside reprinting some of its classic Pokémon cards, we’re getting wind of upcoming collaborations for life-sized replicas from the franchise, a new album thanks to a team up with Katy Perry, and more. Head below for all of the details.
Pokémon reprints original cards for 25th anniversary
Taking to Twitter this morning, The Pokémon Company has formally announced the plans for how it’ll be celebrating 25 years of exploring Kanto, Johto, and beyond. The slew of announcements aren’t centered around any one aspect of what to expect this year from Pokémon, but will kickoff with details on a collaboration with Katy Perry.
With a new P25 Music program slated to roll out songs over the following year, the unique collaboration gives us a pretty good idea that in true Pokémon fashion, there’s really no telling what to expect from its 25th anniversary.
One of the more exciting unveils from the announcement today is that The Pokémon Company will be reprinting a selection of its original collectible card game releases from back in 1996. The Pokémon TCG has been becoming increasingly popular since, with both fans of the series and collectors alike trying to get their hands on new releases and some incredibly-valuable classic cards. And now to celebrate its 25th anniversary, some of the very first cards are being serialized once again.
Debuting in eight different First Partner Packs, we’ll see a variety of iconic Pokémon getting their first appearances in the TCG reprinted. Leaning heavily into the collectible aspect of these, there will be one difference this time around with the cards, as The Pokémon Company will be releasing oversized variants of various starter characters like Pikachu, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle. Each of these oversized card releases will also include two regular Pokémon trading card game booster packs.
As of now, pricing has yet to be announced on the upcoming oversized Pokémon cards or any of the other 25th anniversary TCG packs. They are said to begin rolling out over the next several months before culminating in a larger celebration in October.
On top of its trading card game plans, The Pokémon Company is also lining up a pretty expansive lineup of collaborations from other companies. So far, the list includes everything from Build-A-Bear Workshop, Mattel, and Funko to Levi’s, McDonalds, and PowerA. So pretty much all of the bases are covered for the Pokémon 25th anniversary.
One of the particularly notable releases comes from The Wand Company, which will be giving trainers the chance to bring a Poké Ball to their collection. The highly-accurate die cast replica features working lights and plenty of details from the series. While you won’t be catching any actual Pokémon with it, the collector’s piece is certainly a novel release for fans of the franchise.
9to5Toys’ Take:
Having grown up collecting cards, The Pokémon Company is hitting all the right nostalgic notes here with its 25th anniversary plans. The oversized Pokémon cards are pretty neat releases for fans looking to show off their favorite characters. I’m particularly partial to the Poké Ball replica myself. And with this just being the first wave of releases for the 25th anniversary, it’ll be exciting to see what else The Pokémon Company has in store throughout the rest of the year.
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