Few celebrations in 2026 will be as massive as Pokémon's 30th anniversary on February 27, exactly 30 years to the day the original Pokémon Red and Green were released in Japan, kicking off what has been one of, if not, the biggest multimedia franchises in the world.
Among franchises having big anniversaries in 2026: Persona celebrates its own 30th anniversary, Xbox celebrates 25 years, along with Castlevania (40 years), Resident Evil (30 years) and The Legend of Zelda (40th anniversary), among other titles and companies.
To help kick off that celebration, The Pokemon Company's official Japanese social media accounts have shared a short 19-second video starring none other than “Fat” Pikachu.
“This is going to be the best year ever,” the post reads via machine translation. “Keep an eye out!”
The video ends with the official 30th anniversary logo, a slimmer, happier Pikachu next to a Pokeball.
Interestingly, this isn't the only anniversary-related thing that features “Fat” Pikachu front and center, as Uniqlo's recently revealed product line also includes the OG Pikachu front and center.
Perhaps much more interestingly, the Pikachu model depicted in the 30th anniversary logo looks a lot like the leaked Gen 10 model that made the rounds in early October during the massive Game Freak leaks.
It's been 25 years since the best Pokémon game ever took over the world
Game Freak still hasn't topped the brilliance of Pokemon Gold and Silver.
Barring another massive leak, we likely won't know what The Pokemon Company has planned until at least February 27th, assuming everything stays the same when it comes to Presents. Still, there's enough out there right now that we have a good idea of what to expect in 2026.
Here's hoping Pokemon's 30th anniversary is one for the record books
For starters, we know via last year's Pokemon Presents that Pokemon Champions is in development. Also, via info from Pokemon's own website, Champions will serve as the VGC platform for the 2026 Pokemon World Cup.
Beyond Champions, we know that Pokemon will have its own cozy life-sim spin-off titled Pokopia that will launch sometime in 2026. Finally, we also have a small amount of Gen 10 leaks that will either materialize in 2026 or be pushed to 2027.
Outside of that, fans are still waiting for the day when Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness make their way to the Nintendo GameCube Classics library after already being revealed during the big blowout Switch 2 Direct.
And of course, fans still have hope that Nintendo will bring out all the classic Pokemon titles that are stranded on old hardware and way too expensive to collect.
“I'm convinced that for the 30th anniversary, if we don't get old games ported to the Switch, it will never happen,” one user wrote on Reddit after the 30th anniversary.
Yes, we are there with you. Whether all that happens, or if we're just stuck with tons of items, a few TCG updates, and the aforementioned Champions and Pokopia is anyone's guess. But if ever there was a year to go beyond, it's the 30th anniversary celebration.
- Release date
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1997 – 2023
- Network
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TV Tokyo, TV Osaka, TV Aichi, TVh, TVQ, TSC
- Directors
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Shigeru Omachi, Koji Ogawa, Fumihiro Ueno, Hideki Hiroshima, Maki Kodaira, Makoto Ooga, Ayumi Moriyama, Keitaro Motonaga, Shigeru Ueda, Fumihiro Yoshimura, Minoru Ohara, Yoshitaka Makino, Kiyoshi Egami, Makoto Sokuzaa,, Ken Nishida, Tomoe Makino, Masahiko Watanabe, Hiroaki Takagi, Tazumi Mukaiyama, Ryohei Horiuchi, Yoshihiro Oda, Hiromichi Matano
- Author
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Junki Takegami, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hideki Sonoda, Yukiyoshi Ôhashi, Yuka Miyata, Takeshi Shudo, Shouji Yonemura, Shinzo Fujita, Michihiro Tsuchiya, Deko Akao, Reiko Yoshida, Aya Matsui, Junichi Fujisaku
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Rica Matsumoto
Satoshi (voice)
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Ikue Otani
Pikachu (voice)
Asking Santa for a Pokemon game makes me feel like a kid again
Trying to convince Santa to help me catch them all for Christmas makes me feel nostalgic.
