“Fat” Pikachu Is Kicking Off Pokemon’s 30th Anniversary Celebration, And I’m All For It
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Among franchises having major anniversaries in 2026: Persona is celebrating its own 30-year anniversary, Xbox is celebrating 25 years, along with Castlevania (40 years), Resident Evil (30 years) and The Legend of Zelda (40th anniversary), among other titles, franchises and companies.
To help kick off that celebration, The Pokemon Company’s official Japanese social media accounts have shared a brief 19-second video with none other than “Fat” Pikachu at the forefront.
“This is going to be the best year ever,” the post reads via machine translation. “Stay tuned!”
The video ends with the official logo for the 30th anniversary, a slimmer, happier Pikachu next to a Pokeball.
Interestingly enough, this isn’t the only anniversary-related thing that has “Fat” Pikachu front and center, as Uniqlo’s recently-revealed line of merchandise also includes the OG Pikachu front and center.
Perhaps far more interesting is that the Pikachu model pictured in the 30th anniversary logo looks a lot like the leaked Gen 10 model that was making the rounds in early October during the massive Game Freak leaks.
Barring yet another massive leak, we likely won’t know what The Pokemon Company has planned until at least Feb. 27, assuming that everything stays the same when it comes to Presents. Still, there’s enough out there right now that we have a good inkling as to what to expect in 2026.
Here s Hoping The 30th Anniversary Of Pokemon Is One For The Record Books
To start, we know, via last year’s Pokemon Presents, that Pokemon Champions is in development. Additionally, via info from Pokemon’s own website, Champions will serve as the VGC platform for the 2026 Pokemon World Championships.
Beyond Champions, we know that Pokemon will have its own cozy life-sim spin-off titled Pokopia that will launch at some point in 2026. FInally, we also have a smattering of Gen 10 leaks that will either be realized in 2026 or pushed to 2027.
Outside that, fans are still waiting for the day that Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness make their way to the Nintendo GameCube Classics library after having already been revealed during the big blowout Switch 2 Direct.
And, of course, fans still maintain hope that Nintendo will bring forward all the classic Pokemon titles that are stranded on old hardware and way too expensive to collect.
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“I’m convinced that, if for the 30th anniversary, we don’t get old games ported onto the Switch, it will never happen,” one user on Reddit wrote following the 30th anniversary teaser.
Yup, we’re right there with you. Whether all that happens, or we’re just stuck with a ton of merchandise, some TCG updates and the aforementioned Champions and Pokopia is anyone’s guess. But if there was ever a year to go above and beyond, it’s the 30-year celebration.
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 Sokuza, Bjarne Heuser, Naoki Murata, Kenichi Nishida, Tomoe Makino, Masahiko Watanabe, Hiroaki Takagi, Tazumi Mukaiyama, Ryohei Horiuchi, Yoshihiro Oda, Hiromichi Matano
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
Trying to convince Santa to help me catch ’em all for Christmas has me feeling nostalgic.
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