This past Saturday was Metal Charm Lollapalooza at the Pokemon Center.
But before we dive into metal charms…
The very popular Lillie and Nebby card sleeves were re-released with a higher quality matte finish the first weekend of March. Unlike the original release, these sleeves did not sell out in milliseconds. The artwork is still adorable.
Metal charms!
The Pokedex metal charm release covered all Gen 7 Pokemon + mythical beasts and all Alolan Forms.
Pokemon were grouped together based on evolutions or formes, so depending on the Pokemon and the evolution chain, some were sold in singles, or doubles, or triples (or more!)
Here are three examples of a three part evolution set.
The Rockruff set included both Midday and Midnight forms.
Mimikyu was all by himself (but I promise he was surrounded by his friends!)
The Alolan Forms were not sold as a single (or double) set. All Alolan Form Pokemon were included in a set with their original forms. In this case, you can see both types of Vulpix and Ninetails here. For Pokemon who have three evolutions plus three Alolan evolutions, all of those Pokemon were included in one set for a total of six. Which is kind of annoying if you already had the previously released charms and only wanted the new ones, but such is life.
One thing of note: maybe it’s just my imagination but I feel like quality has gone down for the metal charms. Agree or disagree?
Moving on!
One of my favorite series, Pokemon With You, had a new release of merchandise on Saturday the 11th as well. Incidentally, the anniversary of the Tohoku Earthquake back in 2011. (For more information on the history of Pokemon With You, check out this past blog entry.)
The theme for this year’s Pokemon With You line-up was a flowering garden, with one of the items on sale being a seed set so you can grow your own flowers, and the main Pikachu being a topiary hedge…which is cute in real life but maybe didn’t translate so well into merchandise. Hashtag they tried.
Some of the items from the release included (the aforementioned) topiary Pikachu mascot plush
Cute stickers and postcards (note: I always recommend the stickers from the Pokemon With You series because they almost always if not always use non stock-art poses)
A handkerchief
And a memopad, including four different paper designs.
We also got some new Pokemon With You metal charms! The three Johto starters (Cyndaquil, Totodile, and Chikorita)
Alola Vulpix, Alola Raichu, Bewear
Snorlax, Lapras, and Dragonite!
And that concludes today’s Pokemon Center Adventures.
A special shout out to Jen from Japan Stuffs for being a hand model in the majority of these photos. So professional, she makes it look easy.
Until next time!
