Originally I hadn’t been too worried about Pokemon Center releases for today. Monthly Pikachu stock has been lasting for at least a few weeks lately, and I didn’t think the secret base plush would sell out either. But then, Splatoon x Pokemon t-shirts were announced, and changed the game.

It’s hard to see in this photo but the sky is actually dark, not light. This is me at 6 in the morning, walking to the Pokemon Center, because I knew it was going to be that sort of day. I woke up at 4 am to get on the train at 5:30 to get to the Pokemon Center at 6, to make sure I was able to get a t-shirt. I desperately prayed as I neared the Center that I would not be the only silly person, and thankfully, I was not. Arriving at around 6:10 or so, I was third in line. An hour later, the line stretched down the hallway, two hours later, the end of the line had circled back to reach the front of the line, and close to opening, the line was zigging and zagging and I felt so much better about waking up before the crack of dawn.

For about a year now, the Center has started enforcing a 10 items per person rule to keep people from buying out the entire stock in one swoop. For the t-shirts, they had a 5 per person per design rule, regardless of size.

When they let us in at 10 am, I went straight to the t-shirts. After all the build up and stress, it was over in less than a minute. The staff nicely arranged all the shirts by color and size, so it was easy to get in and grab exactly the size and design I needed.

Because of the number of people waiting, for once, the staff were only letting in a certain number of people at a time to minimize crowding, since pretty much everyone was there for the shirts. They would let a group in and this was all you could see in front of the shirt display. After a bit, the group would disperse with their shirt treasures, peace would reign briefly, and then the next group would enter.

When I left the Center at around 11 am, the shirts were still in stock in all sizes. I’ll be amazed if the shirts remain in stock by next week, though.

Along with shirts, the final plush from the Monthly Pikachu series was released! Graduate Pikachu rounds us off nicely as the original Monthly Pikachu was Freshman Pikachu.

I spur of the moment decided I was going to get one of each of the Monthly Pikachus when the series started thinking the series would have a definitive end…and I was kind of wrong. As the Monthly Pikachu series ends, a new series is starting: Monthly Pair Pikachu. The new series will be similar to Monthly Chu, but this time there will be two Pikachus together: 1 boy and 1 girl. Next month’s pair has already been announced, but Mega Tokyo did not have a poster up yet, so pictures will have to wait.

Last but not least, Secret Base Mascot Plush! (The merch I forgot to report on until the day before release haha I’m sorry!)

Although it would have been nice to see new Secret Base plush instead of already released plush made smaller, I would be a liar if I said these plush were not adorable. The line-up included 8 plush in total: little Voldemort Chu.

Swablu

Ditto

Lapras

Wailmer

Mudkip

Cyndaquil

And the best out of the bunch, the littlest Clefairy! Can you believe it’s been a little under a year since the original Clefairy Secret Base plush was released? I remember how excited I was, and how many pictures I took of all the Clefairies in the store. My phone was just Clefairy photo after Clefairy photo.

Teeny tiny wings and cinnamon bun tail, too precious for this world.

There was some exciting news in the latest Pokemon Fan that incidentally dropped today, but that will have to wait for the next post. Also to look forward to: the first batch of Kororin Friendsh plush came out on Thursday and I have stories and pictures to share about them as well!

Until next update~