Hello everyone~

We’re back with another catch-up release report post – this time with the early summer Pokemon Love Its’Demo release for 2017!

Before we delve into the Pokemon…

What is Its’Demo?

Its’Demo is a chain of small stores, typically in or close by to train stations, that caters specifically toward working women. The brand, which bills itself as a fashion store, sells clothes as well as cosmetics, snacks (chocolate, candy, health snacks, etc), jewelry and accessories, and other miscellaneous items like stationary, bags, and umbrellas that can be used in day-to-day life. Their prime location usually inside train stations is strategic to make it more convenient for women to visit before or after work, and as I learned during this release, Its’Demo stores tend to stay open late (the one near my apartment is open until 10 pm – in comparison the majority of stores in Tokyo, for example, close at around 8 pm.)

Are Its’Demo items available at Pokemon centers, too?

Since I get this question fairly often, I want to point out that Its’Demo collaboration items are only sold in Its’Demo stores. Pokemon Centers do not carry any items from the Its’Demo line. This can make it sometimes difficult as there is only 58 stores throughout Japan. If you live or stay in the Tokyo area, or in a big city, then it’s generally not a problem, but the further out in the country you are, the harder it is to find a store location.

There is an on-line store, but sell less than a quarter of the available items from any given Pokemon promotion so have fun with that. Recently, a lot of the Its’Demo items have become available for purchase on the Japanese Pokemon Center On-Line store as well.

But wait, there’s more!

Its’Demo releases are always fraught with confusion and trepidation from me because for reasons I don’t understand, Its’Demo doesn’t like to disclose all the items they’re selling from the Pokemon promotion. Ever. When this latest release was announced, first we got a teaser poster in some Its’Demo stores, but not all. Then the Official Pokemon Center site updated with a small list of items. The Daisuki club updated next with another list of items. There was also a foldable pamphlet given out in stores that had other items not listed on either site. Then on release day (May 16th, Tuesday) we got surprise mascot plush, acrylic charms, slippers, tupperware, and a bunch of other items that weren’t listed anywhere and would have been nice to know about. More plush, also not announced, along with some necklaces and a couple other items were released two weeks later.

To make things even worse, it’s a complete shot in the dark if Its’Demo will stock things well or not. As noted from the January 2016 Valentine’s Promotion, the Pikachu plush were adorable and incredibly limited, to the point where every store had either 1-2 sets of the very large plush, and basically sold out everywhere within a day, and we’re not even talking about the necklaces that sold out in mere minutes because there was like one of each design per store. And not all stores carry all the items from the line-up!

Then, moving on to the actual Its’Demo stores themselves, since they’re located in train stations, they’re generally small; some smaller than others. The smaller the store, the less stuff they can fit. Also, depending on the store, sometimes the staff get really angry about you taking photos of merch, to the point where I’ve had some stores put signs up basically because of me that say “don’t take photos”. Thankfully, I didn’t have any problems this time.

Stop blah-blah-blahing and get to the photos!

Its’Demo Plush

The first thing I noticed when I arrived at Its’Demo Tuesday morning were the mascot plush! There were three sets of plush, with two plush per set: Bulbasaur & Chikorita, Pikachu & Shaymin, and Pikachu & Oddish. Like previously released mascot plush, they’re soft but pretty flat, and kind of pricey for their size.

Its’Demo Acrylic Charms

Next up, more surprises: acrylic charms! Similar to the mini slide mirrors but charms, there were five different charms: Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, and a group charm with Oddish, Shaymin, and Whimsicott.

Its’Demo Pouches, Bags, Towels, Misc

This release had a lot of items, including a bunch of different size bags and pouches.

There was canvas tote bags, foldable eco bags, towel pouches, normal pouches, and vinyl pouch sets (we heard you like pouches so we took a pouch and put a smaller pouch inside).

There was also a variety of towels in different sizes, from smaller hand towels to large beach towels that are designed for you to wear (where else) at the beach!

Its’Demo Misc

There was a bunch of miscellaneous and stationary type items as well.

Along with the staple memo pads, there were also mini bottles with paper clips shaped like Pikachu, two sets of wooden clips featuring different Pokemon per set, a variety of decoration (washi) tape, pens, clearfiles, and stamps.

One item of note: a mini blackboard that you can leave cute messages on to yourself (or someone else if you don’t live alone).

Also of note: umbrellas (rainy season is just around the corner)

More notes: slippers! There were two types of slippers and both were adorable.

Final note: tupperware! There were two sizes of tupperware sets, and aside from them being a little small, they were adorable and perfect for keeping your food fresh while also keeping it looking cute.

Its’Demo Candy

It’s not an Its’Demo release without a large selection of candy and sweets, and this release was no exception.

Along with the usual jars of mini jelly sandwich cookies, marshmallows, and print cookies, there were also jelly lollipops, small tins of candy, pouches and mini tote bags with marshmallows.

I love the little jars, plus you can use them to store things once the cookies are gone, but I couldn’t justify getting one this time as I don’t collect grass type Pokemon. I did get one of the print cookies, though!

Its’Demo Makeup

Last and certainly not least, there was plenty of make-up. As someone who doesn’t use make-up, I’m not exactly sure what the difference is between all of these (sorry!) but one is a circular foundation (?) compact, the square items contain different palettes of color (?), and the last item I actually know what it is: eye liner in three different colors!

There was also some other items mixed in with the previous photos, such as nail polish in different shades and sparkles, lip related make-up, and several different skin lotions in some weird scents.

On that note, let me rant briefly about these weird scents. Obviously they were going for a grass theme here, and the scents they picked for the hand creams and other items reflected this, but as someone who is pretty sensitive to smells, the ones they picked were just flat out weird and not good smelly. Maybe it doesn’t help that I don’t like citrusy or grapefruity smells? I’m not sure, all I know is I didn’t like any of it.

To make matters worse, Its’Demo had a special campaign where customers would get a free little body spray for every purchase over 3,000 yen. Between my purchases and helping out with Japan Stuffs, I ended up with a bunch of these little sprays. The bottle itself was cute as it was decorated with Pokemon but wow, the smell was just wow. At first I was like, what… is it???? It smelled like body odor but not the good kind. I kept spraying it so I could try and figure it out and it was just awful. I ended up asking one of the staff and they said it was supposed to be flowers, but I guess the flowers had died and they used that as a scent?? I smell this smell in my nightmares.

And that concludes our Its’Demo adventure! I hope you had fun.

Until next time~