In 2026 there will be few celebrations like Pokemon celebrating its 30-year anniversary on February 27, marking 30 years since the original Pokemon Red and Green was released in Japan and has become one of, if not, the biggest multimedia franchises in the world.
Among the franchises with major anniversaries in 2026: Persona is celebrating its 30-year anniversary, Xbox is celebrating 25 years, as well as Castlevania (40 years), Resident Evil (30 years) and The Legend of Zelda (40th anniversary), among other titles and companies, franchi.
To help kick off the festivities, The Pokemon Company's official Japanese social media accounts have shared the first 19-second video featuring none other than “Fat” Pikachu.
“This is going to be the best year ever,” the post reads via machine translation. “Listen!”
The video ends with the official 30th anniversary logo, a skinny, happy Pikachu next to a Pokeball.
Interestingly, this isn't the only anniversary-related thing with “Fat” Pikachu front and center, as Uniqlo's recently revealed merchandise also features the OG Pikachu front and center.
Perhaps more interestingly, the Pikachu model featured in the 30th anniversary logo appears to be the leaked Gen 10 model that was making the rounds during the massive Game Freak leak earlier in October.
It's been 25 years since the best Pokemon game took over the world
Game Freak still hasn't topped the brilliance of Pokemon Gold and Silver.
Barring another major leak, we probably won't know what The Pokemon Company has planned until at least February 27, assuming everything stays the same when it comes to the presentation. Still, there are enough 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
To begin with, we know, through last year's Pokemon introductions, that Pokemon champions are in development. Additionally, through information from Pokemon's own website, Champions will serve as the VGC platform for the 2026 Pokemon World Championship.
Beyond Champions, we know that Pokemon will have its own cozy life-sim spin-off title Pokopia that will launch at some point in 2026. Finally, we also have Gen 10 leaks that will either materialize in 2026 or be pushed to 2027.
Aside from that, fans are still waiting for the day that Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness will be added to the Nintendo GameCube Classic library after the big blowout was already revealed during the Switch 2 Direct.
And, of course, fans still hope that Nintendo will bring out all the classic Pokemon titles that are stuck on outdated hardware and way too expensive to collect.
“I'm convinced that, if for the 30th anniversary, we don't port the old games to the Switch, it will never happen,” one user on Reddit wrote after the 30th anniversary teaser.
Yes, we are with you. Whether that happens at all, or we're just stuck with a ton of merchandise, a few TCG updates and the aforementioned champions and Pokopia is anyone's guess. But if there was one year that went above and beyond, it's the 30-year 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 Oga, Ayumi Moriyama, Keitaro Motonaga, Shigeru Ueda, Fumihiro Yoshimura, Minoru Ohara, Yoshitaka Makino, Kiyoshi Egami, Makotoi, Murki, Makotoi, Murkoi, Nako, Hey Nishida, Tomoe Makino, Masahiko Watanabe, Hiroaki Takagi, Tazumi Mukaiyama, Ryohei Horiuchi, Yoshihiro Oda, Hiromichi Matano
- The authors
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Junki Takegami, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hideki Sonoda, Yukiyoshi Ohashi, Yuka Miyata, Takeshi Shudo, Shouji Yonemura, Shinzo Fujita, Michihiro Tsuchiya, Deko Akao, Reiko Yoshida, Aya Matsui, Junichi Fujisaku
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Rika 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 grab them all for Christmas has me feeling nostalgic.
