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On February 25, the final member of TV Tokyo's new Pokémon variety show, "Pokémon to doko iku?!" (Where do we go with Pokémon?!), or PokéDoko, was revealed. Popular actress, model, and variety entertainer, and new Pokémon fan Hikaru Takahashi (髙橋ひかる) will join the crew of PokéDoko as a "PokéRookie". PokéDoko will be airing on TV Tokyo every Sunday at 8:00am JST, starting April 3rd.

The official Japanese language Twitter account for The Pokémon Company has confirmed that a Pokémon Presents video will premiere on the official Pokémon YouTube channel this Pokémon Day, February 27th, at 11pm JST (6am PST). The video will be approximately 14 minutes in length. The tweet states the video will deliver "the latest information", however it stops short of giving any specifics about what kinds of announcements we can expect.

To commemorate the Japanese holiday of "Ninja Day", which is held on February 22, three new Poké Lids were installed this week in Shiga Prefecture. Poké Lids are manhole covers that are installed in different locations across Japan, where "manhole-spotting" is a hobby held by some. These Poké Lids were originally designed covers help drive tourism, both local and foreign, to these areas, and also act as PokéStops for the Pokémon GO mobile game.

The Pokémon franchise has taken out top honours at The Toy Foundation’s 2022 Toy of the Year (TOTY) Awards, beating out other household names such as Barbie, Blue's Clues, and Masters of the Universe to take home the title of License of the Year, which recognises a brand's broad success in product development and merchandising.

Universal Studios Japan and The Pokémon Company have today jointly announced the formation of a new, long-term creative partnership for theme park experiences. While no specific dates were given, the partnership is promised to deliver its first new theme park experiences at Universal Studios Japan starting from some time in 2022.

The launch of an official Pokémon LINE account for Taiwan has been announced via a post on the official Pokémon Taiwan Facebook account. Trainers who add the new @pokemon_tw account will be able to receive news and products update for Taiwan pushed to their device via LINE.

Every year, a substantial amount of academic research is published about, or with some connection to, the Pokémon franchise and/or fandom. While occasionally some of this research breaks through to the fandom and/or to mainstream news, much of this research sadly goes underreported, and unread by the wider community of Pokémon fans. We here at Bulbagarden think it's about time that changed. Our second featured article for this series uses made-up Pokémon names to explore the sensitivity of Brazilian Portuguese speakers to sound symbolic associations. As you may be aware, Nintendo recently released a game in Brazilian Portuguese for the very first time, leading to a growing fan movement to encourage Nintendo to release more games in Brazilian Portuguese. It's our hope that, in featuring this work, we might be able to help that cause by keeping the issue alive in the linguistics community.

Figures published in the Japanese government's Official Gazette reveal The Pokémon Company has attained record sales and profits over the 2020 Japanese financial year (1 March 2020 - 28 February 2021).

Every year, a substantial amount of academic research is published about, or with some connection to, the Pokémon franchise and/or fandom. While occasionally some of this research breaks through to the fandom and/or to mainstream news, much of this research sadly goes underreported, and unread by the wider community of Pokémon fans. We here at Bulbagarden think it's about time that changed. Our first featured article comes from a multinational team of researchers, whose study takes an extensive look at how climate change will impact the existence of suitable habitat for Kangaskhan. Dr. Dan L. Warren, the lead author of the study, noted the primary reason for choosing to use a Pokémon character in their research was to engage a broader audience with the issues conservation scientists regularly need to think about. We think that's a wonderful idea, and it's why we've chosen this article specifically to be our first featured article with this project.

In an emotional thread posted to Twitter earlier today, Chaka Cumberbatch-Tinsley, social media manager, Rowlet fan, rollerskater, and cosplayer extraordinaire, announced that she would be leaving Pokémon after roughly 4 years and 3 months with the company.

A team of researchers working under Professor Michael Bonkowski at the University of Colone's Institute of Zoology have discovered a previously undescribed bacteria in amoebae which they have dubbed "Pokemonas". The name references the intracellular livestyle of the bacteria within ball-shaped Thecofilosea amoebae, likening it to Pokémon being caught and living within their Poké Balls.

In a special collaboration between The Pokémon Company and The National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, a new tourist exhibit called the Pokémon Kaseki Hakubutsukan (ポケモン化石博物館) will be going on its own special Pokémon journey around Japanese museums for the next two years. The exhibit is designed to create an exciting and fun learning environment for children to learn about paleontology. Guided by Excavation Pikachu and Dr. Kaseki, a new Pokémon Professor created specifically for this exhibit, visitors will be given the opportunity to compare and contrast the fossils of real-life Dinosaurs and extinct plants with Fossil Pokémon.

For the 10th anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, which devastated the Tohoku region prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima, Niantic has this week launched a new program in a similar vein to the Local Business Recovery Initiative the company launched last October to assist businesses and communities who had been hit hard by COVID.

I’ve enjoyed every main series Pokémon game I’ve played, but if I had to choose, Pokémon Black & White[ would be my absolute favorites. I also love the Pokémon introduced in Generation V. I think every single design fits perfectly and each one is special. A lot of my favorite Pokémon come from Gen V: Haxorus, Krookodile, Vanilluxe, Klinklang, Galvantula… and my favorite starter of all. The one people mocked when it was first unveiled: the Water-type, Oshawott.

Tech demos don't always make it to the open market, but they're often a good indicator of where we're heading. Pokémon GO developer Niantic recently partnered with Microsoft to build a proof-of-concept version of Pokémon GO, showing us one possible future for their mobile game. This version runs on Microsoft's HoloLens 2 headset and coincides with the release of their new Mesh platform, giving us a glimpse of the technology outside the office environment it was initially designed for.

Some of the most iconic Pokémon are the ones you receive from the Professor at the beginning of the game. Known as “Starter Pokémon”, they are a beginning Trainer’s first partner that often sticks with them throughout their journey. Each generation’s starters are marketed intensely during that generation’s life span, but most fans would argue that Kanto’s starters – Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle – are the most well-known of all (outside of Pikachu, anyways).

For 2021’s Pokémon Day, the series’ 25th anniversary, we’ll take a look at the very first Pokémon listed in the National Pokédex. Some would say this guy’s the most underrated Kanto Starter, but for Bulbagarden, Bulbasaur is always number one.

The Pokémon Company International has recruited a new Director of Digital Consumer Engagement, Narbeh Minasians. Narbeh joins TPCI after more than a decade at Nickelodeon Animation, where he has spent the last four and a half year working as the Director of Nickelodeon's online social content and marketing. Narbeh is also a Director of The BRIC Foundation, an organisation which works to increase representation of women and people of underrepresented groups in the Entertainment, Gaming, Media, and Tech industries.

In a statement provided to multiple media organisations, McDonalds responded to the ongoing shortages of Pokémon 25th Anniversary Happy Meal Toys and Cards, and confirmed they are working with supply chain partners to restock these items. Their official statement stopped short however of directly acknowledging the ongoing flagrant scalping of these product on online auction sites such as eBay.

In a blog posted this week, Niantic CEO John Hanke has announced the launch of the Black Developers Initiative (BDI), as an extension of their existing Beyond Reality Initiative. The Black Developers Initiative will provide special funding for new projects from Black game development teams for the Niantic platform. Teams who are approved for BDI will receive five months of funding to develop a real-world augmented reality game, as well as direct mentorship and development support from the Niantic team themselves.

It's seemingly taken about four months for anyone outside Japan to really take notice (to be fair, it was 2020), but Ambrella, the Japanese-based developers of a number of Pokémon spin-off titles, was fully merged into Creatures, Inc. on October 16th, 2020.