Summary
It’s the morning of the final day of Pokemon Worlds 2023, and I’m one of the first passengers on the Pokemon Trainer Cruise. Nippon Maru, a 318-foot luxury cruise ship built in 1930, has been temporarily transformed into the S.S. Anne as part of The Pokemon Company’s city-wide takeover in Yokohama, Japan. Like its video game counterpart, the real-life S.S. Anne is a floating battle tower, with each floor dedicated to a different Pokemon game or style of play. There’s a floor for TCG, video game battles, Pokemon trading, 2v2, and tera raid battles. All you have to do is climb to the right floor, find a seat, and wait for someone to challenge you. There’s no truck outside where a Mew may or may not be hiding (though there was a life-sized Lapras) but otherwise, it was a totally authentic Pokemon trainer experience.
In this non-competitive, tournament-adjacent event, players took the opportunity to role-play as actual trainers by building decks and teams themed around specific Pokemon. One popular player decorated his table with Eeveelution art and played an all-Eevee deck. Every time he evolved one of his Eevees into Jolteon, Vaporean, or Flareon, he’d place a figurine of the corresponding Pokemon on top of the card. I saw Dragon-type trainers, all-Legendary teams, and even a guy with a full Mr. Mime deck. All the hardcore competitive players were inside the nearby convention center slamming their meta decks and teams into each other; everyone on the Pokemon Trainer Cruise was here for the love of the game.
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While the cruise was by far the most elaborate Pokemon event of the week, it was far from the only one. Throughout my seven days in Japan, I watched live Pokemon performances, a symphony orchestra, and a movie premiere. I visited three different Pokemon centers, a Pokemon cafe, a carnival-style activity park, and toured a Pokemon art walk that spanned across the city. You could look in any direction and find a parade of dancing Pikachu anywhere in the city, and at night the sky lit up with an elaborate Pokemon drone show.
All of this was outside of the actual Pokemon World Championship Series event, three days of competition among the most skilled players in Pokemon Unite, VGC, TCG, and Go, which took over the entire Pacifico Yokohama National Convention Hall. Worlds has always been an esports event, but this year, the first year Worlds was held in Pokemon’s home country of Japan, it became so much more. For an entire week, Yokohama was transformed into a PokeParadise that I never wanted to leave.
Every day of the trip was packed with Pokemon experiences (you can see a lot of them in our Pokemon Worlds YouTube series) but there’s a few highlights to point out.Pokemon Matsuri Parkwas an outdoor activity space behind the convention center where kids could compete in Pokemon-themed carnival games to collect stamps and win prizes. The games included Magikarp Fishing, Voltorb’s Rollout, Dondozo’s Order Up, Stone Panel Puzzles, and the Poke Ball Pitch. There was also a Full Restore Tent where attendees could relax and cool down (it was a sweltering 95 degrees most days in Japan, and so humid my glasses and camera lens steamed up every time I stepped outside) and at the center of the park was the Yagura stage where dancers and performers in Pokemon costumes would periodically put on a Pokemon sing-along show. Last year’s Worlds in London had a similar nearby activity park, but this was a much more elaborate and impressive setup.
The Pokemon Card art walk was another highlight of the week, and in some ways the most impressive too. In streets, parks, and shopping malls all across Yokohama, giant Pokemon cards were on display, as well as various photo opportunities, pop-up shops, and art installations. I found a mural depicting a group of Pikachu (and one Ditto), a massive Pikachu balloon floating in the center of a mall, and custom-made Pokemon manhole covers throughout Yokohama’s streets. And at every one of these sites, regardless of their distance from the convention, stood a long line of people waiting to get a picture.
The people of Yokohama embraced Worlds entirely, and it was inspiring to see the entire city come together to celebrate an event. I go to conventions all the time and locals are constantly asking me what’s going on. That wasn’t the case here. Everywhere I went, people were dressed in Pokemon attire and wearing Pokemon accessories. It was impossible to go anywhere that wasn’t commemorating Worlds in some way. Even when I checked into my hotel, a swanky, upscale business resort called The Kahala, the manager greeted us wearing a Pikachu visor. The Pokemon Company did so many things to make this Worlds special, but it was the culture surrounding the event that made it so unforgettable.
Everyone around me had Pokemon swag on, and every restaurant was playing episodes of the Pokemon anime on TV. It’s hard to determine how much of that is part of the culture there and how much of it was amplified because of Worlds, but the presence of Pokemon is undeniable. Vermillion City is at least partially based on Yokohama and, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the port city where the S.S. Anne docks once a year. Just a few blocks from our hotel stands the Landmark Tower, former home of Yokohama’s Pokemon Center, current location of the semi-permanent Pokemon Colors interactive art exhibit, and a building that bears a striking resemblance to Duraludon.
It’s no wonder why TPC had to go above and beyond with its shows, events, and experiences when Pokemon is already so deeply baked into the culture and everyday experience of living in the city. There’s a good chance we’ll never have another Pokemon Worlds as all-encompassing and sensational as this one. It was everything I could have wanted from a Pokemon Homecoming, and much, much more.
