Pokémon celebrates its 30th birthday this week and, as part of the celebrations, the brand has just revealed an astonishing 1025 variations of its 30th anniversary logo. Each design features a different creature peeking out of a Pokéball — and every single Pokémon species gets its moment to shine.
The official Japanese Pokémon account on X/Twitter is currently running a social media campaign. If you click the image in the post below and retweet it, you will receive one of the logos. Pokémon hunting Twitter users have until March 9 to 'catch' their Pokémon logo.
The logos can also be hunted down in five major cities across Japan. Large digital signboards that cycle through all the logos can be found in prominent locations, including Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station and Osaka’s Namba Station. The signboards feature all of the different logos arranged in a color spectrum on a white background.
The colors of each logo match the colors and elements of their respective Pokémon. Of course, well-known Pokémon like Pikachu, Charizard and Bulbasaur have their own logos, but newer and more obscure Pokémon are also being shown love, such as Paradox Pokémon Iron Bundle and the matcha-themed Poltchageist. Pokemon fansite Serebii.net has been cataloging the logo variations with help from the community.
Various releases to mark three decades of the game, anime and TCG franchise are also on the way. The original FireRed and LeafGreen are getting rereleased on Nintendo Switch on February 27th (the date on which the games were first launched in Japan back in 1996) — though there has been some controversy over their launch method and pricing, plus Pokémon Home compatibility.
Stateside, this month’s TIME Magazine has a special feature on Pokémon, complete with different cover variations. The Pokémon Trading Card Game is getting the First Partner Illustration Collection - Series 1, out on March 20th. These nostalgic cards celebrate the bond between the Trainer and their starter Pokémon. TCG will also be getting Perfect Order on March 27, a new expansion focusing on Pokémon from the Legends: Z-A game.
Over in Japan, the first permanent Pokémon theme park opened on February 5th — PokéPark Kanto (more about that here). As for new games, Pokémon Pokopia, the franchise’s first ever cozy farming/life sim, is coming to Switch 2 on March 5 — check out our video report on playing the preview version.
Expect to hear much more about the future of Pokémon later this week with the company's annual announcement broadcast Pokémon Presents, which is set to air this Friday, February 27 at 6am Pacific / 9am Eastern / 2pm UK.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
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