Few celebrations in 2026 will be as massive as Pokemon, which will mark its 30-year anniversary on February 27th, exactly 30 years since the original Pokemon Red and Green were released in Japan, launching one of, if not, the biggest multimedia franchise in the world.
Among the franchises with significant anniversaries in 2026: Persona celebrates its own 30-year anniversary, Xbox celebrates 25 years, along with Castlevania (40 years), Resident Evil (30 years) and The Legend of Zelda (40th anniversary), among other titles, franchises and companies.
To help kick off the celebration, The Pokemon Company's official Japanese social media accounts shared a short 19-second video with none other than “Fat” Pikachu in the foreground.
“This is going to be the best year ever,” the post read via machine translation. “Stay tuned!”
The video ends with the official 30th anniversary logo, a slimmer, happier Pikachu next to a Pokeball.
Interestingly, this isn't the only anniversary-related item that has the “fat” Pikachu front and center, as Uniqlo's recently revealed line of merchandise also features the OG Pikachu front and center.
Perhaps more interestingly, the Pikachu model shown in the 30th anniversary logo looks a lot like the leaked Gen 10 model that appeared in early October during Game Freak's massive leaks.
It's been 25 years since the best Pokemon game ever took over the world
Game Freak still hasn't gotten over the shine of Pokemon Gold and Silver.
Barring another massive leak, we probably won't know what The Pokemon Company has planned until at least February 27th, assuming everything stays the same in terms of giveaways. Still, there's enough right now to give us a good idea of what to expect in 2026.
Here's hoping Pokemon's 30th anniversary is one for the record
For starters, we know through last year's Pokemon Presents that Pokemon Champions is in development. Additionally, via information from Pokemon's own website, Champions will serve as the VGC platform for the 2026 Pokemon World Championships.
In addition to Champions, we know that Pokemon will have its own cozy spin-off called Pokopia that will launch sometime in 2026. Finally, we also have a few Gen 10 leaks that will either be realized in 2026 or pushed to 2027.
Aside from that, fans are still waiting for the day when Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness will make their way to the Nintendo GameCube Classics library after already being revealed during the big Switch 2 Direct blast.
And of course, fans are still hoping that Nintendo will bring back all the classic Pokemon titles that are stuck on old hardware and too expensive to pick up.
“I'm convinced that if we don't port the old games to the Switch for the 30th anniversary, it's never going to happen,” one user wrote on Reddit after the 30th anniversary trailer.
Yes, we are there with you. Whether that all happens or we're just stuck with a ton of merchandise, some TCG updates, and the aforementioned Champions and Pokopia is anyone's guess. But if ever there was a year to move on, it's the 30th anniversary.
- 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 Ooga, Ayumi Moriyama, Keitaro Motonaga, Shigeru Ueda, Fumihiro Yoshimura, Minoru Ohara, Yoshitaka Makino, Kiyoshi Na Egami, Makoto Keni, Heoki Ken Nishida, Tomoe Makino, Masahiko Watanabe, Hiroaki Takagi, Tazumi Mukaiyama, Ryohei Horiuchi, Yoshihiro Oda, Hiromichi Matano
- Writers
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Junki Takegami, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hideki Sonoda, Yukiyoshi Ôhashi, Yuka Miyata, Takeshi Shudo, Shouji Yonemura, Shinzo Fujita, Michihiro Tsuchiya, Deko Akao, Reiko Yoshida, Aya Matsui, Junichi Fujisaku
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Rica Matsumoto
satoshi (voice)
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Ikue Otani
Pikachu (voice)
Asking Santa about a Pokemon game makes me feel like a kid again
Trying to convince Santa to help me catch everyone for Christmas makes me feel nostalgic.
