Tag Archives: Pokemon

LEGO Finally Made Pikachu React to How You Play

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For a long time, LEGO and Pokémon felt like a natural pairing that somehow took forever to fully arrive. The sets were fun, the figures were cute, but they were still just bricks. Beautiful, satisfying bricks. Then LEGO introduced the SMART Play system, and suddenly the collaboration shifted into something worth paying closer attention to.

The SMART Play Training House with Pikachu (set 72164) is LEGO’s boldest move yet in the Pokémon line, and it is the kind of set that makes you stop scrolling. At $69.99 for 400 pieces, it lands in that sweet spot where it feels both accessible and genuinely special. It ships August 1, 2026, and is already up for pre-order, which tells you LEGO knows exactly who they’re selling this to.

Designer: LEGO

The centerpiece of the set is a Pikachu figure embedded with a SMART Brick, a tiny piece of responsive technology that generates lights and sounds when the figure moves close to SMART Tags placed around the scene. You build a Pikachu-inspired treehouse with a training dummy and a bush, set up your Tags, and when Pikachu interacts with them during play, something actually happens. The set also includes a buildable sandwich that you can feed to Pikachu to trigger a response. That single detail is charming enough to make any Pokémon fan stop mid-scroll.

LEGO calls this an All-in-One set, meaning everything you need for the SMART Play experience comes in the box: the SMART Brick, a SMART Charger, and four SMART Tags. That distinction matters because LEGO is building out a broader ecosystem with compatible sets sold separately. Those expand the scene with more Tags, but the SMART Brick lives here. Think of it like buying the console rather than just the game.

The whole system is managed through the LEGO SMART Assist App, where you can adjust sound levels, download firmware updates, and troubleshoot. There is even a built-in microphone on the SMART Brick, flagged for “potential future features” once activated. That cautious phrasing actually does the job of building curiosity rather than killing it, because it signals the system is designed to grow.

Now, the more layered take: this is clearly marketed as a children’s toy, but the LEGO-Pokémon crossover has always carried a significant adult fanbase. The Pokémon franchise is 30 years old this year, and the people who grew up with it are now the ones with jobs and disposable income. The Training House is rated for ages 6 and up, but the SMART Play system feels like it was built with a broader audience in mind. The appeal of a responsive physical toy, one that reacts in real time to how you move it through a scene, goes well beyond childhood.

Whether the technology fully delivers depends on what you expect from it. The SMART Brick is not artificial intelligence. It works through proximity sensing, meaning Pikachu lights up and makes sounds when near a Tag. It is not going to remember your training sessions or respond to voice commands. But as a tactile, physical layer added to imaginative play, it offers something a screen simply cannot replicate. You are still building. You are still holding the figure in your hands. The response just makes the whole thing feel alive in a way that a static display piece never quite does.

The completed set measures over 8 inches tall and 11 inches wide, so it holds its own on a desk or shelf. The treehouse design is warm and playful without tipping into visual noise. It looks the way a good LEGO set always does: cohesive, intentional, and oddly satisfying before you even press play.

Whether you are buying this for a kid, for yourself, or as a gift for someone who grew up in the Pokémon era and never fully left it behind, the SMART Play Training House with Pikachu makes a strong case for what LEGO can be when it pushes itself forward. Physical, interactive, and rooted in one of the most beloved IPs of the last three decades. That is a very good starting point.

The post LEGO Finally Made Pikachu React to How You Play first appeared on Yanko Design.

RIMOWA’s Pokémon Collab Proves Nostalgia Travels Well

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Thirty years ago, Pokémon taught an entire generation that the real adventure was the journey, not the destination. Now, RIMOWA is making that philosophy literal, and the result is one of the most covetable travel accessories of the year.

The collaboration, a Japan-exclusive capsule released on June 2, brings Pokémon-themed accessories to RIMOWA’s iconic suitcase lineup. We’re talking Poké Ball wheel sets, Pokémon-inspired luggage tags, and a limited-edition sticker set. The pieces are showcased alongside RIMOWA’s Essential line in bold Orange and Magenta, and the classic Original Cabin in Silver. If you need a moment to process how good that combination looks, take it.

Designer: RIMOWA

Collaborations between luxury brands and pop culture franchises are not new. We’ve seen high fashion shake hands with anime, streetwear collide with fine art, and sneakers morph into collector’s items worth more than a month’s rent. But the RIMOWA x Pokémon drop feels different, and not in the way that brands usually claim something is “different.” The distinction is in the credibility of both sides. RIMOWA has spent over a century building a reputation for precision engineering and design integrity. Pokémon has spent thirty years becoming one of the most enduring cultural franchises in history. When these two come together, the output isn’t just a product. It’s a statement.

The luggage tags are the quiet stars of this collection. Most people treat luggage tags as an afterthought, just a way to identify your bag on the carousel. But a Charmander or Charizard tag dangling from a polished aluminum case changes the conversation entirely. It turns your luggage into a flex, and the best kind: one that’s playful rather than pretentious. Charmander and Charizard are arguably the most beloved starter evolution line in the franchise, which means these tags carry genuine sentimental weight for anyone who spent their childhood glued to a Game Boy.

Then there are the stickers, and they matter more than you might think. RIMOWA has long encouraged travelers to use their suitcases as a canvas, a rolling record of everywhere they’ve been. The Pokémon sticker set fits that tradition naturally. It gives you something to place with intention, something that says a little about who you are before you even open your mouth at baggage claim. There’s a generational intimacy to Pokémon stickers on a luxury suitcase that feels earned rather than gimmicky.

The Poké Ball wheel sets round out the collection in the most theatrical way possible. You only really see them when the suitcase is moving, which makes the reveal almost cinematic. It’s design thinking at its most fun, and I appreciate that neither brand tried to make it subtle.

The Japan-exclusive angle is worth sitting with, though. It makes sense: Japan is the birthplace of Pokémon, and RIMOWA has a strong presence in the Asian market. A region-specific drop honors that cultural connection and keeps the collection genuinely limited. But if you’re a Pokémon fan, a RIMOWA enthusiast, or both, and you happen to not be in Japan, you’re essentially watching this happen through glass. Resale prices will be predictably painful, and that accessibility gap is the one thing that slightly dulls the shine of an otherwise excellent collaboration.

Still, Pokémon’s 30th anniversary has been a celebration done right. The franchise has rolled out collaborations across fashion, collectibles, and experiential activations throughout 2026, and the RIMOWA partnership sits at the top of that list in terms of design quality and cultural resonance. It understands its audience. It doesn’t try to be ironic or overly self-aware. It simply takes two well-crafted worlds and lets them coexist beautifully.

Good design is about making people feel something. A Charizard luggage tag on a polished aluminum suitcase makes you smile before your flight, and that’s not a small thing. Travel can be exhausting and deeply impersonal. A little bit of joy attached to your carry-on goes further than any airport lounge ever could. For collectors, this one is worth the chase. For everyone else, it’s a good reminder that luxury and nostalgia can share the same overhead bin, and sometimes, the most unexpected pairings are the ones that last.

The post RIMOWA’s Pokémon Collab Proves Nostalgia Travels Well first appeared on Yanko Design.

Japan Just Built a Pokémon Footbath and It’s Genuinely Moving

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When you hear “Pokémon footbath,” your brain probably goes one of two places: either immediate delight or mild confusion. Both reactions are fair. But when you actually see what just opened in the small coastal town of Wakura Onsen in Nanao City, Japan, the response tends to land somewhere more unexpected than either. It lands in quiet, genuine warmth.

The Wakura Pokémon Footbath officially opened on May 12 inside Yuttari Park in Ishikawa Prefecture, and it is exactly what it sounds like: a public footbath surrounded by beloved Water-type Pokémon. Gyarados towers over the soaking pool, appearing to blast water in with its Hydro Pump. Psyduck perches nearby, looking stressed as always. Vaporeon, Pikachu, Poliwag, Poliwhirl, and Quaxly are scattered throughout the wooden structure, each one in character, each one impossibly charming. The facility is free to use and open daily from 7 AM to 7 PM, though it may close depending on weather conditions.

Designer: Wakura Onsen

From a pure design standpoint, it works. The Pokémon figures feel integrated into the space rather than slapped onto it as an afterthought. The Gyarados placement especially is clever: positioning a creature historically associated with destruction as the one filling a community wellness space with warm water is a quietly subversive design choice. It takes a familiar icon and gives it a new job, and the whole thing is better for it. Good character-led design usually does this. It finds the emotional logic of the IP and builds something genuinely functional around it, instead of just stamping a logo on a wall and calling it a day. The wooden structure keeping everything together also helps ground the Pokémon elements in something tactile and traditionally Japanese, which keeps it from reading as pure merchandise and more as a genuine place to be.

But the design story here is only part of the picture. What elevates the Wakura Pokémon Footbath beyond a cute novelty is the context surrounding it. Wakura Onsen is still recovering from the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake, which caused major damage to local tourism infrastructure. The footbath was renovated and developed through a collaboration between Nanao City and the Pokémon With You Foundation, an organization that has long used Pokémon’s reach to support communities facing hardship. Local officials are hoping the new attraction will draw visitors back to a region that urgently needs them. On opening day, a dedication ceremony was held, and children from a local nursery school were among the first to try it out.

That detail matters. It reframes the entire project. A giant Gyarados shooting water into a hot spring pool is fun in isolation. A giant Gyarados shooting water into a hot spring pool in a community rebuilding after a disaster, inaugurated by children experiencing something joyful, is a different kind of story. It is design as care. It is pop culture as infrastructure.

I think we underestimate how much deliberate playfulness can do for a place in recovery. A footbath is not a hospital. It is not a new road or a rebuilt building. But public spaces designed to give people a reason to show up, to sit down, to stay a while, do real work. They signal that a place is worth visiting again. That it has something to offer. That life, in some form, is continuing. And sometimes the difference between a place that comes back and one that does not comes down to whether people believe it is worth returning to.

The footbath also ties into the newly installed Pokémon manhole covers placed around Nanao City, part of Japan’s Pokéfuta initiative, which uses collectible Pokémon-themed covers to encourage visitors to explore lesser-known regions. It is a broader ecosystem of soft infrastructure pointing in the same direction: come here, look around, stay awhile.

Wakura Onsen may not be the first destination that comes to mind for a travel itinerary. But a free footbath where a reformed Gyarados keeps your feet warm while Psyduck quietly spirals next to you? That is a genuinely compelling reason to make the trip. And right now, Nanao City could use a few more of those.

The post Japan Just Built a Pokémon Footbath and It’s Genuinely Moving first appeared on Yanko Design.

You Can Play Pokémon Gold on Your Wrist, Thanks to a 2-Year Build

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Retro gaming handhelds have had a genuine second life in recent years. Original Nintendo hardware has been cloned, shrunken, and reimagined into increasingly unhinged form factors by modders who see the Game Boy lineup as the most suitable canvas for this kind of project. The builds have become their own subculture, where the unofficial requirement is always constructing something that makes everyone else feel like they aren’t trying hard enough.

YouTube creator Chris Hackmann, known online as LeggoMyFroggo, took things further than most. He spent more than two years building the Time Frog Color, a Game Boy Color shrunk down to wrist-watch dimensions. From the start, he gave himself three non-negotiable rules: it had to use the original GBC CPU, it had to accept physical cartridges, and it had to keep time when turned off. No emulation, no shortcuts.

Designer: Chris Hackmann (LeggoMyFroggo)

Those three constraints drove everything that followed. Standard GBC screens are too large, so the display was scaled down to a 1.12-inch LCD. That screen can’t read the GBC’s parallel RGB output natively, so an RP2040 microcontroller was added purely as a signal translator. This created the foundation for a stacked PCB arrangement, with an LCD driver board on the bottom and the CPU board sitting just above it.

The cartridge requirement was its own puzzle. Standard Game Boy cartridge slots aren’t watch-sized, so Hackmann swapped the slot for an M.2 connector, the type normally found in NVMe computer drives. The custom cartridges that plug into it aren’t simple ROM cards; they’re full MBC3 flash builds with their own RAM, mapper chip, and a coin cell battery that keeps save files intact between sessions.

All of that stacking pushed the watch body to 15mm thick, noticeably chunkier than an Apple Watch at roughly 10 mm. There was no room for a battery inside, so it went into the silicone strap instead. A flexible PCB runs through nearly the entire band via overmolding, carrying power back into the main body. It’s a bizarre solution that also happens to be the only sensible one.

The watch body is CNC’d from 6061 aluminum and anodized purple, which reads as a direct nod to Nintendo’s color sensibilities. Controls are fitted into the sides of the housing, with four face buttons on one edge and a custom-machined rocker D-pad on the other, both backed by silicone membranes. The unit shown in the video doesn’t include a speaker, as the component missed the deadline.

Hackmann is upfront about the trade-offs. The Time Frog Color offers a “less than optimal playing experience” by his own admission, with battery life that won’t compare favorably against most wearables. It’s a thick, quirky device with controls tucked into the edges and a cartridge protruding from the back. But you can load up Pokémon Gold and play it on your wrist, which isn’t something most projects can claim.

The post You Can Play Pokémon Gold on Your Wrist, Thanks to a 2-Year Build first appeared on Yanko Design.

Nintendo’s Game Boy Jukebox Plays Pokémon Music on 45 Swappable Cartridges

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Thirty years after Pokémon Red and Blue launched in Japan, Nintendo is celebrating the anniversary with something that looks almost exactly like a Game Boy — except it will never, ever play a game. The Pokémon Red & Pokémon Blue Game Music Collection: Game Boy Jukebox is a miniature sound toy that slots mini cartridges to play the original games’ iconic 8-bit soundtrack, and it’s already selling out across regions.

The device is a faithful shrunken replica of the original Game Boy, complete with the grey shell, D-pad, A/B buttons, and a screen. None of those controls do anything. All the action happens through the cartridges: pop one in, and the player outputs the corresponding track, whether that’s the hauntingly spare Lavender Town Theme, the adrenaline-spiked Gym Leader Battle music, or the quietly triumphant Pallet Town Theme. All 45 tracks from the original games are represented, covering everything from the Title Screen to the Ending Theme, with Jigglypuff’s Song and the Pokémon Center jingle tucked in between.

Designer: Nintendo

Junichi Masuda, composer of the original soundtrack, was involved in tuning the product. “We took particular care to make the audio sound just like Game Boy,” he said, which goes a long way toward explaining why the format (one cartridge, one song) makes a certain kind of sense. It’s tactile, deliberate, and forces you to actually choose what you want to hear rather than shuffling through a playlist.

That said, the jukebox comes with some genuine limitations. There’s no headphone jack, meaning the music plays out loud only, which caps its utility as background listening. The three required LR44 button cell batteries are included for demonstration but not for ongoing use. And at $69.99 (£59.99 in the UK, 489 yuan in China), it’s priced squarely as a collectible rather than an everyday gadget.

Nintendo is selling the jukebox exclusively through PokémonCenter.com in North America with a one-per-customer limit. The UK has already sold out. Fans in mainland China can enter a lottery-based purchase system starting March 6. Gotta catch ’em all, right?!

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Stern Built a Pokémon Pinball Machine Where Ramps Catch Pikachu

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Pokémon and pinball both taught a certain generation about progression: one through turn-based battles on a handheld, the other through flashing inserts and modes on a noisy table. Licensed pinball can feel lazy when it just slaps art on a generic layout. Stern’s Pokémon machine tries to do something harder, turning the actual structure of a Pokémon adventure into mechanical play instead of just plastering Pikachu on the backglass and calling it done.

Stern Pinball’s Pokémon pinball machine is a full-size, modern table built around a colorful playfield with ramps, targets, and toys, including a big Poké Ball, an animatronic Pikachu, and Team Rocket’s Meowth-shaped balloon. An LCD screen handles animations and story beats. The promise is simple: catch and train Pokémon, take on Gym Battles, and thwart Team Rocket with flippers and a silver ball instead of button presses.

Designer: Stern Pinball

Each game starts by dropping you into a random biome, forest, water, mountain, or desert. Shots in that zone correspond to discovering, catching, and training Pokémon partners, so hitting the right ramps feels like walking through tall grass or surfing a route, just with more noise and steel. Clearing tasks in a biome is how you move the story forward, not just how you chase a score.

Team Rocket shows up as trouble. Certain sequences trigger a Team Rocket encounter, where you protect Pokémon during a frantic multiball, keeping multiple balls in play while the table tries to steal your partners. Once you’ve done enough in a biome, you unlock a Gym Battle against a rival party, a more focused mode that feels like a boss fight mapped onto drop targets and ramps.

Clearing all the biomes’ Gym Battles opens the door to the Pokémon Arena, a final stage that pulls everything together. There’s even a path to face Giovanni, Team Rocket’s boss, reserved for players who can keep control long enough to see deep into the ruleset. That layered structure gives casual players something to do immediately and gives pinball regulars a long arc to chase over many sessions.

Stern is offering Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition versions, all sharing the same core rules but scaling up mechanical and cosmetic detail. The Pro is the workhorse you’re likely to see in arcades and bowling alleys, while Premium and Limited Edition add more elaborate toys, lighting, and trim for home buyers and collectors who want the full treatment in a dedicated game room.

This machine sits between generations: kids who know Pokémon first and adults who know pinball first. By using biomes, catches, Gyms, and Team Rocket as the spine of the rules, Stern has built a table that feels like a physical remix of a familiar journey rather than a billboard with flippers tacked on. It’s a branded pinball experience that respects both the game and the license, offering something that can earn its keep in a lineup instead of trading on nostalgia until everyone gets bored.

The post Stern Built a Pokémon Pinball Machine Where Ramps Catch Pikachu first appeared on Yanko Design.

Razer Just Built the Pokémon Desk Setup Every ’90s Kid Wanted

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A lot of people who picked their first starter Pokémon on a Game Boy now sit in front of multi-monitor setups, pretending to be adults. Their desks are full of neutral black peripherals that say serious work, even though their playlists are lo-fi Pokémon remixes and their browser tabs tell a different story. The gear stays boring because that is what grown-up keyboards and mice are supposed to look like, apparently.

That is where Razer’s Pokémon collection comes in. Instead of one Pikachu mousepad, Razer built a full ecosystem that includes the BlackWidow V4 X keyboard, Cobra mouse, Kraken V4 X headset, and Gigantus V2 M mat. The line is officially licensed and leans into Kanto nostalgia, wrapping every peripheral in Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle graphics across bright yellow surfaces with synced Razer Chroma RGB lighting.

Designer: Razer x Pokemon

The BlackWidow V4 X Pokémon Edition keyboard anchors everything. Underneath the graphics, it is a mechanical keyboard with Razer’s clicky switches, six macro keys, and programmable RGB. You can map macros for raids or productivity shortcuts, and the mechanical switches help with both gaming and marathon typing. The Pokémon skin does not change performance; it just turns something you already needed into something that feels like a personal trophy from childhood.

The Cobra mouse and Gigantus V2 M mat work as a paired set. The lightweight wired mouse uses optical switches for durability and precision, with RGB lighting that syncs with the rest of your setup. The soft mat underneath is optimized for fast swipes, whether flicking through game menus or dragging layers in design software. Together, they turn everyday cursor movement into something that feels like your oldest digital companions are right there.

The Kraken V4 X headset pulls audio into the same universe. It supports surround sound for positional cues, has a clear mic for calls or streaming, and features RGB lighting around the earcups. You hear footsteps in matches, but you also use it for music while answering emails or video meetings without switching gear, which makes it more versatile than something covered in Pikachu art probably should be.

Of course, Razer points out the collection works for productivity and content creation, not just gaming. Mechanical keys help with typing speed, the mouse and mat work in design software or spreadsheets, and the headset handles conference calls. The Pokémon layer is simply a visual narrative on top of hardware you could justify buying even in plain black, which means you get function and nostalgia without compromise.

The collection treats your desktop as more than a neutral workspace. It acknowledges that the same person editing spreadsheets might still know every line of the Pokémon theme song, and both can coexist. Instead of hiding that part of yourself in a drawer of old cartridges, Razer lets it sit under your fingers, lighting up every time you log in and reminding you that being functional and still loving Pikachu are not mutually exclusive.

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Japan’s Pokémon Hotel Rooms Put 100+ Characters on Your Ceiling (And Gyarados in Your Bathroom)

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Snorlax is napping on your bed. Rayquaza soars across the ceiling. Gyarados splashes through your bathroom walls. This is not a fever dream—this is checking into a MIMARU Pokémon Room, where over 100 beloved characters have escaped their Poké Balls to transform apartment-style hotels across Japan into immersive wonderlands.

Since their 2019 debut, these themed accommodations have evolved from a novel concept into a hospitality phenomenon, now spanning 10 properties in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. The latest renovation doubles down on what made them irresistible: more Pokémon, more family-friendly spaces, and meticulous attention to detail. Water-types gather in bathrooms. Food-loving characters populate kitchens. Even the dining table and tableware echo the iconic Poké Ball design. For families seeking more than generic hotel rooms and Pokémon fans wanting to live inside their childhood obsession, MIMARU has created something genuinely special.

Designers: Nintendo & Mimaru Hotels

Most themed hotels give you a logo on the wall and call it a day. MIMARU went full maximalist and put 100+ Pokémon across every available surface including the ceiling, which most designers treat like dead space. The apartment format solves the actual problem of traveling with kids or groups: you need a kitchen, you need separate sleeping areas, you need room to exist without climbing over each other. Scaling from the 2019 launch to 10 properties across Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka means this concept is making serious money. Hotels kill ideas that don’t work. They expand what drives bookings.

Custom Poké Ball plates and mugs mean you’re eating breakfast off themed dinnerware. The dining table itself has the circular red and white design built in. These aren’t afterthought details or cheap branded merchandise they threw in a gift shop basket. The tableware extends the experience into every meal without being obnoxious about it. You’re drinking coffee from a Poké Ball mug while surrounded by wall art of Charizard and Dragonite. The layering works because each element reinforces the others instead of competing for attention.

You walk in and there’s a massive Snorlax plushie sprawled across Poké Ball bedding. Every guest photographs this thing. Every review mentions it. It’s become the signature element that people specifically request when booking. The plushie works because it’s tactile, huggable, and perfectly in-character for Snorlax to be permanently napping on your bed. It’s also shameless Instagram bait, which means free marketing from every family that stays there. The design team knew exactly what they were doing when they made this the centerpiece.

Water-types live in the bathroom. Food-obsessed Pokémon populate the kitchen. Flying and legendary types take over the ceiling murals. Someone actually thought about spatial logic instead of randomly slapping characters everywhere like a kid with stickers. Lapras and Magikarp around the bathtub makes intuitive sense. Pikachu hanging out near the dining table with other food-loving characters feels natural when you’re making breakfast. This kind of ecosystem thinking is rare in themed spaces, which usually prioritize maximum logo visibility over coherent storytelling. The renovation team understood that immersion breaks when placement feels arbitrary.

Every stay includes MIMARU-exclusive merchandise you can’t get anywhere else. Limited edition fabric bags, collectible items that only guests receive. This is retention marketing dressed up as a perk, and it’s extremely effective. People collect these things. They post about them. They keep them as physical reminders of the experience, which triggers “remember when we stayed at the Pokémon hotel” conversations years later. Creating scarcity around a hotel stay is smart business. Making guests feel like they’re part of something exclusive rather than just renting a room builds the kind of emotional attachment that drives repeat bookings.

The properties sit near major tourist hubs and transportation centers, which balances fantasy with practicality. You can spend your day exploring Shibuya or Kyoto’s temples, then return to your Pokémon sanctuary at night. International families especially appreciate the apartment setup because it lets them cook meals and avoid the exhausting hotel-restaurant cycle. Guest feedback consistently uses phrases like “living in the Pokémon world,” which is the gold standard for themed hospitality. You want people feeling transported, not just tolerating cute wallpaper for a night.

The post Japan’s Pokémon Hotel Rooms Put 100+ Characters on Your Ceiling (And Gyarados in Your Bathroom) first appeared on Yanko Design.

This PokéDex Wallet Holds 3 Pokémon Cards Along With Your Cash And Childhood Nostalgia

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More like Gotta Cash ‘Em All, am I right?! Say hello to by far the nerdiest wallet I’ve ever had the pleasure to set my eyes on. Made for clearly Pokémon lovers, this wallet takes inspiration from one of the most crucial gadgets in the Pokémon universe – the PokéDex. Designed to look almost identical to the flip-based device used to identify the Pokémon you see around you, this wallet comes from the mind of Jalonisdead, with slots to hold (and display) your Pokémon cards along with your banknotes.

The wallet comes in a bifold format in that unmistakeable red finish, with a design to match the PokéDex perfectly. When shut, it looks like a red PokéDex waiting to be opened. Flip the lid open and you’re greeted with a card window on the left that you can use to store the card of your choice. The window lines up perfectly with the card’s graphic, making it look like you’ve ‘spotted’ that Pokémon. Meanwhile, faux graphics on the wallet look almost identical to the gadget from the game/series.

Designer: Jalonisdead

There’s space for multiple cards, although the one front-and-center is clearly for a Pokémon card. Two other slots on the right side can be used for payment and I’d cards too – this is a wallet after all. A slot on the top holds banknotes, although I wish there were place for coins too. The unusual shape lends itself perfectly to wallet use, and I’m surprised nobody at Nintendo thought of cashing in on this idea.

Each wallet costs in the ballpark of $56 USD, and ships in authentic Pokémon card-style packaging, along with 4 Pokémon cards in mint condition. Jalonisdead (the maker) isn’t a massive company, so each wallet is made-to-order and probably by hand too. This means the turnaround time for delivery is anywhere up to 2 months, but for a Pokémon aficionado, I’m sure it’s a small price to pay for perhaps what might be the coolest wallet I’ve seen in years!

The post This PokéDex Wallet Holds 3 Pokémon Cards Along With Your Cash And Childhood Nostalgia first appeared on Yanko Design.

LEGO’s first-ever Pokémon sets transform Pikachu, Eevee, and Kanto legends into collectible icons

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Pokémon franchise is turning 30 next month, and LEGO Group wants to celebrate the occasion with LEGO Pokémon sets. Following leaks and speculations, the official reveal has been made, with two sets of the three already up for pre-order. The three main sets will be shipped next month, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the franchise on February 27. These will revolve around the star mascots Pikachu and Eevee, while the final evolutions of the original starter Pokémon Charizard, Blastoise, and Venusaur will add excitement for younger fans.

Pikachu and Eevee will make up for the two sets, having their standalone releases in the lineup. The biggest of them all will be the third, Starter Evolution set that’ll let you pose the three Kanto starters’ based on the theme choosen. It can be anything from the ush junglescape for Venusaur, a crashing wave for Blastoise, and a lava-dripping spire for Charizard to fly over.

Designer: LEGO Group

Eevee Set

The first set in this iconic collection centers on Eevee, the evolution-ready fan favorite. As the most accessible option, this 587-piece build is priced at $59.99 and stands just over 7.5 inches tall once assembled. Its design embraces Eevee’s signature charm with a brick-built face that gives the figure an expressive, almost lifelike presence.

Articulation in the head, ears, limbs, and tail allows subtle posing, while hidden nods to Eevee’s many evolutionary forms add a playful layer of detail for longtime Pokémon Trainers. The compact size and approachable price point make this an appealing choice for both seasoned LEGO builders and newcomers intrigued by the mash-up of brick construction and Pokémon nostalgia.

Pikachu and Poké Ball Set

Stepping up in scale and ambition, the Pikachu and Poké Ball set takes center stage with a 2,050-piece count and a $199.99 retail price. This model revisits one of the franchise’s most iconic moments: Pikachu bursting from its Poké Ball, ready for action. The brick-built Pikachu captures that dynamic energy with fully posable ears and limbs, enabling display configurations ranging from a relaxed stance to an aggressive battle pose.

Its display stand features a stylized lightning motif that evokes the Electric-type’s signature power, and LEGO designers have subtly incorporated Pikachu’s Pokédex number, “25,” into the base, a detail that resonates with franchise history. Whether perched atop the Poké Ball or displayed mid-leap, this iteration of Pokémon’s mascot offers a dramatic and nostalgic showcase piece.

Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise Diorama

At the top of the inaugural range is the Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise diorama, a monumental build that celebrates the original Kanto starter Pokémon in their final evolutionary forms. With 6,838 pieces and a $649.99 price tag, this set is designed squarely for adult collectors and hardcore fans. Each Pokémon figure stands individually with its own articulation, allowing builders to pose Venusaur’s vines, Charizard’s wings, and Blastoise’s water cannons in varied stances.

The figures are proportioned to stand roughly 7 to 9 inches tall, and they sit upon a richly detailed multi-biome base that reflects their elemental identities. These include a leafy jungle for Venusaur, volcanic embers for Charizard, and aquatic textures for Blastoise. Scattered throughout the build are Easter eggs and environmental cues that reward close inspection, making this set a centerpiece worthy of display in any fan’s collection.

To sweeten the launch, LEGO is also offering limited extras tied to these sets. Buyers of the starter trio set during the first week of release can receive a Kanto Region Badge Collection as a gift with purchase, while LEGO Insiders will have access to a mini Pokémon Center build through reward redemption.

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