On the Origin of Species: Sobble, Drizzile, and Inteleon

In one of the most anticipated announcements in the history of the Pokémon franchise, three new games set in the Sinnoh region have just been announced during the Pokémon Presents video presentation for Pokémon Day 2021.

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.

In the latest of what seems like an never ending stream of clothing brands announcing special Pokémon collaborations, UK retailer Zavvi has revealed details on its line of limited edition items celebrating Pokémon's 25th Anniversary. The collection, which centers around the iconic Generation 1 Pokémon Pikachu, is scheduled to go on sale on the Zavvi website on Pokémon Day, February 27th, in a staggered rollout. While Zavvi is a UK based retailer, their website does offer international shipping, and there appear to be no limits on Pokéfans outside of the UK scoring themselves any of the items in the limited collection, or any of the other Pokémon clothing and merchendise that the company sells.

Pokémon Day 2021 is upon us, marking the 25th anniversary of the release of Pokémon Red and Green in Japan. The day will kick off with a special Pokémon Presents presentation at midnight Japan time, with a promised 20-minute-long stream of Pokémon news. Ahead of this special presentation though, we need to have a chat. A chat about how we as a fandom respond to news and announcements, particularly when those announcements weren’t quite what we were hoping for. Because quite frankly, if we’re going to see the same kind of behaviour with the Pokémon Day announcements this year as we’ve seen with other unpopular announcements like Sword & Shield not including the entire National Dex, or Pokémon UNITE, then we’ll only have proven we don’t deserve to have good things.

Cheating, in one form or another, has been been endemic in Pokémon GO ever since the global phenomenon first hit the streets in 2016. Many players may have seen initial efforts at things like location spoofing as simple time saves and effectively non-issues, or even outright required for play for some players with disibilities or living in remote locations with few PokéStops. From these relatively innocent beginning however, we've seen growing examples of more flagrant, outright cheating spurred by desires for an unfair advantage over other players, such as save game editing and bots, spurred several waves of bans from Niantic.

In perhaps the least surprising Pokémon Day news yet, a special Pokémon Presents video presentation has been announced to kick off Pokémon Day celebrations. The presentation will air from midnight Japan time on Pokémon Day, February 27th, and feature roughly 20 minutes of Pokémon news.

TheCapsFan leads a lively discussion on predictions for the upcoming 25th anniversary of Pokémon. Join him, along with Archaic, Rhodehawk, WyndonCalling, celadonk, and Blazing Larvesta, as they guess about impending news.

Australian clothing brand BlackMilk has announced the company will be releasing a new range of Pokémon clothing, with the line to go on sale this March 2nd.

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.

As a tie-in with the western release of the Shining Fates Pokémon TCG expansion, Shiny Toxtricity are for a limited time being distributed to players in select countries through codes available in retail stores. The distribution is on right now, and will continue through to March 18th.

Fletchling has been announced to be the featured Pokémon for the March 2021 Pokémon GO Community Day event. This Community Day event will be held on 6 March from 11am to 5pm in all time zones. During the time period of the event Fletchling will be appearing more frequently in the wild and will be more likely to be encountered as a Shiny Pokémon. Fletchinder that evolve into Talonflame from 11am to 7pm in all time zones on 6 March will know the Community Day exclusive move Incinerate.

The Pokémon Company International (TPCi) has released the new ruleset for competitive battles. These Series 9 rules will be standard for all competitions, including Ranked Battles, Players Cup events, and the Championship series, taking effect as of May 1st, 2021. These Series 9 rules are the same as the Series 7 rules, where "restricted" Pokémon (most Legendary Pokémon and all Mythical Pokémon) were not permitted to battle.

Earlier this week, it was announced that a casual competition would be running in Pokémon Sword and Shield between 4:00 p.m. PST February 25, 2021 and 3:59 p.m. PST February 28, 2021, the Global Challenge Winter. The casual competition will allow trainers to battle with teams including one Legendary Pokémon out of a set of Legendaries not normally allowed in online competitions.

Opposuits, a novelty suit company based in The Netherlands, unveiled earlier this week its upcoming licensed collaboration with The Pokémon Company. The suit features first generation starter Pokémon Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Charmander, alongside franchise mascot Pikachu, and includes a jacket, pants, and matching tie.

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.

The Pokémon Company International has revealed their plans for a range of events and activities for this year's Pokémon Day on February 27th, and for the week leading up to the day.

The real test for anyone wanting to catch these Pokémon cards and toys won't just be how far and wide you're willing to travel across the land. In a sad addition to the list of why we can't have nice things, the rollout of these Happy Meals has been marred by reports of scalpers and overzealous adult collectors snapping up all available stock.

Citing guidelines set by the World Health Organization, Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, and other national health authorities, The Pokémon Company International (TPCi) have announced they will be pushing the 2020 Pokémon World Championships back to 2022. The event will still be hosted in London, UK as originally planned.

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.