📢 The biggest announcements from Pokémon Presents

Sup Pokéfans,

No one has bid on that PSA 8 Pikachu Illustrator yet. Still sitting there at $480,000 with 3 days left. But before you get your hopes up, just know that there's some faceless billionaire stroking an exotic cat saying "make it mine" to one of their minions who will do just that. Can't exactly talk to my credit card the same way 😔.

Here's to a wonderful weekend from your friends at Mystery Poke Slabs.

The Pokémon Company dropped some heat on Pokémon Day

Every year The Pokémon Company drops a bunch of announcements on Pokémon Day. Dubbed Pokémon Presents, it's a blizzard of updates direct from Tsunekazu Ishihara, President and CEO of TPC. You can watch the 25m presentation here. Ngl during the intro all we could hear was blahblahblergblah bc we couldn't stop staring at the absolutely perfect animatronic Pikachu. At no point did Ishihara tell us where it could be purchased. Big L. But he did announce some other stuff we're super excited about.

Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic

We included a link in last week's newsletter from CBR on how to start building a deck and learning the ropes of TCG. The timing was no mistake. As the Pokémon universe continues to expand, nostalgic collectors are finding their way back to actually playing the game. The cards and the rules have evolved to make it a highly competitive battle game. And since you can't exactly play with slabs (or any vintage card that doesn't fit the Modified format), TPC has gone to great lengths to make playing the game feel super premium. That approach is epitomized by Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic. It is stunningly well designed. We get a release date of "Late 2023" and no pricing (could be a yikes) but we're told we'll learn more at the 2023 Championships in Yokohama.

Pokémon Sleep

More than 50 million Americans struggle with sleep disorders. The global sleep aids market is $74.3 billion and Americans account for 27% of it and TPC wants a piece. So if Ambien doesn't work for you, maybe try Snorlax. Pokémon Sleep will be an app for iOS & Android. Just leave your phone by your pillow and your sleep will be analyzed (scientifically, of course) by Dr. Neroli. In addition to actionable data, you'll be paired up with different Pokémon who share a similar sleep style. And hey, if you can't kick the Ambien habit, maybe this'll lead to vivid hallucinations of a Meowth in bed with you. Not the worst?

Pokémon Concierge

Netflix and TPC seem to be growing closer together. Which is great news all around. And they used Pokémon Presents to tease Pokémon Concierge, a stop-motion series coming to Netflix this year. We didn't get a lot of details—it takes place at the beachy Pokémon Resort where Haru and Psyduck apparently hangout and meet new characters and trainers. Perhaps most encouraging was Netflix's own point of view on the future of manga (read: Pokémon) on the platform.

Can we hear a little commotion for the card?

Every once in a while we just need to slow down and marvel at a card. Y'all know we're huge fans of the reveals we've seen from the upcoming Triplet Beat starter, and Pokébeach came thru with an illustration rare of Magikarp. The stuff drool is made of. This Magikarp was illustrated by Shinji Kanda.

Shinji's unmistakable scratch art style makes for a beautiful art card. Check out the rest of their catalog on Serebii. Our previous fav was Magmar #19, but this Magikarp slaps. We anticipate a US release not long after the March 10 Japan release.

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🥊 Quick hits

Following up on our hints at Pokémon: Pikachu Detective 2 being a thing, today it was announced that Jonathan Krisel, co-creator of "Portlandia", is in talks to direct. This is incredible news.

June 16th release expected for Pokémon Card 151 (including Kadabra!)

Fan art community plug

We found these adorable pixel art characters from pixelartmontreal on Instagram. They're selling them in support their first child which they're expecting in April 🐣. DM for details.

Meme of the Day

If you find out where to get that animatronic Pika, plz holler 🙏