Even for fans like me, the Pokémon 30th anniversary ‘stuff’ is a bit much

With the wait for the new Winds and Waves games set to stretch into 2027, Pokemon's 30th anniversary celebrations have plugged the gap with a deluge of nostalgia bait. Is the franchise in danger of losing its heart?

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It has been almost impossible to escape Pokemon for the past few weeks. To mark the 30th anniversary of the original games, the Pokemon Company has been on an unprecedented promotional nostalgia trip for the entire month: there was a campaign where celebrities gushed about their favourite Pokemon, gifting us the memorable sight of Lady Gaga singing with a Jigglypuff, and Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen (great Game Boy Advance remakes of the original 1996 games) were rereleased on the Nintendo Switch. The Natural History Museum in London has opened a special Pokemon pop-up shop, and a limited-edition greyscale Pikachu plush toy sold out in about three seconds (they will be making more, to the disappointment of scalpers everywhere).

And all that is just the start. We've seen the opening of a Pokemon theme park in Tokyo, the announcement of a tiny Game Boy-shaped music player that plays the games' soundtrack, a collaboration with high-fashion brand JimmyPaul that had its own runway show ... it's been endless. Regular readers will know that I am exactly the target audience for this festival of Pokemon nostalgia: the first generation of Pokemon kids and now hurtling towards 40. And yet I have been unmoved by most of this, even slightly annoyed by it.