Official Shops

At every Pokémon Center, visitors are greeted at the entrance by a welcoming committee of Pokémon. Inside, with video game music in the background, here they discover a world filled with Pokémon merchandise, as though they had entered the virtual realm for real. Our aim is to create special places apart from everyday life, places teeming with everything exciting about Pokémon, places that will remain firmly in every visitor’s memory. Besides merchandise sales, Pokémon Centers also host a variety of hands-on programs. Events are held, for example, where novice players can learn directly from the staff how to play Pokémon video games or the Trading Card Game (TCG). Other events aim to foster communication among Pokémon fans, with opportunities to test their skills in battles involving new products, or to trade their Pokémon. Every day, Pokémon Centers are ready and eager to serve as locations where fans can have exciting encounters with Pokémon in the real world, where they can come to love everything Pokémon more and more, and where they are always guaranteed to have an amazingly good time.

Every Pokémon Center holds special events, has an individually developed shop design, and sells exclusive original merchandise reflecting unique traits of its specific region. Pokémon Center Okinawa, for example, hosts workshops that integrate Pokémon with “bingata,” a traditional textile dyeing technique unique to Okinawa, and it also presents shows in which Pikachu perform Okinawa’s traditional drum dance known as “Eisa.” At Pokémon Center Kanazawa, bronze-tinted walls were inspired by the elegant beauty of the city’s historic lanes, and unique merchandise is on offer integrating the refined cultural arts of the local region, such as Kutani porcelain. Pokémon Center Shibuya, located in Tokyo’s bustling Shibuya area where the latest art and cultural trends are set, is home to the Pokémon Design Lab. Here, visitors can freely design their own T-shirts with their favorite Pokémon artwork, stamps and words. It’s a popular place not only for diehard fans making the rounds of different Pokémon Centers and eager seekers of unique Pokémon merchandise, but for local people just looking for a fun place to visit.

We want Pokémon Centers to be places not only where fans can find their favorite Pokémon merchandise, but where they will make happy memories they will long cherish. To create such memory-making occasions, Pokémon Centers undertake a variety of special services and campaigns. Fans who visit a Pokémon Center during their birthday month, for example, receive a serial code to get a Pokémon on the “Pokémon Scarlet” or “Pokémon Violet” video game. They also receive a special “Birthday Bouquet Card” with a 2D code which, when scanned, gives access to a Celebratory Video. Special birthday service is also available when a purchase is made through the “Pokémon Center Online” internet shopping site. In this case, the purchase is delivered in a special box containing the same gifts as offered at physical Pokémon Centers. Many fans look forward to this happy occasion every year and make a point of visiting a Pokémon Center during their birthday month.

The first Pokémon Center opened in 1998 in the Nihombashi area of Tokyo. Twenty years later, in 2018 we again chose Nihombashi to be home to a brand-new Pokémon format: Pokémon Center TOKYO DX & Pokémon Cafe, a combination official store and adjoining cafe. Pokémon Cafe was our first permanent cafe-restaurant, so we put great effort into developing a Pokémon-inspired menu. Cafe patrons are also treated to visits by Pikachu dressed like a cook, or a server, or a pastry chef. Special measures are taken to make cafe visits enjoyable for people from abroad too; reservations and orders can be taken in a variety of languages, for example, and music in English is played during Pikachu dance performances. In 2019, we then expanded the new format into western Japan with the opening of Pokémon Center OSAKA DX & Pokémon Cafe. The same year, we also debuted Pikachu Sweets, our first take-out style shop, in the Ikebukuro area of Tokyo. In these ways, by making Pokémon an integral part of the cafe experience we make every day a special day.