Shane Foley
Connector Editor
On Saturday, February 27th, the world will be celebrating Pokemon. It will be 20 years since Pokemon Red and Green was released in Japan, and many festivities are planned for the holiday. One such festivity will be a Nintendo Direct for Pokemon that will occur the day earlier in the United States, where the highly anticipated Pokemon Z may be announced. In conjunction to these festivities, University Crossing will host an eight hour event dedicated solely to Pokemon.
The event is sponsored by the Anime Club, and will feature many engaging, Pokemon-related activities including games and movies. “It’s going to be set up so people can go in and out whenever they want,” said Andrew Crowley, Anime Club member who is running the event. “They don’t have to stick around for the eight hours. That’s why we’re showing so many movies throughout the day so people can just pop in when they want to.”
The main events will be spread out over rooms 247, 248, and 249 on the second floor of University Crossing. One such room will host a display of many games throughout the history of the franchise, including N64 fan favorite Pokemon Stadium 2. Attendees will be able to play and leave at their leisure, and other attendees can pick up where others left off.
Aside from these rooms, The Anime Club will also be using room 242 to screen Pokemon movies throughout the day. The titles that will be shown will span every generation of Pokemon, and include prominent films like Pokemon Heroes, Pokemon 2000, and Pokemon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew.
“We definitely wanted to include some of our favorites, and the more commonly respected ones, and we also wanted to pick movies that spanned every generation of Pokemon,” said Crowley. “So, we tried our best to pick some things from every generation.”
Pokemon Day will also host several Pokemon tournaments throughout the day. Attendees who bring their 3DS or 2DS will be able to battle different Pokemon trainers from the university.
In terms of tournament play, however, the Anime Club stressed that these tournaments be conducted at a casual level, so that newcomers may be able to participate as well. “We were anticipation people who are familiar with the meta of Pokemon; the competitive meta, and we are also expecting people who know as much as type differences, which is great,” said Crowley. “You have to start somewhere, and it’s great because we anticipate maybe even teaching these people how to play.”
The Anime Club also ensured that the event would be fan friendly to every type of Pokemon fan, from people who have kept up with the franchise, to people who only remember Pokemon from when they were a kid. “Not everybody, but a lot of people are familiar with Pokemon, at least playing games as a kid,” said Crowley. My first game was Silver, and most people’s first game here was Blue and Red. So, we’re anticipating a mixture of people who know little or next to nothing, people who know a little bit, and people who are huge Pokemon fans.”
The events for Pokemon Day will run from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. at University Crossing.
