Build a Bear to stock Pikachu?!

Starting in early 2016, The Pokemon Company and Build-A-Bear Workshop will be teaming up for a partnership bring you everyone's favourite electric rat!

Build-A-Bear Workshop have confirmed the following locations to stock Pikachu: the United States, Europe, Canada, and Australia.

So far Polygon states you can decorate your Pikachu plush with a Poke Ball Hoodie, and includes a Pikachu sound chip.

After creating your Pikachu, you’ll be given a special promo TCG playing card as a gift. Also, those who order it online can obtain the limited edition Charizard costume!

UPDATE:

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Otaku Themed Food

So Japan has all these themed cafes but is the fanbase worth the money, let's look at the best looking food and see if the taste and presentation is worth us going.

I personally went to the Gundam cafe and I never saw this... In all my life if I were presented a Gundam ship constructed dinner I would have rated this top. But since this was not available at I will have to query where this photo was taken. Looks a bit plain and possibly cold. Everything at the cafe was priced over 500 yen

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I love my desserts and cats so this doriaki made me squeal with joy with a pertruding kitteh trying to escape her pending doom. This looks yummy and a piece of art. It's hard to enjoy food in a hairy environment though....cats and all.

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This particular moomin dessert is christmas themed and looks lush. The food is as fresh as in this photo and the prices from when I visited Sky tree ranged from 330yen for a moomin art coffee to 1000yen for hot food. The art is done to perfection and you get a fluffy friend to keep you company on the table.

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Loving the simple ketchup drawing of the iconic cat warriors/feylynes from Monster Hunter - especially witht he release of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate soon :D

the omlette itself looks mysterious, wonder if the filling lived up to expectation.

Last but not least a Pikachu curry for the pop up Pokemon X/Y shop in Shibuya, enjoy munch on Pikachu's face as the mascot runs around the cafe. Impressed with the colouring even more so that the shaping of the rice.

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Pokemon Cafe Opens today in Shibuya !

Tokyo is the home to many dedicated cafes to the one's favourite idols, anime and now finally Pokeom. The release of the Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire games have inspired a Pokemon cafe. It specifically serves up an array of Pikachu-themed treats from curry to milkshakes. Gotta eat 'em all!

The cafe, dubbed Pokémon Cafe Ω Ruby & α Sapphire, opened on Friday 9th January in the shopping hub of Shibuya. As website Sibch.tv points out, the cafe is opened only for a limited time, and slated to end its run in late February.

Pokémon fans will have the opportunity to eat hamburgers, beef curry, mango pudding parfait, milkshakes with Pikachu's likeness on it.

The Pikachu-themed cafe is part of the Pokémon the Movie XY exhibition, which will serve Pikachu food and sell other Pokemon limited edition goods merchendise. Good's being sold incluide: postcards, t-shirts and tote bags.

In addition to munching on a teriyaki burger with Pikachu ear-shaped tortilla chips — which costs 1,080 yen (about £7) — the cafe offers Pikachu pancakes, curry buns and two types of Poké Balls: one made out of rice, the other made of mousse.

What if Lego made a Pokecentre set?

So what if Lego made a Pokecentre set? It would probably be the best set ever and make millions in pounds due to the massive fanbase. Builder Savath_Bunny shared superb-looking Pokémon center on LEGO Ideas and filled it with the main characters, Pokémon starters and all the gadgets you can find in the games.

'Pikachu's Pokemon Center Visit' includes the following:

5 Minifigures:

Ash Ketchum
Misty
Brock
Nurse Joy
Professor Oak

5 Starter Pokémon:


Pikachu
Squirtle
Charmander
Bulbasaur
Eevee

This is an idea that may have come to life depending on the votes from fans. However, despite having 1,000+ votes the set will not be put into production. The Lego officials statement regarding it explains:

"We've looked into the possibility of producing a set based on this licensed property (Pokemon). Since the property is owned by a competitor, we've decided it’s neither a brand fit nor a strategic fit for the Lego Group to pursue a license, and so we will not consider Pokemon projects on Lego Ideas further," the toy company said. "We're sorry to be the bearers of this disappointing news."

Perhaps this is a good move, made the design can be worked on and characters can match the anime series or game characters. Either way it looks like independent creators have a better chance of making bespoke sets that bigger companies due to licensing. Though I never saw Nintendo as a competitor of Lego?

At least we can see the possibilities through the Lego ideas site.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity Review

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Axew is a RPG style video game following the perspective of the Pokemon rather than the trainer. The games features the Pokemon navigating through a randomly generated dungeons using turn-based moves, trademark of Mystery Dungeon games.

These games are based in dungeons, where a floor map is randomly generated. In the dungeons, players fight other Pokémon while obtaining items, and finding steps to the next floor. Similar to Ertian Odessey and Guided Fate Paradox, this is not a style of RPG I like but I appreciated the animation and story.

At the beginning you choose a Pokemon to be Pikachu, Oshawott, Tepig, Snivy, or Axew, then you chose another Pokemon to be your sidekick. The game really utilises the 3DS' capabilities instead of the usual 2D sprites.

The story begins with you waking up as a Pokemon (of your choice) you bump into your partner (of your choice) and you run a farm together, I mean piece of land and it's all very romantic and you have to hire other Pokemon to make your land liveable and it means you have to go to the Mystery Dungeons to get gems and chase mean Pokemon. There are moral dilemmas in this game, Pokemon love to rob you. They add lots of popular Pokemon into the story and you pretty much have an easy ride.

The game also uses the 3DS' camera and sensors for the players to find round objects and turn them into portals, I haven't quite mastered it, it has to be obviously round, so checking people on the train is not advisable. The portals aka Magnagates need to be unlocked, and act as gateways to new dungeons.

The game features both free and paid downloadable content, in the form of additional dungeons. You can also go to the official site and play mini-games to unlock passwords to receive special items in the game too. The game has changed from its predecessors and is a great stand alone game to buy, people new to Pokemon can pick it up and play. It has an easy to use interface though walking through the dungons is a bit sluggish for my liking.

If your a Pokemon fan and enjoy more focus on them this would be a game to get, because of the difficulty. It's aimed at a younger audience, though that isn't to say you wouldn't find a challenge in the dungeons. The story is simple with comical conversations and lots of trait Pokemon behaviours. You can really appreciate the lush backgrounds and 3D Pokemon going about their day in the game. this is more for people who like more action than story.

MCM London 2012: Kawaii Stalls

Along my adventures at MCM, I came across a lot of unique and cute stalls – I have found a range of interesting items and brands you should all check out and show some love as it’s these independent companies that gives us the much loved trends aka the Llama frenzy – a must have companion for all Lolita’s brought to us by Tofu Cute.

http://www.facebook.com/TofuCute

Super kitch jewellery by Purple Rooster, it’s not just Pikachu made out of fimo clay, t’s a a pika-cake  some lovely designs wearable by men and women, I especially loved the Onyx necklace.

http://www.facebook.com/PurpleRoosterr

I found Pokemon fanatics where they were selling all things Poke-related, my favourite prizes from this stall were the awesome poke-badges form the first series!

Since the boom of the zombie craze has exploded in the UK, we had a stall with zombie mannequins including a zombe bride and a zombie nazi from ‘The Flesh Krafter’.

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/Pikachu

Beautiful plastic Jewelry with a Alice in Wonderland/Lolita –esque style from Fondant Warfare literally killer jewelry. I spent the longest time looking at their merchandise spanning from Disney characters, retro my little ponies to their own range of Halloween designs.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fondant-Warfare

A real treat was meeting the creator of ‘cyanaide and happiness’ comics and cartoons as seen on YouTube, he was happily setting up his branded stuff for MCM goers to ‘squee’ over and even did autographs and photographs for free, what a gent!

http://www.explosm.net/comics

I hope I’ve refreshed your memories on top stalls you visited and maybe showed a few more usual ones to look out for next time. Did you see any stalls you thought deserved a place in this article? Leave a comment below.