Pokémon’s 2023 World Championships will take place in Japan for the first time

The Pokémon 2023 World Championships will take place in Yokohama, Japan, it has been announced.

During the closing ceremony of the 2022 World Championships in London, it was revealed that next year’s event will take place in Japan for the first time ever.

The announcement is particularly notable considering the extremely strict COVID-19 restrictions that are still in place in the country.

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As part of the announcement, The Pokemon Company revealed a short video beginning with Vermillion City, the city in the Pokemon series based on Yokohama, before revealing the location.

No dates for the event were announced, but it’s likely to be a four-day event. It will be the first event during which Pokemon Scarlet and Violet will be the main game used in the VGC competition.

Until 2022, the event had never taken place outside of North America, but this year’s World Championships took place in London.

The London event included a Pokémon Center pop-up store, which caused a degree of drama at first.

Queuing issues plagued the first day of the Pokemon Center pop-up store, but the virtual queuing had reportedly been fixed by Thursday. 

Further reading

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Pokémon Center London pop-up store map reveals new products

An exclusive World Championship Pikachu figure will be on sale at the event

When the Pokémon Center pop-up store had previously visited London, the shop sold out of its exclusive London City Pikachu plush every day, often before 2PM.

The Westfield Shepherds Bush Pokémon Center pop-up store was open for four weeks between October and November 2019, with daily queues of up to five hours. More than 30,000 customers visited the store, it was claimed.