National Pokemon Day (February 27th)

Quick facts
When is it?	Every February 27th
Tagged as:	Hobbies & Activities Toys & Games
What's the hashtag?	#NationalPokemonDay
When was it founded?	2016
We first published this page on:	Dec 23rd, 2017
We last updated this page:	Jan 29th, 2026

Contents

Get on board with National Pokemon Day and have a blast celebrating this nostalgic group of games featuring delightful characters!

How to Celebrate National Pokemon Day

Whether a diehard fan of Pokémon for many years or new to the adventure, this day has many opportunities for enjoyment and fun! Try out these ideas for celebrating National Pokemon Day, or come up with some creative celebrations of your own:

Host a National Pokemon Day Party

Invite friends who are also fans to gather for a National Pokemon Day party where tons of fun Pikachu and Ash Ketchum adventures can be enjoyed. Hook up a Nintendo Switch gaming system and get ready for friends to have a great time playing. Don’t forget to have everyone dress up in a costume as their favorite character from the game!

Of course, snacks and decorations for the party should be Pokémon-themed. In addition to playing Pokémon video games, other activities for kids might include Pin the Tail on the Pikachu, a Catch ‘Em All game with hidden colorful balls (like an Easter Egg hunt) or making a papercraft of Pikachu ears. So much fun is ready to be explored!

Make Some National Pokemon Day Themed Snacks

Whether hosting a party or just taking some treats into the office to share with coworkers, fun culinary adventures can be explored in honor of the day. Food and snacks can be creatively themed around the Pokémon characters, including recipes for ideas like these:

Poké Ball Pizza. It’s simple to turn a standard homemade pizza into something special by making it into a Poké Ball. On a round pizza, make the lines and small circle down the middle of the ‘Poké Ball’ with black olives, placing cheese on the top of one side and pepperoni on the top of the other side. Bake and enjoy!
Bulbasaur Cake. A creative baker can shape a cake into this adorable Pokémon character. The legs and bulb can be made from formed rice crispy treats and the whole thing covered in blue-green fondant icing.
Poké Ball Cookies. With the same idea as Poké Ball Pizza, decorate round cookies with white on one side, red on the other, and use a black icing in a piping bag to make a circle in the middle and lines on each side.

Play Pokémon Go

Although the summer of 2016 ushered it in as a huge fad, the game Pokémon Go is still as fun as ever and can be enjoyed alone or in groups. This simplified version of the game can be played as an App on a smartphone. Although there isn’t as much buzz around the game as there was a few years ago, it is still ranked as one of the leading mobile games in the world and live events are even sometimes held (i.e. Go Fest).

The game continues to evolve and provide new adventures as participants get outside to search for special and rare characters to add to their collections. Pokémon items can even be traded with friends, whether competing against them or playing on a team with them. Some people really enjoy the fact that they can dress up their avatars in costumes!

Serve Pokémon Cocktails

Get into the spirit of the day by serving and enjoying a variety of fun colored cocktails that are inspired by the various characters. Or, if the party is filled with kids, feel free to make them into cute mock-tails without alcohol. Try these out, or get creative and make up some new ones:

Squirtle Squad Shot. Channeling the blue-green color of the Squirtle Squad, this delicious drink can be made by combining ⅓ shot each of three different ingredients: spiced rum, coconut rum and blue curacao. A chaser of pineapple juice is a delicious finale for this one.
The Pikachu Martini (Pika-tini). Brightly colored yellow follows the color of the character who inspired this drink. Make it using mango puree, mango Absolut vodka, Campari and grenadine. Layering the liquids makes a fun yellow and red presentation. Garnish with a maraschino cherry and a triangle slice of mango (as a nod to Pikachu’s ears).
The Fire Breather. Originally depicted as large clowns, these characters spew flames out of their mouths. Make this drink using a shot of Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey, a bit of grenadine, a shot of Bacardi rum and ginger beer.
Jiggly Puff Pina Colada. Made with fresh fruit (pineapple and strawberries) as well as white rum, coconut milk, lime juice, orange juice and Coco Lopez, this blended drink is an absolutely delicious dessert-like treat with a tropical island flair.

No matter which generation a person became a fan or which starter Pokémon got someone going on their first adventure, it can all be celebrated and appreciated on this day, National Pokemon Day!

Pokémon Facts

The facts below focus on Pokémon’s global success, its origins, and its cultural and real-world impact, highlighting how the franchise developed and why it remains influential today.

The Highest-Grossing Media Franchise In History

Pokémon is widely recognized as the highest-grossing media franchise in the world, with cumulative revenue estimates running into the hundreds of billions of dollars when video games, the trading card game, animated series and films, licensed merchandise, and mobile titles like Pokémon Go are included.

Industry analyses consistently place it ahead of other giants such as Hello Kitty, Mickey Mouse & Friends, and Star Wars, underscoring how a Game Boy RPG concept evolved into Japan’s most lucrative contribution to global popular culture.
Bug Collecting Inspired The Core Gameplay

Pokémon’s central loop of roaming, discovering creatures, and cataloging them grows directly out of creator Satoshi Tajiri’s childhood obsession with collecting insects around suburban Tokyo.

Known to classmates as “Dr. Bug,” Tajiri originally wanted to be an entomologist and later translated that urge to explore and trade bugs with friends into a game where players connect their Game Boys, encounter creature “species” in different habitats, and gradually fill a digital encyclopedia.
Pokémon Go Temporarily Boosted Daily Walking By Up To A Third

Multiple peer‑reviewed studies have found that people who started playing Pokémon Go saw a sharp but short‑lived jump in physical activity.

A Duke University study reported that new players added about 2,000 extra steps a day on average, with adults over 30 and people who were overweight gaining even more.

Research in Hong Kong using objective pedometer data saw increases of roughly 1,200 steps per day, or nearly a kilometer of additional walking, although these gains largely faded within a month if players stopped engaging with the app.
Playing Pokémon Go Has Measurable Social And Emotional Effects

Beyond steps, psychologists have looked at how Pokémon Go shapes mood and social life.

A systematic review of dozens of studies found that the game was often associated with improved mood, greater sociability, and more time spent outdoors, and one controlled study of university students linked 10 weeks of regular play with better selective attention, concentration, and sociability scores.

At the same time, other research has noted that a subset of players report sacrificing sleep, exceeding recommended screen-time limits, or showing signs of problematic gaming, illustrating both the potential benefits and risks of location‑based games.
Childhood Pokémon Fans Show A Distinct “Pokémon Area” In The Brain

Neuroscientists at Stanford used fMRI scans to study adults who had played a lot of Pokémon games as children and compared them with people who had not.

When shown Pokémon images, experienced players activated a tightly clustered patch of visual cortex much more strongly than novices, and could identify characters with far higher accuracy.

The finding suggests that the brain can carve out specialized regions for highly practiced, child‑age visual categories, placing Pikachu and friends in the same league of neural “real estate” as faces and written words.
The Pokémon Trading Card Game Became A Global Competitive Circuit

Launched shortly after the original video games, the Pokémon Trading Card Game grew into a structured, tournament-based ecosystem with local leagues, regional championships, and a World Championships event that draws top players from around the globe.

Organized play under the “Play! Pokémon” banner uses detailed rules, age divisions, and prize support that can include scholarships and travel awards, helping transform what began as a schoolyard collecting craze into a formal, international mind sport with its own professional‑style metagame and strategy scene.
Pokémon Go Research Shows Most Playtime Counts As Real Exercise

Studies that objectively monitored players during dedicated Pokémon Go sessions found that the majority of in‑game time qualified as exercise rather than idle screen use.

One lab study of college students reported that about 82 percent of a 60‑minute play session was spent at moderate to vigorous intensity, enough to rack up roughly 6,000 step counts on a pedometer.

Public health researchers have cited this as evidence that well-designed augmented reality games can covertly “sneak” meaningful physical activity into entertainment without asking players to think of it as a workout.

National Pokemon Day FAQs

What is Pokémon?

Pokémon is a video game brand that is part of the Nintendo family of games. It features a variety of little monsters who live in the wild with human characters.[1]

When is National Pokémon Day?

Celebrated on February 27 of each year, National Pokémon Day is observed on this day because it is the anniversary of the release of the first Pocket Monsters Gameboy games in 1996.[2]

How does Pokémon Go work?

Pokémon Go is an Augmented Reality (AR) game in which users walk throughout the real world and then discover Pokémon characters appearing on the map. The goal is to “catch” as many as possible by throwing Poké balls at them.[3]

What are Pokémon cards?

Pokémon cards are trading cards that kids collect. They feature the different characters from the Pokémon video games and the goal is to build up a powerful deck of characters that allows the player to win battles.[4]

What are Pokémon Community Days?

These fun days happen once a month and are linked with the Pokémon Go game. Pokémon Community Days happen worldwide and allow trainers to meet up in local places, like parks, and get to know each other.[5]

History of National Pokemon Day

Marking the anniversary of the Japanese release of Pokémon Red and Green on February 27, 1996, this day is a favorite for fans of the franchise. The game was developed by Game Freak and released by Nintendo to be played on the Game Boy. Featuring collectible pocket monsters, the game was first released in Japan as “Pocket Monsters: Red” and “Pocket Monsters: Green”, which were then followed up later in the year by the special edition of “Pocket Monsters: Blue”.

As far as the celebrations of National Pokemon Day are concerned, the Pokémon Company always seems to have a bunch of treats lined up for fans in celebration of this day each year–from Snapchat filters to figurines and everything in between!

In 2018, the Pokemon Company announced several new products and features for its annual holiday, including the U.S. release of the “Pikachu Talk” app for Amazon’s Alexa devices and Google Home devices.

Also teaming up with Snapchat, the company decided to release three new Snapchat lenses featuring the classic Pokemon Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle. Bulbasaur was released first, followed by Charizard and Squirtle. Each lens features a Pokemon sitting in the bottom corner of the post, along with a halo-like effect around a Snapchatter’s head.

Starting February 2020, the company arranged for fans to be able to vote for the “Pokémon of the Year”, which allowed fans to choose their favorite characters from each category. That year, Greninja won overall, while the Charizard won from the Kanto region and Johto won from the Umbreon region.

Then, by 2021 excited fans were keen to celebrate the game’s 25th anniversary. Events included hosting a virtual concert with rapper Post Malone, special PokemonTV programs, other special activities in Los Angeles, California, and the release of a new Nintendo Switch game, called Pokemon Snap.

Plus, in celebration of the 25th anniversary, the Pokémon franchise teamed up with the Levi’s brand to release a special edition line of 90’s inspired clothing including Pokemon character inspired denim jackets, jeans, jeans shorts, hoodies, t-shirts and more.

National Pokemon Day Timeline

1982

Satoshi Tajiri starts a gaming magazine

With his friend and illustrator, Ken Sugimori, Satoshi starts “Game Freak” gaming magazine, which will eventually become a video gaming company in 1989.[1]

1996

Pokémon is released in Japan

Originally named Pocket Monsters: Red and Green, the Gameboy games are finished in late 1995 and released to the public in late February 1996. The popularity is increased by releasing two games together instead of just a single title.[2]

1998

Pokémon is released in the US and Australia

After becoming popular in Japan, the American release of Pokémon comes two years later. It is at this time that the name Pocket Monsters is shortened to Pokémon.[3]

2016

Pokémon Go is released

Entering the world of Augmented Reality (AR), Pokémon Go is released as a mobile app to be used on smartphones. It becomes one of the most used, as well as one of the most profitable, apps of this year.[4]

2021

Pokémon celebrates 25th anniversary

In addition to releasing new games, like Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, in honor of the day Nintendo also arranges for events that include big names like rapper Post Malone and Katy Perry. McDonald’s also gets involved with trading cards in Happy Meals.[5]