Since I visited the Pokemon Centre in Singapore, it will come as no surprise to you that I visited the Pokemon Centre in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. It’s located on the second floor of Sunshine City.

In my opinion, the Ikebukuro Pokemon Centre evokes distinctly different vibes from its counterpart in Singapore. For one, there were less large-scale figurines in Ikebukuro even though it was many times bigger. I could only spot one Poke Stop and one dragon-like Pokemon. (No, I don’t know its name. Yes, I’m waiting to be enlightened.) I must say that I was a bit disappointed at first because I wanted to take appealing Instagrammable photos to showcase on my social media.

The Ikebukuro store appeared like a consumerism trap, but I did find some depth within this cesspool of fiat-sucking merchandise. Maybe I’m easily pleased, but I was quite impressed by how traditional craftsmanship married with Pokemon icons in the form of Le Creuset cutlery. Pokemon characters were also used to enliven Karuta cards, a traditional Japanese card game. It was quite interesting for me to see how Pokemon was used to adorn other forms of Japanese arts and crafts to appeal to younger Japanese and a global audience. Great marketing, to say the least.

The major drawback of this place was that because people were so eager to cough up their cash for Pokemon merchandise, I had to wait for over 30 minutes before I could purchase my souvenirs. You had to be prepared to wait patiently should you choose the same path. In this instance, you could test your knowledge of Pokemon characters by looking at their pictures on the wall.