Since the debut of Pokemon Red and Green in Japan in 1996, Pokemon has grown into one of the biggest and most widely recognized media franchises in the world of entertainment. From the popularity of the video games with Nintendo recently announcing the next main-series games in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, to the success of the franchise as a whole through the trading card game, anime, and more, the monster-catching franchise has grown into an icon not only for the developer but for the gaming industry as a whole.Throughout the history of Pokemon as a franchise, the monster-catching mania has seen no shortage of high-profile collaborations with some of the biggest brands and celebrities. Pokemon's 25th anniversary concert last year featured rapper and musician Post Malone as the star of the show while the franchise has seen regular partnerships with major brands like Build-A-Bear and McDonald's. Now, Pokemon's newest partnership sees the franchise teaming up with Amazon for a subscription service providing fans with new Pokemon-themed T-shirts arriving every month.The collaboration between Amazon and Pokemon was spotted on Sunday afternoon by the Pokemon news Twitter account PokeJungle. No official announcement has been made by either Amazon or Nintendo revealing the partnership with the service quietly launching as a part of Amazon's T-Shirt Club program. The mystery design for the Pokemon T-Shirt Club's first shirt has yet to be revealed, but interested fans are able to sign up for the service on Amazon for a monthly fee of $19.99 with options for Youth, Men's, and Women's fits and sizes ranging from X-Small to 3X-Large.
Pokemon's monthly T-shirt subscription service is the most recent addition to Amazon's massive T-Shirt Club program featuring nearly thirty popular brands from television, movies, and general pop culture. The LootCrate-like subscription service features not only packages focused on individual movies and TV series like The Office and Star Wars, but also has more generic packages featuring a collection of popular bands like Queen and The Who as well as non-specific collections centered around a theme instead of a particular media property. Most subscriptions run a similar price to the Pokemon collection in the $15-20 range.
The success of recent Pokemon titles has shown that, even 25 years after its initial debut took the world by storm, Pokemon's popularity has showed no signs of slowing down. The highly-anticipated Pokemon Legends: Arceus topped sales charts in January despite releasing near the end of the month, and Pokemon Sword and Shield became the third highest-selling games in the franchise, only behind Pokemon's first two generations. Amazon's Pokemon T-shirt subscription service should look to give Pokemon fans a variety of options to show off their love for the storied franchise.