Todays Trend
Carly, a member of staff at Forbidden Planet in Hanley, said the store had played the Pokémon theme music to help get customers into the spirit while they queued. "I've personally not been in for a Pokémon launch, so I had no idea what to expect. When I walked around and I saw the queue, I was like 'oh my goodness'," she said.
She added it was a mixture of nostalgia and a significant anniversary that had led to the launch being so "heightened" this week. "There's a lot of people love opening stuff where they don't know what's going to be inside it - it could be blind boxes, it could be like packs of cards or whatever. "I think people just like the not knowing, the surprise of what could possibly be in it." Pokémon cards were first released in 1996, and featured 102 different designs with drawings by artists Ken Sugimori, Mitsuhiro Arita and Keiji Kinebuchi.
They soon became very popular, with tournaments springing up, and millions of cards have since been produced and played all around the world. Earlier this year, one of the rarest and most sought-after Pokémon cards sold for $16.5m (£12m). It belonged to American influencer and wrestler Logan Paul, who bought it for $5.275m (£3.8m) in July 2021.
At the time this also broke a Guinness World Record for the most expensive Pokémon card ever sold.
Source: BBC
