Pokémon Center

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  In April 1998, a store opened in Tokyo named after a place that exists only inside a video game. Pokémon Center took its name from fictional clinics where game characters bring their creatures to be healed. The real stores gave fans something to hold: plush toys, action figures, cereal boxes, clothing, backpacks, and badges. What would it take for a brand built entirely around a fictional universe to endure in the real world for decades?

• 2. A Network Grows

  ›

  Pokémon Center Osaka opened in 2010 at 830 square meters, making it one of the chain's bigger physical locations. It was the seventh Pokémon Center in Japan. The original Tokyo location had also closed and reopened at a different address over the years. The Greater Tokyo Area would eventually hold ten stores on its own.

  At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan's Pokémon Center network was reduced to a single open location. Three smaller sites also stayed operational. The store in Okayama did not survive: it closed permanently.

  By 2023, the count had climbed back above 20. As of 2026-23 Pokémon locations operate in Japan, five of which carry the label "Pokémon Store" rather than "Pokémon Center." Pokémon Company International had also launched an online Pokémon Center store in 2014, extending the brand to fans far from any physical location.

• 3. Across Borders

  ›

  On the 16th of November, 2001, Nintendo opened a Pokémon Center at Rockefeller Center in New York City. The store ran until 2005, when it closed and was replaced by the Nintendo World Store. That same space was renovated and rebranded as Nintendo New York in 2016.

  Singapore became the chain's next international home on the 17th of April, 2019, when a Pokémon Center opened inside Jewel Changi Airport. Taiwan followed on the 8th of December, 2023. A Pokémon Center opened at the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store in Taipei's Xinyi District, not far from Taipei 101.

  As of 2026, those two stores are the only active Pokémon Centers outside Japan. A third was expected to open at CentralWorld in Bangkok in 2026. That year also brought a violent crime to the Pokémon Center in Ikebukuro, Tokyo.

• 4. Ikebukuro, 2026

  ›

  On the 26th of March, 2026, a sales clerk at the Pokémon Center in Ikebukuro, Tokyo was stabbed to death. Her assailant was a former boyfriend who took his own life shortly after the attack.

  Across the chain, most events scheduled for April and May were canceled in the weeks that followed. As of 2026-25 active Pokémon Centers operate worldwide, a total that will shift when Bangkok opens its doors.