How does our collection fare after buying 10 Pokémori sets?

If you’ve been following SoraNews24 for a while now, you’ll know that Yoshinoya is one of our favorite fast food places to eat. I mean, one of their menu items ranks among the top five best beef bentos available in Japan, and can you go wrong with a place that offers not only beef bowls but also ramen and sukiyaki too?!

…Sorry, I got a little overexcited there. Yes, we like Yoshinoya, especially because last year they released a special Pokémon beef bowl that came with limited edition figurines. Known as Pokémori beef bowls, they were so popular that Yoshinoya had to end the promotion long before it was scheduled to conclude.

Luckily, they’ve brought it back, and added Pikachu to the list of Pokémon you could get as a figurine, and now that they’re available again, the thing on everybody’s mind is collecting all seven of the figurines. Our Japanese-language reporter, Pokémon fan, and Pokémon Go fanatic P.K. Sanjun had to give it a try.

But first, let’s talk about the Pokémori themselves. The renewed campaign offers the set for takeout only for just 498 yen (US$4.65), and it comes with gyudon in a disposable bowl designed to look like a Pokéball, a juice box, and a mystery Pokémon figurine. Currently the rules are that you can only buy three Pokémori sets per family per day.

Now, P.K. himself is not really interested in figurines; at 42 years old, he feels that he’s too old to collect them. But do you know who does want to collect Pokémon toys? His three-year-old daughter. She spotted the Pokémori poster in Yoshinoya’s window one day and got excited about collecting them.

▼ She likes to play Pokémon Go just as much as her dad.

You see, due to her gifted education (administered by her father), P.K.’s daughter has a wide range of interests, ranging from Disney princesses to Pretty Cure and also Pokémon. In fact, for the past half year, she’s been watching the original Pokémon series on Amazon Prime, and since they’ve been in quarantine, she’s been watching several episodes a day. She can even recite Team Rocket’s speech by heart!

Yoshinoya is also offering a kids’ Pokémori set and a kids’ Pokémori curry rice set (448 yen each), so P.K. has been buying those for his daughter for dinner on a fairly regular basis. Sometimes he and his wife would have one, too, so over the course of three weeks, they bought about 10 Pokémori bowls. So did they manage to collect all seven figurines?

Let’s see. They got two Charizards…

One Slowpoke…

two Weepinbells…

One east sea Gastrodon…

One Pikachu…

And three Groudons.

Sadly, they only collected six of the seven varieties, but the only one they’re missing is the west sea Gastrodon, so technically they collected all of the Pokémon available. In any case, they managed to get all of the Pokémon that P.K.’s daughter recognizes (Pikachu, Slowpoke, Charizard, and Weepinbell), so they consider their collection complete, and won’t be buying Pokémori with the intention to collect them all anymore.

▼ As it turned out, the one P.K.’s daughter wanted most was not Pikachu but Weepinbell.

By the way, the figures are all actually pretty detailed, about the same quality of a 200 to 300-yen gacha toy, so they’re pretty good quality figurines. Plus, the mixed fruit juice that comes with the set is great for kids and stores well, so P.K. kept them for his daughter, and they came in handy more than once. That’s why P.K. thinks these Pokémori sets are an excellent value. He highly recommends them!

They’ll only be available until June 15, so make sure you hit up your local Yoshinoya before they’re gone. However, it does seem like this is only the first round of Pokémon figures…so look out for more in the future!

Photos © SoraNews24
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