This round is just as fun as the last!

It’s a good time to be a Pokémon fan in Japan; not only did they just hold the Pokémon World Championships in Yokohama and tons of festivities to go along with it, but McDonald’s Japan is also handing out Pokémon toys with its Happy Meals. The first set came out earlier this month and rekindled our Japanese-language reporter Ninoude Punico’s playful spirit, but the second set is out now, and it’s just as good!

There are four toys in this set, which, like the previous round, is also festival-themed, with the options as follows:

● Festival Pokémon Scoop
● Festival Pikachu Target Shooting Game
● Summer Festival Pinball Game
● Festival Pikachu Fireworks Fan

Just like last time, all of the toys are colorful and fun, with cute Pokémon designs. The Pokémon Scoop, for example, is a Pokémon take on a staple summer festival game–kingyo-zukui, or goldfish scooping. It comes as a set with a scoop, a basket, and four disks decorated with either Pikachu (wearing a happi coat), Sprigatito, Fuecoco, or Quaxley.

To play, you float the disks in a bath or pool, then use the scoop to pick them up and drop them into the basket. Compared to goldfish scooping, this game has an added level of difficulty. Ordinarily, in the festival game, your scoop has a fragile paper screen in the center that you use to catch the goldfish. That’s difficult enough, but the new Happy Meal Toy scoop has no center…so it’s extra challenging, even for adults!

If you find it to be too hard to catch disks with this scoop, Ninoude recommends flipping it over. She found it to be a bit easier that way.

The second toy is the Festival Pikachu Target Shooting Game, which comes with a little squirt gun and three Poké Ball-shaped targets. The squirt gun is decorated with a Pikachu in festival garb hugging a Poké Ball…which is super cute!

There’s a hole in the Poké Ball through which the water is absorbed, and a button on the back of the tank squirts it back out again. The tank is pretty small, so it doesn’t fit a lot of water, and it doesn’t fire rapidly, which means you have to concentrate and really take aim when shooting the targets.

The other game-style toy is the Summer Festival Pinball Game, which is full of summer vibes, with lanterns, fireworks, and a Pikachu dressed in festival clothes.

There are three goals for the pinballs marked with Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxley, each of which has different point values, indicated by one Pokéballs, two Great Balls, or three Ultra Balls. Fuecoco in the middle is worth the most, so you have to really work on your technique to get the maximum points.

It’s fun to play by yourself, and even better to test yourself against a friend. Plus it’s compact and easy to carry around, which Ninoude appreciated!

And the very last Happy Meal toy is the Festival Pikachu Fireworks Fan. Both sides are different designs, with a night-sky with fireworks design on the front and a traditional seigaiha pattern, meant to be evocative of ocean waves, in light blue on the back.

An extra cool thing about it is that the base of the fan, which is connected to the handle, is actually holographic, so when you look at it from different angles, the positions of the Sprigatito, Fuecoco, and Quaxley change. So cute!

This is something that would delight both adults and children, so Ninoude wouldn’t be surprised to see lots of people using one this August. In fact, all of the toys in this round of Pokémon Happy Meal toys are highly satisfying, and the multiple water-friendly toys are a godsend in this hot, hot summer!

These toys are available with McDonald’s Happy Meals now, but after August 25, all the toys from both rounds of Pokémon Happy Meals will be distributed at random, so if you want a particular toy from Round 2, it’d be better to go now rather than later.

And don’t forget! Mister Donut is currently serving Pokémon-shaped donuts…so why not pick some up for dessert?

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[ Read in Japanese ]