And yes, Sunflora is involved.

There are few anime/video game series with such an expansive and impressive collection of art as Pokémon boasts. There are now over 1,000 different Pokémon species, and each piece of key art or trading card illustration is, in essence, a portrait of the creature.

So while it’s a happy surprise, it’s not without a certain logic that the newest creative tie-up for the Pokémon franchise is a collaboration with Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum.

The partnership was revealed in an adorable (of course) teaser video posted by the official Pokémon Twitter account, which opens with Pikachu and Eevee frolicking down a path that cuts through a field of sunflowers, which are of special significance to 19th Century Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. As they pass by a windmill, though, a drop of sky-blue paint falls on Pikachu’s head, and there’s an art shift to Van Gogh’s instantly recognizable visual style.

Pikachu and Eevee then notice that the surrounding sunflowers have changed into a crowd of Grass-type Sunflora Pokémon, before the video ends with a peek at a painting of a Sunflora done in the Van Gogh aesthetic.

No explicit promise is made, but the implication seems to be that this painting will be displayed at the Van Gogh Museum during the event. The prominent featuring of Pikachu and Eevee suggests there’s a chance that they’ll be getting Van Gogh-style portraits as well, similar to their Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”-inspired redesigns for the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, but it looks like we’ll have to wait to know for sure until we get closer to the event’s opening at the Van Gogh Museum, which is coming mercifully soon on September 28. In the meantime, there’s still time to catch the Pokémon card art exhibitions going on in Yokohama.

Source, images: Twitter/@Pokemon
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Follow Casey on Twitter, where he can’t help wondering if there will be a special one-eared Pikachu offered in the museum’s gift shop.