Unexpected collaboration has an admirable purpose.

There’s an unspoken understanding in works of fiction that just because some aspect of daily life isn’t depicted, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist within that created environment. Throughout the decades of Gundam anime, for example, no one has been shown filling out a tax return, but that’s just because personal income taxes have no bearing on the story, so such details can be omitted from the on-screen action.

Still, it can come as a surprise when natural and intrinsic real-world life patterns intersect with anime worlds, such as with Japan’s new Pokémon-themed feminine hygiene goods.

In a crossover between the beloved anime/video game franchise and popular Japanese lifestyle brand Plaza, 12 different Pocket Monster species will be appearing on packs of Plaza’s The Week Sanitary Pads. Launched in 2022, The Week seeks to alleviate the awkwardness and stress that some girls and young women experience when shopping for and purchasing such products. With a lighthearted, fashionable packaging design, Plaza says its hopes to make picking up a pack of sanitary pads feel as natural as going to the store to get some snacks or cosmetics.

Thanks to a collaboration that began this month, there are now two special Pokémon-themed The Week Sanitation Pad packages, one with Pikachu, Charmander, Snorlax, Slowpoke, Ditto, and Togepi, and the other with Eevee, Psyduck, Chansey, Piplup, Diglett, and Gengar.

While The Week is available at Plaza shop locations nationwide, the Pokémon-package versions aren’t currently planned to be offered for commercial sale. Instead, they’re part of an educational outreach program that Plaza is part of in which it supplies feminine hygiene products, free of charge, to schools, PTAs, and other youth organizations, helping to destigmatize open discussion about the necessity and use of sanitary pads and napkins. However, seeing as how there was a time in Japan when you could walk into drugstores and buy Sailor Moon menstrual pads, perhaps the Pokémon ones will eventually make their way to Plaza shelves as well,

Source: PR Times
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: PR Times, Plaza
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