The original Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue were in black and white, so these Uniqlo tees are too.
The mainline Pokémon video games customarily release as a differently subtitled pair. This tradition goes all the way back to the very first games in the series, 1996’s Pokémon Red and Green, or Pokémon Red and Blue for the international release two years later.
Ironically, though, while the different versions were designated by different colors in their titles, those very first Pokémon games’ graphics were in black and white, on account of being developed for the original Game Boy hardware. So with the Pokémon franchise currently celebrating its 30th anniversary, Uniqlo is looking all the way back to the series’ starting point with a new collection of monochrome Pokémon pixel art T-shirts.
And when we say Uniqlo is looking all the way back to the start, we really mean all the way back to the start, as one of the designs is of the Pokémon Red start screen.
▼ At the time fans in Japan first saw this screen, there was no chance of them mistakenly calling protagonist Red “Satoshi” (as Ash is known in Japan), because the Pokémon Red video game came out more than a year before the first Pokémon anime episode aired.
After hitting the start button, it wasn’t long until players learned that before they could earn the right to call themselves a Pokémon Master, they were going to have to prove their prowess by taking down the eight Gym Leaders of the Indigo League. Specifically, they were going to have to take down each Leader’s themed team of Pokémon, including a particularly powerful representative of each Type, and those eight species are the stars of Uniqlo’s next shirt.
▼ Onix, Starmie, Raichu, Vileplume, Weezing, Alakazam, Arcanine, and Rhydon
Defeating a Gym Leader is an accomplishment that any ambitious Pokémon Trainer should be proud of, and this shirt lets you wear that pride on your sleeve, literally, by displaying the eight Gym Badges, each a mark of victory, on the T-shirt’s left sleeve.
Of course, the ultimate challenge was defeating Mewtwo, and so the intimidating Psychich-type is the muse for a shirt of its own.
And, fittingly for the most elusive Gen-I Pokémon of them all, if you circle around to the back of the shirt and look way down towards the hem…
…you can find Mewtwo, too.
Mewtwo’s original in-game appearance is a little different from how he looks today, and that’s also true of the Pokémon prominently featured on the final adult-sized shirt, Pikachu.
While Pikachu has never been especially svelte, he had a decidedly chunkier physique back in the Pokémon Red and Green days, and some long-time fans have a soft spot for this old-school, heavyset version. The Pikachu shirt is also the only one with a pocket. Why? Because as the text on the shirt is localized in English-language versions of the games, “What? Pikachu is evolving!”
And as all Pokémon Trainers know, when Pikachu evolves, he evolves into…
…Raichu, who can be seen printed on the pocket’s inner-side fabric.
Now, some Pokémon historians might point out that while Pokémon Red, Green, and Blue were indeed developed for the Game Boy’s black-and-white display, colors could be retroactively added in when they were played on the Game Boy Color, which was released two years after Pokémon Red and Green debuted in Japan. Perhaps as a nod to this, Uniqlo has also crated four kids size shirts for the collection that do have more colorful designs, and can be seen in the video below along with the adult shirts.
The adult shirts are priced at 1,990 yen (US$12) and the kids at 990, with the whole bunch going on sale July 24 and orderable through Uniqlo’s online store here.
Source: Uniqlo
Top image: Uniqlo
Insert images: Uniqlo (1, 2, 3, 4)
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!