Sleepy Pokémon and smiling faces from an adorable fan event going on in Japan right now.

There’s that old joke that starts “Where does an 800-pound gorilla sleep?” with the answer of “Anywhere it wants,” and if we’re making 800 pounds the cutoff, then an animal that weighs 1,014.1 pounds definitely qualifies too, right? However, it’s not just the species’ official Pokédex-listed weight that gives Snorlax unlimited unilateral sleeping space selection privileges, but also how adorable the perpetually sleepy Pokémon is.

And so it is that several Snorlax are currently taking naps right in the city of Yokohama, with the blessing, and to the joy, of the human community.

These snoozing sessions are part of the Pokémon Sleeping Faces Research fan event that kicked off on July 17 at the Mark Is and Landmark Plaza shopping centers, which are located across the street from one another in Yokohama’s Minato Mirai district, located about 30 minutes south of Tokyo by train.

As part of the three-year-anniversary celebration of wellness app Pokémon Sleep, there are actually a number of different Pocket Monster species for fans to find and photograph, but it’s Snorlax that most closely aligns with the event’s theme, and the brightest highlight is to be found on the first floor of Landmark Plaza.

Landmark Plaza has a large central atrium, and the plaza in the middle of it is often used for musical performances or art exhibits (or Titan attacks). For the time being, though, it’s been commandeered by a life-size Snorlax!

The big guy was considerate enough to stretch out in the middle of the plaza, allowing fans to photograph him from all sides and also to maneuver around him if they need to get by. Seeing a full-scale Snorlax like this, though, it becomes easy to understand how the species served as a roadblock in the original Pokémon video games, because there’s no way a young, fledgling Pokémon Trainer could have rolled something this massive out of the way.

A pair of long stairways connect the plaza with the building’s upper floors, and standing at the top of their one gives you a clear line of sight for observing of photographing Snorlax from, and you can also get some cool overhead angles at other spots around the center.

But as fans know, when Snorlax does wake up, it’s a physically powerful Pokémon, and the size of its claws is a reminder that it could do some serious damage if it was angry.

Set up around this Snorlax are a series of tree stumps so that fans who’ve brought their own Pokémon pals with them can snap artistically arranged photos.

The event staff was also handing out placards shaped like the fruits Snorlax is fond of eating. With the Pokémon’s humongous appetite, it takes a lot of these fruits to fill Snorlax up, and so fans are encouraged to write messages on them and hang them for Snorlax to munch on when it wakes up, similar to the tradition of writing wishes on ema boards and hanging them at shrines in Japan.

▼ There’s also some cool fan art to be spotted on some of them.

In addition to the Sleeping Snorlax on he first floor of Landmark Plaza, there’s one at the basement level 4 entrance to Mark Is (the entrance closest to the gates of the Minato Mirai subway station)…

…and one more on the upper floors of Landmark Plaza, who has a pillow for even more restful sleep.

▼ As someone who’s struggled with insomnia for most of my life, I feel like I could learn a lot from Snorlax.

But while Snorlax may sleep for more hours a day than any other Pokémon, all of them need to catch some Zs now and again, and so there are several other sleeping species to find.

One of the easiest to track down is located on the first floor of Mark Is, which also has a giant Snorlax balloon in its central atrium.

Underneath it, there’s sure to be a long line of fans waiting to snap pics of…

…Eevee!

▼ You might recognize this as the same spot in the building that hosted a huge Eevee evolutions display during one of Yokohama’s Pikachu Outbreaks.

Elsewhere inside Mark Is you can come across Psyduck, getting some much-needed rest…

…and also inside the building is Jigglypuff, who’s taking a break from slumber-inducing singing to get some sleep of its own.

▼ Posted next to the sleeping Pokémon are signs asking fans to refrain from touching them so as to not wake them up.

Meanwhile, over at Landmark Plaza you’ll see Pikachu…

…Slowpoke…

…and all three of the original Gen-1 starters, Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle.

▼ So you can now add “Who looks the cutest while sleeping?” to the criteria to take into consideration when choosing your starter.

In addition to looking adorable, the non-Snorlax Pokémon statues are where you’ll find the stamps for the Pokémon Sleeping Faces Research stamp rally.

Inside Landmark Plaza and Mark Is you can get a Snorlax-shaped stamp sheet with six blank spaces on the back, and once you gather all six stamps, you can show your completed sheet to the staff at the service counter inside Landmark Plaza for an exclusive Pokémon Sleeping Faces Research in Yokohama sticker.

▼ A stamp station

As part of the event, Mark Is also has a Pokémon Sleep merch shop and themed drink stand, offering the items we previewed here. Be warned, though, that both are extremely popular, so you probably won’t be able to just waltz in on a whim. On the day I visited (the second day of the event), the staff was handing out seiriken, essentially line-place holder tickets that give you a block of time in which you can be admitted later in the day, and they were all gone by the late afternoon. So if you’ve got your heart set on getting some merch or a drink, you’ll want to show up early in the day (Mark Is opens at 10 a.m. daily).

On the other hand, if you’re not so concerned about accessing the shop or drink stand, any time of day is worth visiting to see not only the sleeping Pokémon statues, but also artwork of a ton of other snoozing Pocket Monsters.

▼ This section on the third floor of Landmark Plaza, with each generation’s starter trios all lined up in a row, is especially cool.

Pokémon Sleeping Faces Research is scheduled to run until August 23.

Related: Pokémon Sleeping Faces Research official website, Landmark Plaza, Mark Is
Photos ©SoraNews24
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