Japan: Yokohama City Hosts Pikachu Dancing Event

Yokohama, August 24: The city of Yokohama, in partnership with The Pokemon Company, has been holding city-wide "Pikachu Outbreak!" events for four years in a row. A lot of fans of Pokemon series gather from all over the world for this event. "Pikachu", which is one of the most popular characters from Pokemon series, can be seen everywhere in Yokohama during this event. It is attracting many people from kids to adults. Fans in this event also enjoy wearing Pokemon's costume and showing Pokemon's goods. On this day, Yokohama city is covered by Pokemon phenomenon.

"Pikachu is very cute and my children are also enjoying decorations and show. We never attended this kind of event anywhere before, so we are having a very unique experience," said a visitor. The Splash Show is held at Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse and has become an annual event. This is a popular event because participants can get a lot of water splash during hot summer.

"Pikachu" and "Eevee"--the characters which were introduced for the first time this year-- participated in the event. This year also many people came here to cool down and enjoyed watching their cute dancing. "Pikachu is really great. We watched them dancing and splashing water everywhere. It was a really great time for me." said another visitor to the event.

One of the main events is "Electrical Pikachu's March". Using lighting digital technology costumes, many Pikachus marched along with beat-up song music and performed a stylish dance. Although they were very attractive and exhibited cool dancing which is completely different from their usual image, they could not hide their cuteness.

Junya Masuda from the Pokemon Company said, "In this fifth-year event, more than 1500 Pikachus appeared in Yokohama Minatomirai District. Yokohama city is known as a very attractive city among tourists, and we think that one of the special attractions is the beautiful night view of Yokohama, so we have prepared "Pokemon Synchronicity" event to show Pikachus with Yokohama night view in the background."

The "Pokemon Synchronicity" is a 30-minute night show, featuring ship parade with a lot of Pikachus against the background of images floating on the sea. The Pikachu and Pokemon fans are looking forward to visit Yokohama next year to once again relish such great performances and amazing night scenes of Yokohama.