Chosen By Popular Demand
Pikachu is so popular he’s got Mickey Mouse fame, but why is Eevee in a starring role as well? Aside from his objective superiority (all those evolutions!), Pokemon director Junichi Masuda revealed a couple more reasons for Eevee’s new spotlight status in the upcoming Let’s Go! games.
First of all, it’s a callback to the rival’s choice of Pokemon in Yellow. Second, it turns out Eevee is also crazy popular in Japan. According to Masuda:
Over the years I’ve received tons of just like fan art and comments on Twitter from fans that just love Eevee. And I learned at one point that in Japan at least, they had come up with a kind of fan determined special Eevee Day on November 21st, because you can read out November 21st one-one-two-one as E-E-Vu- E: which is the Japanese name for Eevee. So over the years I realized how popular Eevee had become. You know the furriness and fluffiness of it’s tail and everything and just kind of how cute and attractive as a Pokémon it is. So that was the reason I ultimately determined that Eevee would be the second version.
Masuda also got into some other details of the games, which you can check out in the video embedded below. Personally, I’m hoping the Go/Let’s Go connection is a minor one, as I’ve got little time or tolerance for mobile spinoffs. I’m super ready for that goofy pokeball peripheral though. Pokemon Let’s Go, Pikachu!/Eevee! is coming to the Nintendo Switch on November 16th, 2018.