Getting these items was a journey!
In 2023, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam partnered with Pokémon to celebrate the museum's 50th anniversary. When announced, the museum shared that Japanese art prints were a significant inspiration to Vincent Van Gogh - so this partnership didn't seem so out of left field anymore. Plus it would be a fun way to get some new attention on Van Gogh's work.
The Van Gogh Museum was going to exhibit Pokémon art in the style of Van Gogh in addition to a guided adventure for kids and exclusive merchandise in the museum's store. (The exhibit run has concluded at the time of writing this.)
Since I could not visit the museum in person, I had to hope that the U.S. Pokémon Center website would offer some merchandise items online as it has had in the past for other collaborations.
I'm a firm believer that to get rid of scalpers, you have to stop supporting scalpers. Pokémon Van Gogh Museum merchandise did appear online for us in the States but was taken up by scalpers and bots pretty fast so I missed out.
The Pokémon Center website did offer a TCG promotion that came with the Pikachu promo card from this collaboration so I was able to snag one for my collection. And then months later, when I had given up, Pokémon Van Gogh merchandise quietly appeared again on the Pokémon Center website! I was able to get in and buy my plush and a few other items I was hoping to get from this collection.
I pride myself in the Pikachu plush collection I've built over the years and am very happy to have the Van Gogh Pikachu finally in it.
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