WIP, BEGONE!
I'll preface by saying that, despite what my parents think, I've never been good at writing. That being said, I have no idea to properly segue into this article/page/blog so without further adieu,
THE SHRINE
I'm not entirely sure when we started doing this, but in 2024 Wren and I decided that we were going to buy every single official character-related item of the Black and White cast. Why? For the bit I guess.
So far, decent progress has been made, there's just one tiny problem:
🎉 WE ARE BROKE!! 🎉
Turns out that buying items that are upwards of 10 years old AND that belong to one of the scalpiest fanbases known to man isn't cheap. Especially when you're both high school students with no jobs or income to speak of. Thankfully Wren is extremely good at navigating shopping sites and she's been able to find some cheaply priced stuff!
This page is gonna cover the items we have, and are looking to get. I guess this list also doubles as a decent enough catalog of all Pokémon Black and White character merchandise, so if ya need a list, here you go.
Before we start, stuff that we have is in color, stuff that we don't have is greyed out. Hovering over greyed out items restores the color.
That being said, please enjoy our consumerism extravaganza featuring unfunny, unintentionally irate, and weirdly specific commentary from yours truly! Hopefully this word vomit teaches you the power of second drafts and not saying everything that comes to mind because I know I sure didn't.
The Pokémon Mate Series
Chances are, if you've seen these guys, you've probably seen the keychains or the 3DS background. But did you know there's a MUG?! Two mugs even? Groundbreaking, I know.
The Rubber Straps
The first time I ever heard Wren say "rubber strap" I was confused. Don't ask what I envisioned. I am a distrubed individual.
Us not having Submas merchandise (yet) is going to be a recurring theme throughout this list. They're quite a bit more expensive than everyone else (barring N of course).
Sorry that these are so crunchy, I found very few scanned photos and these guys somehow ended up being the most HD. Please let me know if you've seen any higher quality scans.
Hanged Up
Jellybean eyes with no soul. This is an odd thing to say, but they look edible. Unfortunately I cannot eat them due to dietary restrictions, no plastic, pvc, or vinyl allowed.
You can't tell from the angle on some of them, but did you know all of these guys have eyebrows?
Riveting.
He is balding at age fourteen...
Majority of the Black and White cast have interesting hairlines to say the least, these little figures let you see them in their full glory. Ahem... [Insert image of hatless Ingo PLA concept art here]
I dunno... conjoined twins..?
You cannot remove them from each other, they are eternally bound (unless you bust out the wire clippers). Best hope you're happy with the duos Game Freak's made, cause there's no changing them.
It's like a friendship charm where you can't give the other half to another person. I guess real friendship is being chained together ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The scans of these have a very mustardy color all throughout, but in reality they have a metallic chain and the guys themselves are encased in an amber-ish plastic...
...or resin
...or something else
...I don't know the difference.
Bottom line is that the mystery material is nowhere near as opaque or saturated as in the renders.
The best way I can describe the color is the yellow tinge that white walls in smokers' houses get after a couple dozen packs or that undyed molten candy from all those hard candy making videos on YouTube. It's more of an amalgamation of both; shade of the smoker walls and transparency of the candy.
...I really do find the most convuluted ways to describe the most basic things, huh. Weirdest lovechild I've ever came up with.
uh...
There are so many straps in this collection that I'm running out of headings... ack...
The Pokéball chain is cute.
Badges
Finally moving on from straps, we have some cool buttons!
The text in the bezel is a fun touch, same with the Pokéball. I'm not too sure how to word what I'm trying to say properly, but they're just pleasant to look at. Circles being the main motif on a circular badge blew my mind I guess.
You can also use these badges to tell people if you're a boy/girl.
Game Freak was really ahead of the times.
Clearfiles
Would like to use one of these for school but I don't trust myself. Last year my folder was two inches thick with the bearings popped apart. Now I just shove loose paper into my backpack where it gets crushed.
I would say that I'd get bullied for it too but nah, I'm built different (nobody has willingly spoken to me for the entirety of my high school career).
Stationery/Notebooks
Notebooks came bundled with stationery.
MUGS
NOW we're getting somewhere. MUGS! HELL YEAH!
Bring out the fine china, we have guests.
Tote Bag
Y'know if I bought this, my mom would unironically use it. She loves her tote bags.
Honest to god I hope she uses it because I don't want to see her in public with a bag that says "mama mommy mom bruh" ever again.
Rather than frowning, Ingo is smiling on this bag. You'd assume that they'd use the same clipart across all designs but I guess not. It's an interesting oversight to say the least.
Aaaand I have the 3DS background too. (Thank you Anenome and hshop.)
The Game Dot Series
This was a line of merchanidise incorporating the actual sprites from the games. There are upwards of 250 items in this collection, quite a few of them aren't listed on MyFigureCollection. If I'm not mistaken, all Gen 5 Pokémon got a menu sprite charm, along with some Gen 1 Pokémon. Aside from the pocket monsters themselves, this series has quite a few character items (namely of Hilda, Hilbert, Cheren, Bianca, and N.)
Ignore that though! Who wants to talk about BW character merchandise on the webpage about BW character merchandise? You know what the most important thing about this series really is?
The Game Dot series has multiple wristwatches and staplers.
To think, *YOU* could be working a dead end 9-to-5 with a Charizard stapler on your desk and an N watch on your wrist.
Life is just full of miracles.
Jokes aside, this series has a ton of strange stuff in it. There's really a lot to say. I don't want to get too sidetracked though, I'll do a full overview of this series in a different article because on an objective level, this is TPC's merchandise at its weirdest.
The Game Dot Figures
Normally I'd say voxel figures look like shit, (see any 8bit Funko ever), but I think these actually look quite nice.
Maybe I'm biased, or maybe that's just Funko being Funko.
These guys were intially sold for 800 yen but now go for about 4500 yen. Why the fuck was I busy being a three year old and not buying these? Rookie mistake.
Rubber Straps
Back at it again with the rubber straps.
insert images here yada yadaI'm very good at losing keys and by that I mean I've lost my keys once and my mom's lost three of my keys but denies it. So... my family doesn't really trust me with keys and I constantly have to borrow my sister's when going to get stuff from my mom or dad's houses.
Recently it's been suggested that I get a keyring with a bunch of Pokémon keychains on it so that I don't lose it.
Finally there's a bright idea in this household for once.
Rubber Straps Part 2
Rubber Charms
Buttons
Stationery
NotepadsClearfiles
Callendar
Gimme a callendar that's way out of date and I'll display it proudly.
MUG
Another mug!
Forget a best boss mug, gimme a Pokémon Black and White mug.
Apparel
PolosT-shirt
Watches
Rollie on my wrist.
Oh yeah this series also has fucking Pikachu boxer briefs. I didn't believe at first it either.
Pokémon Trainers (Product Line)
BW2 Character Merchandise (Product Line)
Miscellaneous
Cards
I love Pokémon Cards. Almost as much as those 60 year-old men that break out into fistfights at Costco to get a box or two... or seventeen. If I could get into a bare-knuckle brawl over a box of cards to pledge my alliegance to Pikachu himself, I would. Unfortunately, by the time I show up to get a box, there's an overweight man on a stretcher and no boxes in sight.
I guess I'm just not passionate enough. I just don't have the heart of the cards.
Rest easy scalper soldier, you fought well on the Riteaid battlefield. Valhalla awaits your soul.
Valhalla is what I named my Odd Keystone.
108 impure souls doesn't seem like an easy feat, but with how committed scalpers are to sumoing each other into concussed territory and being assholes in general, it's really easy.
Please know that if you are a scalper, I smile a bit each time you pull a regular uncommon holo instead of a rare.
That was a bit of a tangent, wasn't it?
Anyhow, thanks to a certain demographic, pulling for full art trainer cards can now legally be considered monetary suicide. As such, we're gonna be buying most of our cards.
We're looking for any and all full art trainer cards, trainer galleries, or trainer's Pokémon cards. These won't be sorted by set, because that would be extremely inefficient. (Most sets only have one or two full art trainers. This list is by grouped by trainer, going alphabetically.
"Hey Cooper, the Indigo Disk characters have cards, aren't they from Unova?"
Yeah.
Anyhow, cards are prolly lowest priority. I can't just throw money at eBay card sellers like they're strippers.
The full art Rosa is actually Cosmic Eclipse's main chase card. $200 ungraded... so yeah, this is on the backburner for now.
Honestly, it's a bit funny to think that some shiny cardboard goes for more than a full figure or life-sized plush. The Pokémon TCG has some crazy talent behind the art on their cards though, I can see why so many people love these things, hell, I'm one of them!
If you have the Boundaries Crossed Skyla card give it to me please please please
Sleeves
Deck Boxes
Now for probably the most exciting things on this list:
FIGURES!
(Barring the game dot figures since we already talked about them...)
Banpresto Partners Figures
Ash also has a figure in this product line, but this page is centered around characters in the games, hence his absence.
That being said, it's a bit strage how a third of the figures in a product line called "Partners Figure" lack a Pokémon partner altogether. I guess you could make the case that Ingo and Emmet are a duo so they fit the criteria but eh...
You could make a strong case for N figures here too. In canon, he released the Darumaka so it can't really be considered a partner whereas Zorua is debatable. It depends on which Zorua/Zoroark you're talking about.
Nitpicky logistics aside, I'm really not too excited for these guys to arrive. The only shelf with space that I have in my room is the one right above my bed.
Who gave me financial freedom?! Why did I spend thirty dollars on this?!
Ah well, I get a cute Zorua and that's worth it to me :)
ARTFX J Figures
Protag figs with starters! These guys are super cool and super nice looking.
This series is still ongoing; Calem is currently being prototyped. Right now, the only protags not in this series are Kris, Hilbert, Elio, Akari, and Rei. (Chase and Elaine too but I wouldn't count on them getting figures.) You could also argue that Rei and Akari are contenders for not getting figures either since the Hisui starter trio are already taken by other figures in this collection. Same goes for Hilbert.
Just thinking out loud here but they could always go the non-starter route. Nate's still in PMEX with a Braviary after all.
Y'know I honestly wouldn't mind if Hilbert never got an ARTFX figure because of [INSERT JOKE THAT ONLY THREE OTHER PEOPLE GET HERE]
If he did get one though I would preorder it.
COUGH Give him Genesect please COUGH
Kotobukiya Pokémon Center Figures
I have a LOT to say about these figures individually so I'm gonna space them out one at a time.
I feel the need to mention that this is the 74th most wished figure on MyFigureCollection.
Why.
First of all the fuck is he looking at me like that for. Is he mewing?
Kotobukiya has done it again. They somehow made his y = 0.3 sin x shoes look normal.
Good lord his kicks suuuuuuuuuck. Buddy the Elf shoes in green.
Someone remind me to graph his shoes in Desmos at some point because I will do it. That sounds weird. I don't mean it in a weird way.
Most of what I want to say about this figure can be summarized by *heavy breathing*
It's probably obvious at this point but I really like Skyla. I pulled a regular trainer card of her from Breakthrough when I was like seven and since then it's been so over for me.
I dunno, I just think she's really cool...
I don't think you need me to tell you that this figure is rad. This posing is great, it's sculpted insanely well, and the feathers are a fun touch.
Well then, this figure was originally $130 when it released! Unfortunately they were made-to-order so you can't get them from Pokémon Center anymore, but no worries because that's where buying secondhand comes in!
Let's see how much she goes for...
Oh.
Haha.
Okay...
...Ahem...Aaaaand that's all folks!
I really don't know why but whenever I'm writing about my hobbies instead of sounding passionate about them I sound mildly irritated by their existence. (Just to clarify I do enjoy my hobbies very much lol.)
If anything here is missing, it's either because it's a low priority and we're not actively looking for it or it's extremely hard to find and we are gatekeeping its existence until we get our hands on it.
Thank you for taking the time to read about Wren and I's monetary escapades! I hope you enjoyed!
This is a shot in the dark cause I know not many people are gonna visit this site, but if you have any of these up for grabs, shoot me a message and we might be able to work something out!
We'll tack on a few photos of our stuff once we've got a good display going too, so stay tuned for that!
Honestly I need a bag or something so I can display straps and buttons. Right now the only keychain that I take outside is a Samurott one from a convention and I don't even properly show it off. I just keep it in the bottle holder on the side of my backpack lol. Maybe one day I'll show him off properly.
Game Freak make more Hugh stuff you cowards.