The Pokémon Company: History

In 1998, Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak established The Pokémon Center Company (ポケモンセンター株式会社, Pokémon Sentā Kabushiki gaisha) to effectively manage the Pokémon Center stores in Japan. After the popularity of ‘Pokémon Gold and Silver', they received many merchandising proposals from around the world. Companies were interested in working with the Pokémon brand. At that time, Tsunekazu Ishihara of Creatures was the person in charge of approving licensed products. For the franchise to continue, Ishihara wished to further expand the franchise with long-term goals, such as continuing the anime series and releasing a movie every year. It was then decided that a new organization was needed to gather together all the strands of brand management. This led the three companies to turn ‘The Pokémon Center Company’ into ‘The Pokémon Company’ in 2000 and further expand its responsibilities and areas of business. In total, the company has stores in 11 locations in Japan, these include; Sapporo, Tohoku, Tokyo, Skytree town, Tokyo-Bay, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima and Fukuoka.

The US branch (Pokémon USA, Inc.) opened in 2001 to handle licensing overseas in the Americas. In 2006, Pokémon Korea, Inc. was founded to manage the company's operations in South Korea. Its headquarters are located in Seoul. In 2009, Pokémon USA and Pokémon UK merged to become The Pokémon Company International, which handles American and European Pokémon operations under the administration of Kenji Okubo. Pokémon Center Co., Ltd. was established in August 2011 to manage the Pokémon Center brand and stores in Japan. Its operations include running Pokémon Store and Pokémon Center stores, maintaining the Pokémon Stand vending machines and operating Pokémon Center Online, as well as overseeing the design and manufacture of Japanese Pokémon Center brand merchandise. Yomiomi Uego is President and CEO.