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The night sky over IIT Bombay lit up this December with fan favorites Pikachu, Charizard, and the magic of Pokémon. As part of the 29th edition of Techfest, India witnessed its first-ever Pokémon drone show. It was a dazzling spectacle that marked a significant milestone for the brand in the country.
Amidst the excitement of the “Pokémon Fiesta,” which drew thousands of students and fans to the campus, we sat down with Susumu Fukunaga, Corporate Officer at The Pokémon Company.
From discussing the strategic importance of college communities to hinting at potential future collaborations — and even sharing his personal favorite Pokémon—Fukunaga shared deep insights into the company’s vision for the Indian market.
The Pokémon Company hosted a Pokémon mini-marathon at Jio World Garden and are back now at IIT Bombay Techfest. Why are IIT Bombay and college campuses important for Pokémon in India? What makes a tech festival like Techfest special compared to other events held in malls or cities?
Fukunaga: This particular event at IIT Bombay is basically targeted at college students. We feel that colleges or universities are places where it’s very easy to develop communities. People get together with common interests and enjoy what they all like—their passions. We hope that people will get together for Pokémon and enjoy Pokémon together. Apart from college students, we also heard that a lot of people who live nearby also attend this event. Our hope is that we will be able to reach those people through this event as well, and they will also be able to enjoy it.
In your 27 years with Pokémon, what is the one moment of achievement in The Pokémon Company that makes you the happiest? Why is that achievement important to you?
Fukunaga: I’ve been involved in many projects so far in the last 27 years. There was the PokéPark project in 2005. And there was Pokémon Air Adventures, which is basically wrapping an entire aircraft with a Pokémon-themed design, which happened in 2022. All of these initiatives have been big and very close to my heart. But the most important thing from all the events that we do, including this one, is to see people enjoying themselves and seeing their smiles. Because after all, Pokémon, even if we call it games or anime or whatever it is, we consider it to be entertainment, and we want people to be entertained. Seeing them enjoying it, seeing them being entertained, is what makes me happiest.
Regarding the way you wrap entire aircraft with Pokémon, will that happen in India in the future?
Fukunaga: “We would love to” is the answer, but we don’t really know when as of now. If any airlines in India are interested in this idea, we would be happy to have a discussion with them.
Do you see India becoming one of the most important markets for Pokémon, like North America or Japan? What would it mean if India becomes as big as these markets? Having worked in India for so long, what are your learnings about Indian culture and how Indian people love Pokémon? Has that changed your perspective on Pokémon?
Fukunaga: First of all, I would like to tell you that our corporate mission is to enrich people’s lives across the world, both in the real world as well as the virtual world. We feel that our content hasn’t really reached the people of India completely yet, so our first objective is to actually get our content to them as much as possible and to as many people as possible.
Like I said, our mission is to enrich as many people’s lives as possible across the world, and as you know, India has one of the biggest populations in the world. If we are able to entertain more and more people in India, that takes us closer to our mission. Talking about Indian fans, I feel that Indians really value their community, whether it’s region-based or family-based. It’s a lot about community as far as their life and culture are concerned. For example, if there’s a festival, everyone will get together to celebrate that festival. I feel that culture is really nice, and I really appreciate it. When people get together as a community to enjoy themselves and get all excited about things, we would love it if Pokémon could also become a part of that environment.
Continuing that train of thought, Pokémon has featured many different ethnicities in its media, be it games or anime. Could Indian designers and artists help create new Pokémon character designs or maps based on Indian themes or styles? Can we see Indian culture incorporated into future Pokémon media? Is this something you would want to see?
Fukunaga: There are a lot of different factors that become motifs in our content, whether it’s games or anime. Because we are an India-centric branding and marketing team, we aren’t directly involved in the creative side of it. However, we do believe that because India is a huge market and we do want people to enjoy our content, there may be future possibilities based on that. But as a branding team, we are not actively involved in that aspect.
Physical Pokémon cards have become collector’s items, fetching huge amounts when sold or traded. Could Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket cards—these digital cards—one day be as valuable as physical cards? Will The Pokémon Company consider having them as NFTs on any blockchain?
Fukunaga: As of now, we have no intention of turning our digital cards into NFTs, so I can clearly say that that’s not the plan. Digital cards are basically available to everybody, so there is hardly any possibility that their prices or value would go up drastically. Even if they did, there is really no way to exchange them or get the value out of them, so we don’t expect that to happen.
What plans does The Pokémon Company have for India in the future?
Fukunaga: To be honest, we don’t really have a clear map of what we want to do in India yet. But as we said earlier, we want more and more people to enjoy Pokémon content, and there’s a lot of our content that we still haven’t even been able to launch in the country. First of all, we think that our job is to create a solid foundation based on which we can launch all the content in India, and that’s where we are heading.
I have a question I would like to ask in Japanese. A light-hearted one: Fukunaga-san no ichiban suki na Pokémon wa donna Pokémon desu ka? (What is your favourite Pokémon, Fukunaga-san?)
Fukunaga: (Laughs) My favorite Pokémon is Mew. As you know, it’s a very mysterious Pokémon, and it’s one of the first mysterious Pokémon that was launched, so I like it because it’s mysterious.
