Happy birthday to the little yellow mouse that has been financially ruining grown adults since before some of us could legally vote. Pokémon officially hit the big 3-0, and if you're reading this on your phone while standing in a Target aisle debating a $59.99 plushie you do not need, welcome. You are the target demo. You are also the problem.
Let's do the math nobody asked for. If you were seven years old when Red and Blue dropped stateside in 1998, you are now somewhere north of 33. You have a mortgage, a 401(k) you keep forgetting the password to, and a binder of holographic Charizards that you swear is "an investment." It is not an investment. It is cardboard with feelings, and we all know it, and yet here we are.
The Pokémon Company, being the benevolent overlords they are, have announced a full year of 30th anniversary festivities. There's merch. There's always merch. There are collaborations with luxury brands so you can buy a $400 leather bag featuring a cartoon seal. There's presumably a new game that will launch in a state of technical disrepair, get patched over eighteen months, and still sell forty million copies because we are a broken people.
And honestly? We'll buy it. We always do.
Here's the thing about Pokémon turning 30. It's not a milestone for the franchise. It's a milestone for us. The games didn't age. We did. Pikachu is frozen in eternal amber, forever twelve, forever marketable, forever free of the crushing weight of existential dread. Meanwhile you just pulled your back getting out of a La-Z-Boy. AITA for being jealous of a fictional rodent? Probably, but I'm not apologizing.
Let's acknowledge the elephant in the room, which is that the franchise's actual birthday is February 27, 1996, when Pocket Monsters Red and Green launched in Japan for the Game Boy.