Pikachu Outbreak in Yokohama - Pikachu Tairyou Hassei-Chu 2016 (ピカチュウ大量発生チュウ)

This week the annual Pikachu event "Pikachu Tairyou Hassei-Chu" has been held in Yokohama, and with the recent popularity of Pokemon Go it's quite unsurprising that a huge number of Pikachu fans have flocked to Yokohama to see the yellow thunder-mice. During the one week long event there are over 1,000 Pikachus to be seen in the harbour area of Yokohama, with all the main event spots located around the Minato Mirai harbour area.

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The event is mainly taking place at the following places:

Minato Mirai's Sakura Dori (横浜市西区みなとみらいさくら通り)
Queen's Square (クイーンズスクエア横浜)
JR Sakuragicho Station (JR桜木町駅)
Sakuragicho Station Square (桜木町駅前広場)
Nippon Maru (帆船日本丸)
Nippon Maru Memorial Park (日本丸メモリアルパーク)
MARK IS Minato Mirai (MARK IS みなとみらい)
Minato Mirai Station on the Minato Mirai Line (みなとみらい線みなとみらい駅)
Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse (横浜赤レンガ倉庫)
Yokohama Cosmo World (よこはまコスモワールド)
Landmark Plaza (ランドマークプラザ)
Yokohama World Porters (横浜ワールドポーターズ)

I met up with a group of friends at the Sakuragicho Station, and the festival staff generously gave all of us one pikachu paper hat each. As you can see even the station was in festive mode with the regular station name board exchanged for a cute one with Pikachus all over it.

The first sight that met us as we stepped out of the station was a gigant Pikachu balloon

Above are pictures with the Pikachus and Yokohama Landmark Tower in the background. In between all the Pikachu balloons there was also a "live" Pikachu that both young and old kids could take photos with, which you can see below.

From Sakuragicho Station we headed toward the museum ship Nippon Maru (帆船日本丸) which is permanently docked in Yokohama and usually serves as a museum.

On the way to Nippon Maru we found another gigant Pikachu lurking around in front of the Landmark Tower. With that said, unfortunately the arrangers of the Pikachu Outbreak hadn't made any collaboration with Niantic, the team behind Pokemon Go, so this was probably the closest I got to catching a Pikachu while in Yokohama..

Did you by the way know that Pikachu actually means "sparkling kiss"? In Japanese something shiny would for instance be described as "pika-pika", and "chuu" means simply means kiss.

In addition to all the Pikachus one could see around the Minato Mirai area there were also various stage shows with dancing Pikachus. The main event of the festival is the huge Pikachu parade where all the Pikachus line up and march together, but unfortunately this parade is only held on one single day during the event period and we missed out on that. We did see a couple of stage shows though, which was quite alright too. If you want to check out one of the stage shows my advise would be to show up early, as there are so many visitors that you probably won't be able to see much if you arrive late.

After having seen the step-dancing Pikachus in front of the Nippon Maru we headed towards Yokohama World Porters (I recently wrote a post about how I "discovered" Norwegian skoleboller buns there) where we had lunch. Again, the whole place was filled with people who judging from their Pikachu hats were in town for the festival, so it was hard to find tables anywhere.

The next show we checked out was held at the event space in front of the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse. These buildings, dating back to 1905, were originally used as warehouses and customs buildings but are now used for anything from shopping to banquets and various events.

We first tried to get close to the stage with the dancing Pikachus, but it turned out to be impossible due to the huge volume of people gathered in front of the stage. From the second floor of one of the red brick warehouses we could catch a glimpse of the Pikachus on the stage.

Pikachu souvenirs

Seeing the stage show by the Red Brick Warehouse was the last thing we did before heading back towards Sakuragicho Station. On the way back we stopped by the Pokemon Center store in the Landmark Plaza shopping mall next to the Yokohama Landmark Tower. As you can imagine it was packed with pokemon-fans.

Passing by the Nippon Maru on the way to Sakuragicho Station

And with that we ended our sightseeing day in Yokohama. Next year it would be fun to go back to see the main Pikachu parade as well.

Thank you for reading! Please feel free to leave any comments or questions below
Anette

Basic information

Name of Event	Pikachu Outbreak Yokohama - ピカチュウ大量発生チュウ！
	(In: Sakuragicho - Minato Mirai - Nippon Maru - World Porters - Red Brick Warehouse & Vicinity)
Access	You can reach all the interesting spots by foot from Sakuragicho Station (桜木町駅)
Event Period	August 7th - 14th
Homepage	Official Page (Japanese only)