Pokémon and Van Gogh Museum Collaboration Announced

The Pokémon Company, which unites Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak, has announced a partnership with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. A promotional video shows the Pokémon Sunflora depicted in the style of Van Gogh's famous Sunflowers series. The collaboration is set to begin on September 28, 2023, and will likely merge Pokémon creatures with Van Gogh's settings, tones, and painterly style. The article draws a parallel between the rural worlds of Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri—who was inspired by his childhood insect collecting in rural Japan—and Van Gogh's utopian, anti-urban, anti-capitalist vision of rural life as described by Carol Zemel in her 1997 book "Van Gogh's Progress: Utopia, Modernity, and Late-Nineteenth-Century Art." The piece questions whether the anti-capitalist Van Gogh would have approved of promoting a major Japanese multinational brand like Nintendo.