Welcome to the PokéCommunity Daily News Roundup for the week of February 27^th, 2017! Read this every Monday to catch up on what is hip and happening in the Pokémon world, faster than forgetting HM05!

This week: the hangover period after Pokémon’s 21^st birthday today.

Anniversary

Cue the Party Horns

The Pokémon series turns 21 today! To celebrate, today has been declared Pokémon Day, and there are festivities galore. You can read about all of them here, and a majority of them are mentioned later on.

Main Series

Bottle Cap Distribution

If you haven’t already, you can pick up a free Bottle Cap from your local GameStop equivalent. This lasts for another week in most places. However, in the UK, this Tuesday is the last day to collect your prize. We covered this distribution in full.

Rare Candy!

If you completed five GTS trades during the last Global Mission, you can download five Rare Candies and a Friend Ball from the Global Link at any point between now and March 30.

Spin-offs and Other Stuff

GO Festivities

Pokémon GO is celebrating the franchise’s birthday with a PAAAAAAARTY! Any Pikachu you catch until March 6^th will have a party hat for the rest of its indefinite digital lifespan. This applies to any evolved into Raichu as well. Read more about this here.

Duel Fighting Gym Cup

In Pokémon Duel, the Fighting Gym Cup, which began last week, continues this week. This gives increased power to Fighting and Psychic Pokémon, and has special rewards for multiple wins. If you have a Gallade, Meditite, or Medicham, give yourself a round of applause*. It lasts until March 2^nd. Winning 45 games during this challenge also gets you a Deoxys (EX) figure. You can also log in this week to receive a Dratini (R) figure! Oh, and while this isn’t exactly news, a balance patch was released a couple weeks ago that buffed Mew, Rayquaza, Machamp, and Heracross.

*Note: Gallade, Meditite, and Medicham are all absent from Duel at the time of writing, so if you have one there may be a problem.

Pokémon Shuffle

A special competitive stage for a shiny Mega Rayquaza is underway. Special stages for Armaldo, Cradily, and Terrakion are also available, and the first pair’s Rock typing could help a lot with taking out the Flying-type Rayquaza. These stages expire on February 28th.

Badge Arcade

The European instance of Nintendo Badge Arcade has added a new set of Pokémon badges, featuring Pokémon discovered in Johto such as Heracross and Suicune! This particular set includes pixel art of the subjects, giving them a cool 2D feel on your home screen. Plus, North America doesn’t even have these yet! Get them before they time out!

New Pikachu 3DS

A new New 3DS XL model has released in the west. It is yellow and themed around Pikachu, and has been out in Japan for some time.

Nintendo Switch

The Nintendo Switch, Nintendo’s new home console/handheld gaming system, comes out this Friday. There are, at the time of writing, currently no Pokémon games revealed for it. However, it has been confirmed that there are plans for something Pokémon-related on the Switch. Heck, there very well could be an announcement today. We just don’t know. In the meantime, you can read more about the system or view our thoughts on it.

Anime

New Episode(s)

In Japan, Episode 959 – “Tiny Trio on a Big Adventure!” is expected to air on Thursday. There is sadly still no sign of the western Sun and Moon localization. Kostas, as usual, has meticulously analyzed this week’s Japanese episode.

Movies

Also in celebration of the 21^st anniversary, the Oscar-worthy film Pokémon the Movie: Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel will be available on the iTunes, Amazon Music, and Google Play stores as of today.

While we’re on the subject, it is worth noting that Pokémon: The First Movie, Pokémon 4 Ever, and Pokémon – Zoroark: Master of Illusions can be watched for free through Pokémon TV “for a limited time”.

Competitions

Competitive Memories Stream

In celebration of Pokémon Day today, the official Pokémon Twitch is hosting a replay marathon of some of the most exciting TCG, VGC, and Pokkén Tournament matches from the competitive world. You can watch the stream here.

Around PokéCommunity

Forum Fiesta

Nominations for the first Forum Fiesta are currently underway, with the voting phase expected to start later this week. This serves as a replacement for the Forum Frontier system. You can propose a forum you would like to see in Off-Topic for exactly one month. Almost anything that doesn’t break the rules goes! Click here to vote for this month’s nominations!

Great Character Clash

Rabinov’s Great Character Clash, a series of discussions comparing characters from different video games, is currently in its 6^th week. The current clash is Ratchet and Clank vs Jak and Dexter. Join in the discussion and vote here!

Get Your Move On

The voting for PokéCommunity’s favorite Pokémon move is still underway. The current discussions (which run until tomorrow) cover Grass-type and Poison-type moves. Click one of those types to get your move on to the appropriate thread!

Daily

Kanto Plot Analysis

bobandbill has done a wonderful job of proposing some opinions on the story of the games featuring the first Pokémon region in a longform article. You can read it by clicking below!

And that’s what’s going on in Pokémon this week! Questions, comments, complaints, updates, and anything we forgot should be placed in the comments so we can do something about them. See you same time next week!

Edited by bobandbill and Z25.