Pokémon

I bought this shirt for myself because of my crazy Pokémon obsession.
On one of my handful of trips to Hawaii I found a little toy store that had all kinds of Anime and Pokèmon merchandise. This is the kind of stuff that I could only find in little Tokyo or at specialty shops. Several years later, I found out that the store I purchased it from was called Toys n Joys. They now have a website and specialize in imports and hard to find Anime, cartoon and video game items. Apparently my friend Moke knew the guy who runs the store personally since he used to buy from him so much.
http://www.toysnjoys.com
Originally, it fit very well. I bought a small because I have been short my whole life and I wasn't really thinking about the future. Nowadays it fits very tight on me, but that's alright as long as I can keep a slim figure. This is an official product which has very high quality fabric and ink. Even after having this shirt for 10+ years it has barely broken down of faded at all! As long as it fits I could probably wear it another 10.
They have a clever design on the front of this shirt. Essentially, the designer grabbed some key-art they had -Ash Ketchum throwing a Pokéball and the Japanese Pocket Monsters logo- and set it inside a series of boxes. This makes if very easy to print on a dark background. Designing in this format makes screening the shapes easy enough for a computer to automate and still allows you the freedom of 4 color images. The addition of the Japanese logo -Poketto Monsutā- in the background really adds the exotic mystique that Anime carried at that time. On the back, right at the collar, is the US Pokémon logo in blue, light blue and white. The design stands out on a simple shirt with no catchphrase, especially if you are a fan.
I continue to wear this shirt because of the huge impact Pokémon had on my life. Heck, you can still walk into a retailer today and buy brand new Pokémon shirt. Granted it probably won't be the original show with 151 monsters but you get the idea. I like to wear this shirt if I know I'm going somewhere I might meet somebody new that is around my age. Nearly everyone who was young in the 90s saw and/or liked Pokémon. Your personal experience may have varied, maybe you played the game every day on the bus, watched it when you got home from school or just thought the characters were kawaii~

I wore this when I went to the Dia de los Muertos celebration in Orange County a few years ago. I figured that if I was getting some exposure I might as week wear a shirt that everyone would recognize -I also think it makes me look trim-. After the festivities and delicious Mexican food, we started cruising the art galleries and shops in the area. We stopped into one and they had nice artwork, nothing to go crazy over. The artist was there with some of his friends and one of them commented on my shirt. I was like wha?! Yeah, this like 40 year old guy comes over and says to me, "Hey can I see your shirt?" Always proud of my shirts I walked over and let him inspect it. As it turns out he worked at the company that licensed these shirts and was the one who designed it back in the late 90s. Pretty cool stuff, I've heard of a small world but who woulda guessed? I suppose it was bound to happen at some point, I've worn this shirt to parties, movie premiers,  Anime stores and a few official Pokémon tournaments. When I eventually retire this shirt I'll probably end up keeping it and storing with my Pokémon Snap cards, official Mew certificates and my 1st edition CCG cards. Brainwashing, brilliant marketing or just plain fun, I think this will be one of the games I'll have nostalgia goggles for even when I'm 50 -still running out of batteries-.