The First Real Look at Pokemon and adidas Turning 30 Together

Retailer images of three Pokemon themed adidas shoes surfaced this week, giving the first solid shape to a collaboration collectors have been trading rumors about since last fall.

For most of the past year, anyone following the Pokemon and adidas anniversary connection has been working from secondhand descriptions rather than actual photographs. That changed this week. Retailer images of three footwear styles surfaced online, giving collectors their first genuine look at what the two brands have actually built together, rather than a list of sil assembled from leaked spec sheets.

The three confirmed pairs pull from three different corners of the adidas Originals archive: the Superstar, the Pro Model, and the XLG 2.0, the last of which descends from Pharrell Williams’ Jellyfish design. Each one carries a heavy dose of co branding, including custom insoles, printed character graphics on the tongue tags, and, on the Superstar and Pro Model, the relevant Pokemon’s name worked directly into the three stripes. None of it reads as a subtle homage. This is a collection built for people who want the reference immediately obvious from across a room.

The Pokémon x adidas concept collection imagines classic Adidas sil reinterpreted through fan-favorite Pokémon, pairing character-inspired colors, graphics, and themed details with designs celebrating Pikachu, Charmander, Charmeleon, Mewtwo, and Gengar.

The timing lines up with a milestone that has been circled on collector calendars since Pokemon Day in February: 2026 marks thirty years since the original Pocket Monsters games launched in Japan on February 27, 1996, a date that has already anchored a run of anniversary activity across games, trading cards, and now footwear. adidas and Pokemon last worked together in 2020, on a smaller apparel focused capsule, which makes this multi sil footwear rollout a considerably larger undertaking for both brands.

It also arrives into a footwear category that has gotten noticeably more crowded around this particular anniversary. Pokemon has spent the past year working across the sneaker and lifestyle world well beyond adidas, with recent collaborations already out through Crocs, Clarks, Converse, and, most recently, a competing Puma project built around its own set of characters. That backdrop makes this adidas rollout read less like an isolated licensing deal and more like one entry in a busier than usual anniversary calendar, with Pokemon clearly treating footwear as one of the more visible ways to mark thirty years of the franchise.

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Character casting turns out to matter as much as silhouette choice here. The Superstar goes to Charizard, rendered in a scaly orange leather upper with a set of removable leather wing pieces built into the design, arguably the most wearable pair of the three simply because the Superstar shape absorbs the graphic treatment without losing its own identity. The Pro Model, adidas’ high top hoops silhouette, goes to Pikachu, unsurprising given that no other character in the franchise carries the same instant recognition, finished in a yellow pony hair upper with oversized TPU graphics along the sides. The XLG 2.0 rounds out the initial trio in a purple colorway built around Gengar, continuing that shoe’s run as a lower priced alternative to Pharrell’s original Jellyfish model.

Two more names keep surfacing around the edges of this release without official confirmation yet. An adidas ZX8000 built around Mewtwo reportedly leaked late last year, and several sources following the rollout expect the Samba OG, arguably adidas’ single most in demand silhouette right now, to eventually join the lineup as well, likely paired with either Mewtwo or another Kanto era legendary. Pricing details specific to this drop have not been confirmed through any source checked, so no figure is repeated here as fact.

The Mewtwo-inspired adidas concept imagines a sleek lifestyle sneaker finished in soft lavender hues, subtle Pokémon-inspired detailing, and a clean silhouette that echoes the Legendary Psychic-type Pokémon’s refined aesthetic.

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The character selections themselves are not especially surprising once you look at them together. Charizard, Pikachu, and Gengar cover three of the most bankable faces in the entire franchise, spanning a starter’s final evolution, the mascot everyone recognizes on sight, and a ghost type that has become something of a cult favorite among older fans specifically. If Mewtwo does eventually land on a Samba, it would round the initial group out with the original games’ signature legendary, giving the collection a lineup built almost entirely around characters from the very first generation rather than anything more recent.

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Worth noting plainly: the reporting around this collaboration has been inconsistent for months, and some of that inconsistency has not fully resolved even with actual product images now in hand. Earlier reports floated Charmander and Charmeleon as candidates for the Superstar treatment instead of, or alongside, Charizard, and a Mewtwo Samba pairing has been described with more confidence in some places than others. Rather than smoothing over those contradictions, it seems more honest to flag them: three shoes now have photographs behind them, and everything beyond those three remains, at best, well sourced speculation rather than confirmed release information.

What is consistent across every account is the release window. The collection is expected sometime in the Fall 2026 window, broadly between July and September, through adidas’ own channels and a set of select retailers, with both adult and youth sizing planned across the collection once apparel and accessories arrive alongside the footwear. Neither adidas nor The Pokemon Company has issued its own press release confirming full pricing, exact drop dates, or the complete model lineup as of this writing, a sourcing gap worth stating outright rather than filling in with retailer leaks.