Interview with Tsukasa Hosono (English)
Johto Times interviews Tsukasa Hosono, a winner of the Pokémon Snap Best Photo Contest in 1999. Tsukasa talks about his winning Charmander entry, and his history with the Pokémon franchise
In May 1999, TV Tokyo hosted a Best Photo Contest, where fans could submit pictures from the recently released Pokémon Snap on Nintendo 64. The top five winning entries were featured on Pokémon cards in Japan, and included Articuno, Charmander, Chansey, Koffing, and Squirtle. It followed a similar contest hosted by CoroCoro Comic, which gave away twenty copies of each card to winners. For this contest, only fifteen copies of each card were officially distributed to the winning entrants, making them some of the rarest Pokémon cards to exist.
One of these winners was Tsukasa Hosono, who submitted a picture of Charmander for the contest. I had the pleasure of interviewing him for Johto Times, to share details about the event, and his entry!
It’s a pleasure to be speaking with you, Hosono-san! Could you please introduce yourself to our readers?
Tsukasa Hosono:
Umm, nice to meet you all, I am Tsukasa Hosono. Wow, I never expected something like this to happen. It’s a big surprise.
You were one of the winners of the “64 Mario Stadium Best Photo Contest” hosted by TV Tokyo in 1999. How did you first hear about the contest?
Tsukasa Hosono:
I think it was through an announcement in 64 Mario Stadium. I’m pretty sure I was also buying the CoroCoro Comic magazine regularly around that time, but I don’t remember seeing any announcement from them, so I guess I might have been out of pocket money and didn’t purchase it.
The event isn’t very well documented online, so this is a perfect opportunity to learn more about the contest and the criteria fans had to abide by when they entered. What can you tell us about that?
Tsukasa Hosono:
For the “TV Tokyo 64 Mario Stadium” category, they announced the contest during the program, and I don’t think there were any complex requirements or conditions. In fact, I applied with 4 snaps printed on one sticker sheet.
How did you decide on the Pokémon and photograph you were going to submit into the contest?
Tsukasa Hosono:
Basically, I went for Pokémon that I liked, cute Pokémon, cool Pokémon, Pokémon that were well photographed. I remember that, in addition to Charmander, I submitted a Sandslash and a Bulbasaur.
Once you decided on the picture you were going to share, what happened next?
Tsukasa Hosono:
I pasted the stickers onto a postcard, wrote the necessary details, and sent it to the program. As a side note, the postcard I sent for my application was a Pokémon illustrated postcard that I had won in a prize draw at the time. There was a prize draw boom at the time in Japan. This was due to the influence of “Denpa Shōnen's Prize Life” [a reality TV show where the contestant had to live off of items won in prize draws] on Nippon TV.
Some of you may have heard of it, as it was and still is the topic of many conversations, good or bad. I was also influenced by it and participated in many prize draws myself.
How long did you have to wait before you knew you were one of the winners?
Tsukasa Hosono:
Maybe a month or so? I received a phone call from the program’s staff. They would ask to check the game’s save data, so I wonder what would have happened had I deleted it…
It must have been so exciting to receive a response! What do you remember about that moment?
Tsukasa Hosono:
My mother was the first to answer the staff’s phone call, she said something like “Huh, it’s from some staff members from TV Tokyo!”, and I picked up the phone. I was also thinking “there’s no way”, but it really was 64 Mario Stadium’s staff.
Then, as I mentioned earlier, they asked me to check if I still had the save data, and to send my copy of the game to the program.
As compensation for sending them my copy, I could receive one game of my choice, so I got Pokémon Stadium 2 (which I believe is your Stadium 1 overseas) as an extra prize.
Each winner of the contest won fifteen Pokémon cards containing the photograph they took in Pokémon Snap in its artwork. How did it feel to see the picture you had taken in Pokémon Snap, on a Pokémon card?
Tsukasa Hosono:
A photo of Charmander that I took myself was turned into a Pokémon card, with my name written on it. That made me incredibly happy.
Children aren’t typically known for taking care of the things they own, so I am curious: what happened to the fifteen cards you received?
Tsukasa Hosono:
Well, umm, I actually gave most of them away back then to relatives and friends… (cries) I have checked with my relatives, and they either threw them away when renovating their house, or they think they might still have them in their parents’ house.
As for the ones I still own, there is one that I pasted in a self-adhesive photo album as a souvenir, and a few that I had kept inside a mathematics school case. I had even kept an “Ooyama’s Pikachu”, lucky me!
At the time of interview, twenty-five years have passed since the contest was hosted. Looking back, how do you feel about the whole thing?
Tsukasa Hosono:
I think this shows the popularity and the power that the Pokémon series has. Though, it makes me wonder if I’ve really grown up in the past 25 years!
I would love to hear about how you first got into Pokémon. What are your earliest memories of the series?
Tsukasa Hosono:
My younger brother, who passed away some years ago, owned all of the first generation Pokémon games, Red, Green, Blue and Pikachu [Yellow]. At the time, purchasing the same game twice was a taboo in our family, so I could only play them a little bit. It was at that time that Pokémon Snap was released.
My first mainline Pokémon game was the Gold version. As for my brother, he got both Silver and Crystal. (laughs)
What was it like to grow up with Pokémon as a child in Japan?
Tsukasa Hosono:
After the first generation games Red and Green were released, they were featured in magazines like CoroCoro Comic, and from there I feel that the series’ popularity was spreading slowly and steadily.
Then the anime began airing on TV, and I think that’s when its popularity really exploded. After that, the incident that we referred to as the “Pokémon Shock” (or “Porygon Shock”) happened, yet it was so popular that it was able to overcome even that.
After that, there was a period where I kind of stopped playing video games, but my younger sister was still playing the newer games, and we would watch the anime together. Now that I think about it, Pokémon was never very far.
What other cherished Pokémon items do you own that mean something to you?
Tsukasa Hosono:
Charmander’s Snap card… is an obvious one, so I’ll go with something else.
A Charmander plush toy that my sister bought as a souvenir on a trip to Tokyo. It’s super cute. She also bought me a Quaxly plush toy when she went to Tokyo recently. I have both of them displayed next to each other.
In recent years, the popularity of the Pokémon TCG has grown significantly, with some cards commanding significant sums of money. It is no exaggeration that your cards are some of the oldest, rarest, and most valuable cards to exist. How do you feel about this, and have you taken any steps to protect your remaining cards?
Tsukasa Hosono:
This honestly surprised me. I never thought it would ever reach that point.
Recently in Japan there have been stories of robbers breaking into card shops, and that’s scary. I personally bought a fireproof safe, but I’m still an amateur when it comes to safekeeping things.
Recently, based on someone’s advice, I submitted one of the cards for grading.
Thank you for taking the time to speak to us, Hosono-san! Do you have any closing comments you would like to make?
Tsukasa Hosono:
Of course. First of all, everyone, thank you for remembering me! I also want to thank everyone who is interested in Pokémon cards and has been researching this Best Photo Contest! I believe this is thanks to the Pokémon series still being ongoing today.
I hope to continue to enjoy Pokémon to the fullest as a player.
I want to thank Tsukasa Hosono for taking the time to speak to Johto Times about the 64 Mario Stadium Best Photo Contest, and his very special Charmander card. I wish him all the best for his future.
Interview conducted on April 8th, 2024
Interview published on May 9th, 2024
Translation by Darts
Hello, came across your website via E4. Just wanted to say thank you and that this was a really lovely read! Thanks for being able to have a talk with one of the contest winners. Really great insight to it all.
Cheers!