Shiori's PokéPark Memories
The memories of a Pokémon fan called Shiori, about the time she attended Pokémon the Park, in Nagoya, Japan, in 2005.
Pokémon the Park 2005, also known as PokéPark, was a temporary theme park, which was open between March 18th, 2005 to September 25th, 2005, located in Nagoya, Japan. It was the world’s first Pokémon theme park, and during the six months it was open, it welcomed over four million visitors! A Pokémon fan called Shiori visited PokéPark around the end of July 2005 and has kindly shared her memories of the event, along with some photographs of the merchandise she received that day.
My parents took me and my sisters to Aichi, Nagoya when I was 11 and visited Pokémon the Park just once. It opened temporarily because the Aichi World Expo was held at the same time. I don’t have any photos nor any goods of the park, but my mother would have kept them. I don’t have many souvenirs, but I still have the Pokemon cards which were given [to] those who enjoyed each ride.
I can still clearly remember the day when I visited Pokémon Park, although it was 19 years ago! My mom took me and my younger sisters there on summer vacation. I was especially excited to ride “Mudkip’s Splash Adventure” because Mudkip is my most favorite [Pokémon]!
The park was not [as] crowded as I expected, so each ride had a line of 15-30 mins to wait. But of course, there were a lot of Pokémon-fan kids and their parents. My sister bought a Skitty hat (it’s like a Mickey’s ears hat) and she wore it throughout the day! My mom gave me an ice cream with a Poké Ball-shaped case. (I wish I could have the photo!) I enjoyed three rides:
Mudkip’s Splash Adventure: It’s a water ride [kind of] like Splash Mountain. The shape of the ride was [a] Mudkip and it was super cute!
Pokémon’s Starry Sky Trip: It’s a chair swing ride. I think some Mythical Pokémon like Mew, Jirachi and Celebi were drawn on the body.
Dancing Pokémon Mini-tour! : It’s hard to explain, lol. It’s just a ride for children! It went up and down [to] the music of “Gotta Dance!” (a short film published with [the] Jirachi movie in 2003).
Every time I rode one I would receive [an] original Pokémon card. The event was temporary, [so] it opened for just 6 months. It’s so hard to understand why there is no Pokémon-themed park in Japan nor in the world! Now I’m an adult but I still love Pokémon so much. If you can get a time travel ability, please make sure to go back to one summer day in 2005!
Shiori went on to share her memories of growing up with Pokémon in her home country of Japan, including her thoughts on the franchise.
My first Pokémon game was Silver! My dad and I were into it and spent much time [getting] creatures. We were especially annoyed trying to get run-away Pokémon such as [Suicune], Raikou and Entei because we had to encounter and throw Poké Balls so many times and had to pay attention not to kill them! When I was an elementary school kid, literally all of my friends were fascinated by [Pokémon] and sometimes we got together at a friend’s house and played the game after school.
In conclusion, I can’t say thank you enough [to] those who created Pokémon. When I was a kid I used to think about what Pokémon I should get as a pet in real life. Now I’m an adult, but every time I see new published Pokémon, I get really excited! I hope they keep making such great content and PLEASE MAKE THE POKÉMON PARK AGAIN AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!
Additional photographs
I am deeply grateful to Shiori for sharing her memories of PokéPark and giving us an insight into what the attraction was like, twenty years after it first opened. It would be great to see the PokéPark return someday!