Random: Japan Gets Exclusive Pokémon Treats For Valentine's Day

The eevee looks good too though.
Oh well, I'm used to seeing Japan get cool stuff I can't have.

If they are Japanese exclusives, shouldn't you maybe say they are getting them for white day? Seeing they don't celebrate Valentines day the same way we do, and white day isn't even in the same month and all. I mean SOME woman give chocolates to their husbands and boyfriends on Valentines, but not sets like this. This stuff has obligation chocolate written all over it.

This is like calling Hanukkah Jewish Christmas

@Kalmaro Same

I want to gift someone an edible Garbodor for Valentine's Day.

@HeadPirate I thought they celebrated both Valentine's Day and White Day and that the difference was primarily which sex is the recipient of gifts?

I'd be jealous, but then I couldn't bear to eat these anyway...

@Chowdaire

You're mostly right. Today, generally both men and woman give chocolates on white day, while valentines gifts are exclusively woman, and generally only woman in a serious relationship. The focus is traditional romance though, so you wouldn't give something like this.

This is for white day, and more specifically it's for "obligation chocolate". This is a gift you give in a completely unromantic capacity (I think it started as just men giving it to the woman in their family something, but I might be remembering that wrong). At some point high school girls picked up on this being a really great way to passive aggressively tell someone to stop hitting on you. which in a culture where politeness is the only morality is kinda important. Simply rebuking advances is seen as rude. So white day is the bigger holiday, and generally both sexes give gifts.

Also just in general, there is a HUGE push by youth in Japan to do away with all gender based traditions. There is a pretty big thing going on right now with petitions to have a food line called "mother's kitchen" change it's name, for example. Demands all over the place for school to change dress codes to unisex (and most have at least coincided in letting girls ware pants, no so much on boys wearing skirts). But the older generations are, to put it mildly, sexist as f ... so a lot of this just ends up hitting a brick wall.

@HeadPirate I mean, they’re literally called the “Valentine(’s) Collection” (バレンタインコレクション) and have been announced roughly one month before Feb 14th, in preparation for the event which falls on the same day. The literature makes zero reference to ‘White Day’, so to call them ‘White Day’ goods would be inaccurate. Maybe there will also be White Day goods released some time before March 14th - I don’t know - but these are not they. This is the ‘Valentine’s Collection’. Like, that’s literally the name.

The fact that an event isn’t celebrated in exactly the same way in one country as in other doesn’t mean we get the liberty of completely renaming it. New Year’s Eve in Japan typically sees families convene from across the country to celebrate together, but we don’t call it Thanksgiving or Christmas. We call it New Year’s Eve, because it is the event that falls on the eve of the new year. Christmas Eve is Japan is often celebrated by young couples as a romantic event, and going out for a fancy meal on this date is not uncommon. But everyone still calls it Christmas Eve because it is the eve of Christmas.

What I’m saying is, I think fine to state that this ‘Valentine’s Collection’ being released ahead of Valentine’s Day is a Valentine’s gift. This is not false reporting. It’s not like
calling Hanukkah “Jewish Christmas”. It’s like calling Valentine’s Day “Valentine’s Day”.

@HeadPirate Ah, thanks for the clarification. Always fun to learn new things!