Shogakukan Inc.

Before we even get to the card, we need to talk about Tamamushi University, because this was not simply answer one trivia question and maybe win a Pokemon card.

Shogakukan, the Japanese publisher behind a series of educational magazines for elementary school students, ran an entire Pokemon themed academic campaign across its magazines in 1998 and into 99.

There were separate magazines for first grade, second grade, third grade, all the way through sixth.

And children reading those magazines could theoretically enroll in something called Tamamushi University.

We're barely willing to stand in Pokemon Center queue.

These kids had homework, and it started with an entrance test.

Readers answered Pokemon questions, wrote the answers on a postcard, and mailed it back to Shogakukan.

Actual mail.

They first entered the space in the nineteen eighties.

And they are uniquely positioned because they are a direct subsidiary of Shueisha and Shogakukan, two of the largest publishing houses in Japan.

Right.

And that corporate lineage gives them exclusive pipeline access to the biggest intellectual properties on the planet.

Starting us off at the starting line of a lot of these creative endeavors, and fittingly from the same creator who brought to you 100 Meters and Orb: On the Movements of the Earth, mangaka Uoto has announced that they have two new manga series starting up shortly.

One is called Hallucination Meet, and will be launching in Shogakukan's Weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine.

I gotta say personally, this is one of my favorite [laughs] manga magazines out there.

A lot of the stuff they put out I end up really loving, so I'm already super excited for this.