A new piece of merchandise coming from Premium Bandai has fans talking, as the Pokémon Metapod sleeping bag is one of the weirdest - and best - pieces of Pokémon memorabilia in recent memory, and captures the overall mood of 2020 quite nicely. The Pokémon series is no stranger to bizarre pieces of merchandise, and its ubiquity in the video game world has helped it make inroads into all sorts of different consumer item demographics, including clothing and houseware.
The Pokémon series is enjoying a boom period lately thanks to the success of Pokémon Sword & Shield, which looked anything but assured prior to its launch thanks to a series of controversies stemming from its decision to remove some parts of the Pokémon roster. That decision didn't hurt sales, however, and it's also made the first true mainline Pokémon game for Nintendo Switch more accessible for a new generation of fans. The game's DLC, including the recently released Pokémon Sword & Shield: Crown Tundra, has been performing well also, bringing with it some quality-of-life additions and enough meaty content to keep fans occupied for dozens more hours on top of the already strong base game.
One thing very few people expected, however, was for the success of Pokémon Sword & Shield to pave the way for the weirdest Pokémon merchandise from the past few years. Premium Bandai announced on Twitter that it would begin selling a Pokémon Metapod sleeping bag for adult fans, and it is without a doubt one of the best, most over-the-top ways to show off being a Pokémon fan yet. The Pokémon Metapod sleeping bag is exactly what it sounds like, and is designed to be comfortable for adults. It also comes at a price of 35.000 yen (around $330 USD after conversion), so it's a major investment for fans.
Of course, the existence of the Pokémon Metapod sleeping bag is one that will leave fans with a lot of questions. First of all, of course, is why? The answer to that seems to be summed up in the image of the man who is modeling the Metapod sleeping bag, as he gazes without emotion at himself in the mirror. There is, quite simply, no reason why not to - and that's enough. All that's left is the warm embrace of Metapod.
Perhaps the biggest question outside of the ones about existence and metaphysics that the Pokémon Metapod sleeping bag will naturally inspire in fans is: will there be a Kakuna one? Kakuna's shape isn't quite as good for a sleeping bag with the kind of curves the Pokémon Metapod sleeping bag has, but in the interest of fairness, it seems like a good idea to include the other first-gen cocoon Pokémon - even if it's the way less cool one, obviously.
Source: Premium Bandai