Nintendo Trademarks Monpoké; Now What Exactly Is It?

Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures — whom you may recognize as the three creators of Pokemon, as well as the three companies that comprise The Pokemon Company — have apparently filed a brand new, rather intriguing new trademark application. As Japanese Nintendo reports, the three companies have filed a trademark application in Japan for something called — stay with me here — Monpoke.

Yes, Monpoke. That new Pokemon game on Switch is really going to turn things around for the series, huh?

Anyway, we don’t actually know what this is, but we have a logo, which you can see for yourself above. Common speculation online seems to be that this is referencing a merchandising line, which I can see— Pokemon is a merchandising monster, after all, and this would be right in keeping with that. Of course, never doubt the franchise’s ability to throw something out of the left field at you, too— for instance, who in the world expected something like Detective Pikachu?

Whatever it is, I guess we’ll find out soon.