Eduardo Cunha¡¯s journey through the world of competitive Pokemon has culminated in a dream trip: an invitation to vie for a world championship at the franchise¡¯s crowning esports tournament.
The global following of the Japan-made Pokemon franchise is hard to overstate. Since the original 151 adorable creatures in 1996¡¯s Pokemon Red and Green, the inaugural video game has gone on to spawn 857 additional trainable critters, dozens of movies, a long-running anime series, smartphone apps and a trading card game-turned-collectors paradise where rare items can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In February 2022, an sold at auction for $900,000 (about ?130 million).
For all that growth, however, there¡¯s something the Pokemon world has never seen, even with the championships occurring in different cities across the globe since 2004: its marquee esports competition being held on the franchise¡¯s home soil.
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