The popular Pokémon (Pocket Monsters) television series entered the fleet of All Nippon Airways* in late June. ANA had asked elementary school children to compete featuring Pokémon characters chosen from about 40,073 entries. Shota, the winner of the competition, signed his name on the aircraft’s door. In explaining how he chose his design, he said, “I wanted to give the Pokémon that usually live at sea a chance to experience the thrill of flying in the sky. I can’t believe that planes carrying my design are really going to fly.”
Interior of the Pokemon plane – this is a make believe interior photo. It looks as though the cartoon is projected onto the plane’s interior panels.
The new Pokémon jets are now being used on ANA’s domestic routes linking 30 cities, including a recent flight to San Francisco.
*Images shot by contributors of Airliners.net which I merge together – notice the ship in the center.
Below: The winner of the art contest belongs to Shota. Here is the drawing as shown at www.ana.co.jp. Here’s how Shota expresses the joy of flight using his view of how the cartoons can express the excitement of flight.
Below: Pokemon Ana Airlines website. Unfortunately, there are no images of the actual Pokemon planes at that website.
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Here are more other cartoon on airplanes on my blog
This is the first that I’ve heard or seen from your blog header before you even posted about this, I didn’t think it was a real plane at first, thought it was your creative side and you photo shop the pictures of Pokemon. I think this was a huge risk, a bit extreme IMO, as we all know that Airlines business is usually used as traveling by adults and often seen in more of serious business terms such as reliability, safety, comfort, and I wouldn’t know what to think if I have to aboard on one of these planes and seeing all Pokemon inside the plane, I think it might feel a bit weird.
What do you think?
I didn’t think they were serious beacause ANA used three of their planes for this theme. I’d thought they would stop this theme within a year or two. I guess they are keeping it until sales drop.
Also, I personally believe that lucky planes (planes that bring us back home) tend to have a few humble happy art painted on them. Most of all, I would only feel as safe as the reliablity history of the plane. As long as the interior art are kept to a minimum, I’d be happy to ride these planes.
Pokeman brings back happy memories for me. Pickachu is my favorite and Misty too. I would ride this airplane, as long as I it’s from ANA (or any airline with good safety standing) and not some fly by night airline. Nice photo too.
lol now i have the song in my head
OH YOUR MY BEST FRIEND
awesome!:DD