Uniqlo added various forms of Pokémon to its UTme line last year, most notably Ditto. UTme allows you to effectively design your own t-shirts and tote bags by choosing from a variety of designs and placing them wherever you want. The only downside to the Pokemon added to UTme was that they were only available in Japan, but that seems to have changed.
Design your own Ditto merchandise appears in Uniqlo stores in the US and UK.
Pokemon fans around the world are starting to share evidence that Ditto's UTme option is starting to appear in Uniqlo stores outside of Japan. Twitter account PKMN Style shared an image of a Pokemon tab along with some of the Ditto design options on a touchscreen at a Uniqlo store in the US.
The person running the account is supposedly based in the UK. He later tracked down his images and found that his own designed Ditto merchandise options had also made their way to the UK. Along with instructions written in English in the US image, the UK image includes local currency pricing for the custom item, which is further evidence that the design is in fact available outside of Japan for the first time.
This option appears to be only available in stores for now and hasn't been added to other Uniqlo sites like in Japan.
Images like these have led other Pokemon fans to check out their local Uniqlo stores to see just how widespread Ditto merchandise is, and it seems like it's almost everywhere, or at least it seems to be. Someone in Canada claimed it was available there, and a Belgian fan said it's been an option there for weeks, sharing a photo of Ditto masquerading as Pikachu affixed to UTme merchandise they designed themselves.
Build-A-Bear's Paldean partner collection is complete thanks to the latest Pokemon plush.
Who is that Pokemon?
It's there, but Uniqlo can't confirm that it's there
As to why this is all potential and unconfirmed despite evidence being shared in at least four countries, TheGamer contacted Uniqlo customer support and they seemed confused by the evidence that the Ditto design is now available everywhere. They claim that while the Pokemon graphic t-shirts are expected to release early this year, that is not the case for the Ditto UTme range.
This is likely just a situation where wires were crossed or UTme Designs was quietly added to the Uniqlo location without much fuss. This seems like a strange decision to me, considering they would almost certainly be popular. They join the Monster Hunter UTme family, which was incredibly popular but was never available outside of Japan.
The graphic t-shirt mentioned by the Uniqlo customer service representative may have been released just before Christmas ahead of Pokemon's 30th anniversary. Rather than designing the merchandise themselves, the items feature images from the original Pokémon games, including Pikachu's first, much more clunky design.
- release date
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1997 – 2023
- network
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TV Tokyo, TV Osaka, TV Aichi, TVh, TVQ, TSC
- move
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Shigeru Omachi, Koji Ogawa, Fumihiro Ueno, Hideki Hiroshima, Maki Kodaira, Makoto Oga, Ayumi Moriyama, Keitaro Motonaga, Shigeru Ueda, Fumihiro Yoshimura, Minoru Ohara, Yoshitaka Makino, Kiyoshi Egami, Makoto Sokuza, Heuser Biyane, Naoki Murata, Kenichi Nishida, Tomoe Makino, Masahiko Watanabe, Hiroaki Takagi, Tazumi Mukaiyama, Ryohei Horiuchi, Yoshihiro Oda, Hiromichi Matano
- author
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Junki Takegami, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hideki Sonoda, Yukiyoshi Ohashi, Yuka Miyata, Takeshi Shudo, Shoji Yonemura, Shinzo Fujita, Michihiro Tsuchiya, Deko Akao, Reiko Yoshida, Aya Matsui, Junichi Fujisaku
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Rika Matsumoto
Satoshi (voice)
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Ikue Otani
Pikachu (voice)
