The Pokémon Company has issued an apology after a listing appeared on its official site for a Pokémon TCG event said to be taking place at the Yasukuni Shrine. This controversial site has repeatedly caused consternation in Japan when visited by political figures, and even by previous Pokémon employees, and once again people were upset to see the location listed as the site of a TCG tournament.
The Yasukuni Shrine commemorates the Japanese people who died in conflicts from 1869 to 1954, and thus includes the soldiers who died as part of Japan’s forces fighting for the Axis powers in World War II, many of whom were charged with the most serious of war crimes. As such, it’s a very controversial site, both within and without the country, and it causes serious stirs whenever anyone of prominence chooses to make a public visit. Indeed, The Pokémon Company discovered this for itself in 2019 when a number of employees from Creatures visited the Shinto shrine for its hatsumōde.
Given its hugely complicated politics and the controversies that arise every time it’s visited, TPC clearly doesn’t want it used as the site of a PTCG event. However, live events are added to the company’s site by those with an official Pokémon Play certification, rather than by TPC itself. It works the same all around the world—if you want to find a local Play event near you, you can look them up on the U.S. version of the site. So it seems someone with such a certification in Japan added the event to the vast numbers listed for the country.
“On the event search page of the ‘Pokémon Card Game Trainers Website’ operated by our company,” begins a statement on Pokémon‘s corporate site (via machine translation), “information about an event scheduled to be held at Yasukuni Shrine was posted.” The statement goes on to call allowing this Yasukuni Shrine event to be listed the result of a “lack of due diligence,” adding, “even though it should not have been held in the first place.”
The event was canceled once discovered, say TPC, adding an apology (again, via machine translation). “We have received feedback and opinions from various parties since the information about this event was released, and we sincerely apologize for this.” The company adds that it will “fundamentally change and strengthen the review system and confirmation process for event information” to prevent something like this happening again.