Kyoto’s Nintendo Museum is getting a special Pokémon-themed manhole cover featuring Pikachu. The manhole cover’s design features the electrified rodent leaping out of a GameBoy, with pixels shooting outward in his wake.
Nintendo showed off the surprising new choice in street decor via an official blog post, giving prospective museum-goers a closer look at the design. Pikachu isn’t the only character from the franchise to get a special themed manhole cover, however–a whole collection of them have been popping up in various Japanese cities, featuring other Pokémon, like Golem and Vulpix. Nintendo has even released a map showing the location of each manhole cover–referring to them as “Poké Lids”–along with a bit of an explanation for why they exist to begin with.
“Poké Lids, artistic covers for utility holes, have recently started to be spotted in some cities,” reads the Poké Lid site’s description. “Who knows if they are of Pokémonopolistic nature? It seems that not all utility holes are man-made; rumor has it that Diglett may be responsible for digging large enough holes to be mistaken for utility holes, and some artists took it upon themselves to “mark” the covers to differentiate them from ordinary ones. Where will the next ‘mark’ be?”
The Poké Lids are likely meant to function as quirky promotional advertising for the Nintendo Museum, which officially opens on October 2 in Kyoto, Japan. The museum sits on a property once known as the Ogura Plant, where Nintendo previously manufactured trading cards, along with offering repair services for consoles.
Nintendo fans got their first good look at the museum during a September 2023 Nintendo Direct, during which it was stated that the museum would feature a “wide variety of products from Nintendo’s history”–manholes included, apparently.
