On the Origin of Species: Sobble, Drizzile, and Inteleon

A Pokémon fan visiting the Vatican had a unique experience with new Pope Leo XIV. The individual, who works as a TCG League leader, visited His Holiness with a Popplio card from the English Lost Thunder expansion. Another person presented the card, and the Pope graciously signed it. The photos since gone viral, and as of writing has been reposted over 5000 times, received 47,000 likes, and is being reported on major news sites.

Today, the official Japanese Pokémon Card Channel posted a video unveiling the Full Art variant of Riolu from the upcoming Mega Brave expansion for the Pokémon Trading Card Game. The card will be released in Japan on August 1st, and internationally in the Mega Evolution expansion later this year.

Runs of two Pokémon games are scheduled to feature in the Summer Games Done Quick 2025 charity marathon, which is being held live at the Hilton Minneapolis Downtown from July 6th to July 12th. As always with SGDQ, the event will be raising money for Doctors Without Borders, a nonprofit and non-government organization that provides humanitarian health care across the world. The marathon can be watched live on the GDQ Twitch channel.

The Pokémon Company has debuted two new kids of plush Pokémon today, both of which will be arriving at Pokémon Centers in Japan on July 12th. Five new sleepy plushes based off the Pokémon Sleep app will launch alongside seven new plushes designed to be strapped on the shoulder of a backpack. Due to the current maintenance occurring to the Pokémon Center Online, these collections’ availability there will be announced at a later date.

The Pokémon Company’s newest merch collection will be “Happy Sunny Day,” and features lots of kids’ items and summer accessories like hats and sunglasses. The collection will arrive to Pokémon Centers in Japan on July 19th. Due to the current maintenance occurring to the Pokémon Center Online, the collection’s availability there will be announced at a later date.

The final batch of Pokémon Horizons: Season 2 - The Search for Laqua was released out of nowhere on iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, and YouTube in the United Kingdom. While viewers are used to getting these episodes on BBC iPlayer first, there have been no announcements on that front. This batch includes 11 episodes, taking up the second half of the レックウザ ライジング (Rayquaza Rising) arc from the Japanese version.

Pokémon UNITE Weekend, which is held on the first Saturday and Sunday of every month, is back again from July 5th at 12:00am (UTC), through to July 6th at 11:59pm (UTC). As with previous months, all Pokémon licenses will be free to use (outside of Ranked matches) over the weekend, along with the ability to earn a large amount of Aeos coins, Aeos energy, and battle points over the weekly limit.

As first announced back in May, the Pokémon: Through the Generations marathon from TheSpeedGamers will commence this coming week on Friday July 11th, running through to July 18th. The event, which is raising money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, be streamed live on TheSpeedGamers Twitch Channel.

As Bulbagarden's community-driven encyclopedia, Bulbapedia is always growing thanks to the hard work and dedication of Pokémon fans across the world. Each day new edits and contributions sprout up as contributors bring their expertise and passion to the project. Let's take a moment to highlight some of the standout contributions that blossomed in June 2025.

All three forms of the Mimicry Pokémon Tatsugiri will be making their Pokémon GO debut during the Water Festival event, running from Tuesday, July 15th, at 10:00am to Sunday, July 20th, at 8:00pm local time.

Hisuian Lilligant will be the featured Pokémon for Pokémon GO's next Raid Day event, which is being held next Saturday, July 12th, running as usual from 2:00pm to 5:00pm local time.

As part of a Summer Watch Party, the first three Pokémon movies will be released for a limited time on the Pokémon TV YouTube channel starting July 4th. The first movie, Pokémon: The First Movie, is now available to watch. This upload features English, French, German, Italian, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Latin America), Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Swedish, and Turkish audio tracks, and English, Spanish (Latin America), and Portuguese (Portugal) subtitles.

As part of a special project called 「ポケモンと駆ける夏物語」 (Summer Stories Running With Pokémon), the official Japanese Pokémon YouTube channel will be releasing two animated shorts. Both of these shorts were released in Mainland China earlier this year.

The release date for Latios, the next Pokémon to join the fray in Pokémon UNITE has been announced — It will be available to play from July 18th. Latios is a Ranged Attacker with Intermediate difficulty and deals Special damage.

The celebration of summer continues in Pokémon Masters EX, with a re-run of last year's Exciting Treasure Hunt Story Event, together with Seasonal Scouts featuring Summer-themed Sync Pairs from the past five years.

Pokémon Café ReMix is celebrating its 5th anniversary, and a variety of events have been ongoing for the special occasion. A new outdoor tea party event featuring Salamence is now available, Plusle and Minun arrive in Pelipper Delivery with brand new outfits, and Espeon appears as a five-star chef in the second part of the update. Torchic is the featured Pokémon of July's Goals.

Pokémon GO's latest Ultra Unlock event, Ultra Unlock: Hisui Celebration, will run next week from Tuesday, July 8th at 10:00am, to Sunday, July 13th, at 8:00pm local time. The Spiteful Fox Pokémon Hisuian Zorua, and its Evolution Hisuian Zoroark, will each make their Pokémon GO debuts during this event.

Today's video on the Pokémon Trading Card Game's official Japanese YouTube channel has unveiled new cards for Scorbunny, Raboot, and Cinderace. These cards will be released in the Mega Brave expansion in Japan on August 1st, and internationally in the Mega Evolution expansion later this year.

Now that the Nintendo Switch 2 has been out for a month, Play Pokémon have confirmed that players competing at the 2025 Pokémon World Championships in the VGC and UNITE divisions will be able to use the new console. The Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite, and Nintendo Switch - OLED Model will all remain eligible for use as well.

Ranked Season 31 ran from June 1st-30th, 2025, with Japanese player Berumotto (ベルモット) taking 1st place in the Double Battle category. They attributed their win to a team featuring both Miraidon and Calyrex Ice Rider — which is quickly shaping up to be one of the strongest teams in the format.