The Pokemon Company is launching a major celebration of the brand’s 25th anniversary, including multiple music partnerships headlined by Katy Perry, video games, mobile apps, animation, merchandise, and more.

The music collaborations come via an overall deal with Universal Music Group, and will include additional artists in addition to Perry, who touted her Pokemon cred.  "Pokémon has been a constant in my life from playing the original video games on my Game Boy, to trading Pokémon TCG cards at lunch, to the adventures of catching Pokémon on the street with Pokémon GO," she said in a statement accompanying the announcement.

For the Pokémon TCG, the company promised "special 25th anniversary-themed collections" later in TCG.  It has already announced a series of First Partner Packs to be released throughout the year (see "’Pokemon First Partner Packs’").

Other progams include a journey through the regions of the Pokémon video games, beginning with the Galar region and ending with the classic Kanto region; collaborations with Build-a-Bear workshop, General Mills, Levi’s, and McDonald’s; and special merchandise from Jazwares, Scholastic, Mattel, Funko, PowerA, the Wand Company, and others to be announced.

This adds up to substantially more throw-weight than even the massive push for the 20th anniversary, which helped move the entire TCG category up 20% in 2016  (see "Pro: Hobby Games Market over $1.4 Billion").  The visibility of the brand, which is already red-hot in the TCG category, is only going to go up this year.