No.243

October 31, it was the chestnut festival day in Spain! On this day, we visited a school called El Col-legi Lestonnac de Barcelona for a lecture. Before a visit we were a little nervous, thinking what we should do if the pupils knew nothing about Pokémon. To our delight, however, they all knew about Pokémon and they welcomed us cheerfully with big smiles! They asked us a lot of questions eagerly, including: “What did you like when you were children?”, “What did you want to be when you grew up?” or “Why are you making Pokémon games?” We answered their questions as best we could. They were listening to us excitedly with twinkling eyes. We were so impressed and felt happy! Headmaster and teachers also were very kind to us. They served traditional Catalan sweets. They all said to us, “Come here next year again.” Children laughed, clapped their hands and became serious occasionally. We appreciate their reactions very much. The more I talked, the more I was filled with emotion. I thought that it was really good to continue manufacturing goods. Last of all, I said a few words of thanks and told them “I want to continue making good stuff!” Then, I got a lot of applause. I was so pleased that I almost cried. Moreover, I was handed a wonderful gift by two representing pupils. The gift was pictures of Pokémon drawn by all the four graders in Classes A, B and C. The subject was “Pokémon in Barcelona”. It thrilled me further! Truly, they were very good at drawing. The gift contained about 60 pages and they were all lovely pictures. I was really grateful to all the people in the school including the children for giving us a wonderful opportunity! We surely got a lot of power from this event. El Col-legi Lestonnac de Barcelona was an excellent school. This is the newspaper that reported on our visit to the school. http://t.co/ybt2FtSw9Z This is a video of TV broadcast that shows our visit to the school. It starts about 42:55 on the image counter. http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/telediario/telediario-21-horas-31-10-14/2842522/ On November 1 and 2 we spent our time at Salon del Manga, gathering information and participating in events. First of all, we want to express our gratitude to all the media including newspapers, TV stations and radio stations. We surely bought the papers that reported on us, of course (laugh). It was a little strange to us that the media consisted mainly of newspapers and TV stations instead of gaming magazines which are dominant in this kind of event in Japan. As expected, Salon del Manga also held these events. I thank all of you for taking part in the cosplay and the battle tournament. This is the individual winner! Using the software game music, she performed one-man play to warm up the event! These three are the team winner! They expressed the beautiful view of the world! These two got the special award! They said they spent three months creating the costumes using card boards and newspaper. It is exceptionally amazing! This is the winner of the battle tournament! To our surprise, he turned out to be the fourth place of Master Class in Pokémon World Championships(WCS) 2014. It was no wonder even Omori could not beat him. Last of all, thank you very much for everyone who gathered at the site! Now that I learned that everyone supported Pokémon also in Spain more than I expected, I considered I should keep trying hard without just feelingthankful. Now, I feel uplifted! I express again my gratitude to everyone I met in Spain for your hospitality! Chao!