A travel project shaped by real locations, gentle pacing, and route-by-route storytelling.

Rule 1

Real-world locations must be based upon the approximate geographical location of the equivalent in-game city. For example, Pewter City is north of Viridian City. Therefore, a candidate city for Pewter City must be north of Hakone the candidate city for Viridian City.

Rule 2

If a real-world city matches the geographical location, but lacks the cultural features of the in-game city, the nearest city that fits the cultural description shall be elected as the candidate. For example, despite Maebashi City being north of Hakone (Viridian City), it is far too generic of a city to be elected as Pewter City. Therefore, the nearest city with a significant culture and history of archaeological findings and contains an important museum is Iwajuku. It is slightly to the East of Maebashi, but it meets the points in rule 2 to be elected.

Rule 3

“Culture” will refer to the culture as depicted in any of the games, anime, manga, or other forms of media. If a conflict exists between the mediums, then we will defer to the main-line video games as the source material.

Rule 4

Mountains and caves are generally designed as RPG dungeons to serve gameplay, rather than as one-to-one real-world travel stops. Because of that, they will usually receive less attention in the tour unless the game makes the real-world inspiration especially clear. For example, Mt. Silver is very clearly Mt. Fuji.

Rule 5

Islands in the game will only be visited if they are accessible by public transportation. If no public transportation exists, they will instead be documented using miscellaneous clips rather than footage taken directly by us. For example, Sakhalin, the inspiration for the Battle Zone in the Sinnoh region, cannot currently be accessed as part of the tour.