BODY: The napping never really stops in the world of Pokémon Sleep, and now it's spilling out of your phone and into the streets of Yokohama. Starting July 17, the sleep-tracking app celebrates its third anniversary with a real-world event called "Pokémon Sleep 3rd Anniversary: Yokohama de Mikke! Pokémon Negao Research, presented by Mitsubishi Estate Group."
Centered on the MARK IS Minatomirai shopping complex, the event invites fans to hunt down sleeping Eevee and other slumbering Pokémon scattered around the venue. The "Negao Research" theme—negao meaning "sleeping face"—leans directly into the game's signature hook: collecting the adorable sleep poses that Pokémon strike as they doze beside your slumbering Snorlax.
The campaign runs a generous five-plus weeks, wrapping up on August 23. That timing is no accident, landing squarely in Japan's summer vacation window when families and students flood Minatomirai's waterfront attractions.
Mitsubishi Estate Group's involvement is a telling detail. As one of the developers behind the Minatomirai district, the real-estate giant has increasingly used pop-culture tie-ins to drive foot traffic to its retail properties—a formula that pairs neatly with a game already built around gentle, habit-forming daily engagement.
The insider take
From Tokyo, this reads as a textbook example of how Japanese IP and real estate now dance together. Pokémon Sleep has quietly become one of the franchise's stealth successes, and staging a physical "mikke" (spot-it) hunt in a Mitsubishi Estate mall is less about the game and more about converting digital habit into physical footfall. Expect limited-edition photo spots, stamp rallies, and merch that sells out by the first weekend—Japanese anniversary events live and die on that scarcity-driven urgency, and Pokémon has mastered it better than anyone.
Originally reported by GAME Watch (Japanese).