BODY: The Pokémon Company is bringing the sleepy charm of Pokémon Sleep into the real world. On September 5, the Pokémon Center will release a new line of plushies inspired by the mobile app's signature napping poses, with each plush priced at ¥3,740 (roughly $25).
The clear star of the lineup is Squirtle, caught mid-snooze in a heso-ten pose — flat on its back with its belly exposed to the sky. In Japan, heso-ten (literally "belly-button to the heavens") is beloved shorthand for the ultimate relaxed sleep, a posture cats and dogs strike only when they feel completely safe. Seeing a Water-type Pokémon adopt it is exactly the kind of gentle absurdity the franchise thrives on.
Squirtle isn't napping alone. The lineup also includes fellow Kanto starters Bulbasaur and Charmander, each rendered in their own drowsy Pokémon Sleep sleep styles, plus the Mythical Pokémon Mew. The plushies capture the poses players spend their real-world nights trying to unlock in the app.
Pokémon Sleep, which launched in 2023, turns the act of sleeping into gameplay: players track their rest and are rewarded with sightings of Pokémon in various sleep positions. Turning those in-app poses into physical merchandise is a natural next step, and one fans have been requesting since the app's debut.
The insider take
Sleep-themed plushies are quietly one of the Pokémon Center's most reliable hits in Japan, where kawaii and iyashi (healing, soothing) merchandise dominates adult buying habits. These aren't aimed at kids — they're desk companions and bedside decorations for stressed office workers, and they tend to sell out fast. Expect the heso-ten Squirtle to be the first to vanish, both in-store in Tokyo and on the online Pokémon Center, where popular sleep plushies often flip to resale sites within hours. If you want one, September 5 is a day to set an alarm — appropriately enough.
Originally reported by GAME Watch (Japanese).