Pokémon turns 30 and adidas is marking it with twelve shoes. Not a two-pair teaser, not a capsule. Eight Pokémon spread across six Originals silhouettes, landing September 2026 through adidas.com and select retailers, with prices running from $110 to $180.
The two brands have been working together since 2020, and most of those earlier drops were character graphics slapped onto a shell toe. This one is different, and the difference is physical. Charizard's wings are a moulded flap. Pikachu's upper has actual fur texture. Mewtwo's eyelets are shaped like fingers. Somebody on this project cared.
The Full Lineup With Style Codes
Charmander Superstar, KI2855, $110. Cream White/Shock Yellow/Orange, with the Three Stripes rendered as flame and character artwork on the tongue tag.
Charmeleon Superstar, KI2856, $110. Preloved Scarlet over Cream White. The Three Stripes are replaced entirely by 3D claws, which is the single most literal design decision in the collection and somehow works.
Charizard Superstar Vintage, KI2861, $180. Textured orange upper built to read as scales, a wing-shaped flap extending from the eyelets across both sides with teal undersides, cream shell toe and midsole, themed insoles. The wing detail is a direct nod to Jeremy Scott's adidas era.
Pikachu Superstar, KI2857, $110. Footwear White/Core Black/Gold Metallic, all-over Pikachu print, Poké Ball dubrae. Already listed on StockX ahead of release.
Pikachu Superstar, KI2858, $110. Yellow over Core Black with a fuzzy textured upper mimicking fur.
Pikachu Pro Model, KI2862, price TBA. Same yellow and black treatment on the higher-cut Pro Model.
Gengar Adistar XLG 2.0, KJ5609, $150. Ghost-type styling on the chunkiest silhouette in the set, with Gengar's eyes worked into the upper.
Mewtwo Samba OG, KI8220, $110. Ice Lavender and Violet, triangular eyelet pattern standing in for Mewtwo's fingers, Psystrike energy detail on the hangtag.
Mewtwo ZX 8000, KI5326, $170. Ice Lavender/Violet Fusion/Bliss Lilac, and instead of a Poké Ball dubrae it gets a Master Ball, because Mewtwo does not go quietly.
Rayquaza F50 Tunit Mega, KI5325, $180. Football-derived, built on Megaride tooling. The oddest shoe here and the one that will confuse the most people.
Haunter on the Adistar Control 5, a Mewtwo Spezial with a heel loop shaped after the neural cord on its neck, and a Rayquaza Adistar Control 5 round out the set without confirmed codes yet. Sneaker Bar Detroit and Modern Notoriety have both been tracking the reveals as they leak.
Two Takes You Should Argue With
First: the Charizard Superstar Vintage at $180 is the only pair in this collection that justifies a premium, and everybody is going to buy the wrong shoe. The scale texture and the removable-looking wings are real construction work. The Charmander and Pikachu Superstars at $110 are, underneath the graphics, a Superstar. Good shoe, thirty years of proof, but you are paying for a tongue tag.
Second, and this is the one nobody is saying: the Mewtwo Samba OG at $110 is the sleeper of the entire set. India has spent two years in a Samba spiral. An Ice Lavender Samba with a legitimately clever eyelet detail and a Master Ball's worth of nerd credibility is going to move faster here than any Superstar in this collection. If you buy one pair, buy that one.
What India Actually Gets, and What It Costs
adidas India is a much better bet than Nike India for a drop like this, and there is a structural reason. adidas has been deepening its India footprint hard, including a ₹1,700 crore manufacturing build in Tamil Nadu, and Originals collaborations have been landing locally with increasing reliability. Ranveer Singh got a co-created Superstar. The Bad Bunny Ballerina reached Indian shelves. This is a brand that wants Indian distribution.
The pricing gap matters. A standard Superstar starts around ₹5,999 in India, with premium leather versions near ₹11,999. Samba OG sits roughly ₹10,400 to ₹12,999 depending on the retailer and colourway. If adidas India lists the Pokémon Superstars locally, expect somewhere in the ₹12,000 to ₹14,000 band.
Import them instead and the math turns ugly. Footwear coming into India carries 35% basic customs duty, a 10% social welfare surcharge on that duty, then 18% IGST layered on the combined figure, which multiplies declared value by roughly 1.63. At the 3 August 2026 rate of about ₹95.3 to the dollar, a $110 Superstar declares at ₹10,480 and lands near ₹17,100. The $180 Charizard declares at ₹17,150 and lands close to ₹28,000. The $150 Gengar lands around ₹23,300.
So the rule is simple: wait for adidas India on anything at $110, and only consider a proxy for the Charizard, the Mewtwo ZX 8000 or the Rayquaza F50, which are the three least likely to get an India allocation.
The Nostalgia Angle Is Real Here
Pokémon landed in India through afternoon television, dubbed, on repeat, for a generation that is now in its late twenties and thirties with disposable income and a sneaker habit. That is a very specific and very well-funded overlap. Complex framed this as one of Pokémon's largest sneaker collaborations yet, and the scale is the point: twelve pairs means adidas expects this to sell to more than collectors.
Which also means it will not all sell out. Twelve-shoe collections never do. The Charizard will go instantly, the two Pikachu Superstars will sit for a week somewhere, and the Rayquaza football shoe will be discounted by December. Plan accordingly rather than panic-buying on day one.
Bottom Line
This is the best Pokémon footwear collaboration anyone has made, and the bar was not high. Buy the Mewtwo Samba OG for wearability, chase the Charizard Superstar Vintage if you want the object, and ignore the rest unless a specific Pokémon means something to you personally.
Keep an eye on adidas.co.in from early September. If you want Samba and Superstar options you can have in hand this week instead, the adidas shelf is stocked, and our Samba India price guide covers what a fair rupee number looks like before the Pokémon tax. For a cautionary tale on pop-culture collabs that skipped India entirely, read what happened with the KPop Demon Hunters x Vans drop.
