Kurosawa, Pokémon and What Flew Between Them

In 1999, a schoolboy’s idea for sea-dwelling Pokémon ended up on three passenger aircraft. In 2026, Pokémon are flying with the same airline again. In between: Akira Kurosawa and a paint company that had been thinking about aircraft skin since 1929.

Sea-dwelling Pokémon occupied the left side of the aircraft in the schoolboy’s drawing. He had placed them there because he wanted them to know what flying felt like.

Moving that idea from paper to three passenger aircraft required more than enlargement. The drawing had to pass around windows and doors, continue across a curved fuselage and remain recognisable on a surface that could never be seen all at once. All Nippon Airways (ANA) selected it in 1999 and adapted it for one Boeing 747 and two Boeing 767s.

Four years earlier, Japan Air System had selected seven colour schemes by Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa for its new MD-90 fleet. Long strokes of colour crossed the white fuselages in different combinations. Kurosawa’s colour and Sato’s drawing reached the aircraft through the same material problem: an authored image had to survive on a body built for flight.

Japan Air System MD-90-30 JA8064 in one of seven colour schemes by Akira Kurosawa, photographed at Nagoya Airport on 20 May 2003. Photo: Ken Fielding, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Two years later, the same airline used the fuselage for a different kind of image. In September 1997, a JAS A300-600R entered service in the blue of Pocari Sweat, a Japanese electrolyte drink produced by Otsuka Pharmaceutical. The brand’s name ran across the aircraft in enormous white letters. JAS called it Japan’s first advertising-painted passenger jet. The name of a product now occupied the scale Kurosawa had given to colour.

Japan Air System’s Pocari Sweat Airbus A300-600R JA8562 at Takamatsu Airport in 1997. JAS described it as Japan’s first advertising-painted passenger aircraft. Photo: Spaceaero2, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Paint Beneath the Image

A smaller name runs beneath this sequence. Nittoku’s records place its SKY-HULLO coating on Kurosawa’s MD-90s and ANA’s Snoopy aircraft in 1996, the Pocari Sweat A300 in 1997, the first Pokémon Jets in 1998 and the Pokémon Jet ’99 fleet the following year.

Naval Aircraft Paint Colour Standards, a historical colour-sample book from Nittoku’s archive.

Nihon Tokushu Toryo, now known as Nittoku, was founded in 1929 by Tashichi Nakanishi after his research into aircraft coatings. Its first product, TT Metal Paint, was developed while metal aircraft bodies were still under development.

Aircraft paint had to remain light, adhere to the aircraft body and withstand oil, intense ultraviolet rays, sudden temperature changes, wind pressure and air abrasion. Before a drawing could reach the fuselage, it had to become part of a coating capable of meeting those conditions. SKY-HULLO provided that layer. Beneath Kurosawa’s bands of colour, the Pocari Sweat lettering and Sato’s Pokémon was the same engineered surface.

Winning entry in ANA’s 1999 Pokémon Jet design competition. ANA adapted the design for one Boeing 747 and two Boeing 767s. Image reproduced from archived Pokémon Jet ’99 competition materials.

40,073 Designs Came Back

In March 1999, ANA announced another Pokémon Jet. The airline had selected the aircraft but not the image they would carry. Elementary-school pupils were invited to submit designs, with the winning entry to appear on one Boeing 747 and two Boeing 767s.

The company chose Shota Sato’s. On the completed aircraft, the sea-dwelling Pokémon appeared along the left side, preserving the premise of his drawing as it moved around doors, windows and the cylindrical body of the plane. The first Pokémon Jet ’99 entered service on 21 June.

Pokémon liveries eventually moved beyond ANA through the Pokémon Air Adventures project. ANA began another phase of the partnership in 2023 with Pikachu Jet NH and Eevee Jet NH. In 2026, 27 years after Sato’s design entered service, the airline introduced a coordinated three-aircraft project marking the 30th anniversary of Pokémon Red and Green and forty years of ANA international flights.

Official illustration for Red Pokémon Jet, Boeing 787-8 JA819A. The aircraft began scheduled domestic service on 29 July 2026.

Red was built around Fire-type Pokémon and began flying on 29 July. Green placed Grass-type Pokémon across a Boeing 787-9 and began international service on 18 September.

Blue, a Boeing 737-800 carrying Water-type Pokémon, is scheduled to begin domestic service in winter 2026.

Each arrived with an assigned colour, a group of Pokémon and a place within a programme extending through the aircraft cabins, commemorative objects, merchandise and Pokémon GO.

Official illustration for Green Pokémon Jet, Boeing 787-9 JA923A. The aircraft began scheduled international service on 18 September 2026.

Official illustration for Blue Pokémon Jet, Boeing 737-800 JA56AN. The aircraft is scheduled to begin domestic service in winter 2026. Courtesy of ANA. ©Pokémon. ©Nintendo/Creatures Inc./GAME FREAK inc.

In 1999, ANA didn't yet know what its three aircraft would look like. It asked. 40,073 answers came back.

Opening image: ANA’s Pokémon Jet ’99, Boeing 747-400D JA8964, at Osaka Itami Airport on 26 October 2002. Its livery was adapted from Shota Sato’s winning entry in ANA’s 1999 children’s design competition. Photograph by Simon Butler, CC BY 2.0.