Pokémon’s life-size Spheal plush is my new best friend

polygon.com:

The good people at the Pokémon Center have outdone themselves yet again.

The Japanese store is currently selling a life-size Spheal plush. The chonker clocks in at 16.4 pounds and measures over 3 feet tall — it’s not for the faint of heart. This big boy costs 49,500 yen (approximately $357).

Spheal is a spherical seal. That’s it; that’s the entire concept. It’s an ice-type Pokémon, and to that end, the product description promises that it feels cool to the touch “because it uses cool contact fabric.” Here are some of the things you can do with your life-size Spheal, according to the images on the Pokémon Center website:

The plush’s size really makes you think about how large Spheal has been all along. When the creature was introduced in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, my childhood brain imagined it to be basketball-sized. Seeing it in the wild inPokémon Legends: Arceus shook this understanding a bit, since it was clearly larger in the open world. Still, this plush is enormous — large enough to take up an entire bed.

Spheal joins a growing line of illustrious life-size Pokémon plushies. The Pokémon Center sells giant Mareep, which was popular enough to spark a meme trend, as well as a life-size Lucario, which, from promotional photos, looks unnervingly lifelike for just another cute plushie.

This Spheal plush is available to purchase only through the Japanese Pokémon Center store, which won’t ship items outside the country, so let’s cross our fingers that it comes stateside at some point.