Sylveon Figure

Pokemon Company International, ca. 2015

Molded plastic, PVC

Dimensions variable

Purchased with Pokemon cards from Comic Connection, Hamilton, ca. 2015 by Golan Cheifetz, gifted to Zahra Rashid in 2018.

The Sylveon figurine is a character from the popular franchise, Pokemon. The Pokemon Company was founded in 1998, after the first Pokemon game was released for the Nintendo Gameboy in 1996. The figurine was part of a Pokemon Card Game kit as a collectable item purchased by Golan Cheifetz. It was gifted to me in 2018 as Sylveon was my favourite Pokemon.

Pokemon was an important part my childhood. I first began playing Pokemon on the Gameboy in 2005 and would play the card game at school with my friends. My brother and I would play with collectable Pokemon figurines everyday. One of my earliest memories is of rushing home from school to tell my Grandmother, who lived in our house at the time, about Pokemon, and even though she did not understand and called them “Pokey-mans”, she would sit and listen to me and ask questions.

My grandmother is now very old and sick and I live away from her and my brother. The figurine reminds me of those good moments and is also my favourite Pokemon in the series. It provides me with a small piece of home, which was very important last year when I had just moved to Guelph all on my own. In this time, with the pandemic keeping us all in our homes, the Sylveon has become increasingly important to me, as I cannot go home to visit my parents, my brother, or my grandmother. The figurine sits on my desk in my new home and reminds me of my parent’s home and my family. I found it quite interesting that a figurine toy ended up meaning so much tome and wonder whether or not others have small items that look insignificant to anyone but the owner, and if those owners are now beginning to realize how important their items are in this time.

Zahra Rashid