Ride the cutest train in Japan: Pokemon with You Pikachu-themed train
JR East company has these trains called Joyful Trains that are these cool themed trains that run throughout the regions they service that offer different experiences for guests to enjoy! Each train has different features and perks that come along with them that are super fun to enjoy depending on your interests!
Of course, as soon as I saw that there was a Pikachu themed train, I had to see how I could get on it!!
Booking Tickets
Train Schedule
The train runs on a limited timetable and has a limited number of tickets, so make sure to check the calendar to schedule accordingly. The train is really small - there’s only one passenger car - and you can only board the train with a reserved ticket, so you’ll have to make sure you reserve a seat in time!
We booked our tickets at a JR East Service Center with an agent who was able to book the train for us easily with our JR passes. I got our tickets booked for the December 29, 2024 train on December 6, so we got our tickets pretty early in advance.
Ticket Prices
The ticket prices for the train were not very expensive actually. They were 2010 yen per person for a one-way ticket from Ichinoseki Station to Kesennuma Station. However, since we were staying in Tokyo, we did have to travel from Tokyo to Ichinoseki, which required a more expensive Shinkansen ticket. Because we had the JR pass, this was convenient enough for us, but if you are purchasing train tickets on an individual basis, you’ll need to take the additional train tickets into consideration.
About the Pokemon with You Train
The Train Cars
The Pikachu-themed Pokemon with You train is a 2-car train. The first car is the passenger train where each passenger gets a seat. The passenger car is completely PIkachu themed with yellow and brown seats, flooring, and even window curtains! The ceiling is also lined with silhouettes of different Pokemon!
The second car of the train is the Pikachu play room! The play room is decked out in PIkachus everywhere! There are a bunch of small PIkachu plushies as well as a few giant ones! There’s one that you can actually carry around, and one that’s stationary on the floor. It’s way cute!! They also have Pikachu ears and conductor hats that guests can wear, and a couple props too for photos!
The play room opens up shortly after the train takes off and closes shortly before it reaches the destination station. As soon as the play room opens up families and children rush to it to play and get photos. After a while some families return to their seats and the play room is much less crowded, so I would suggest waiting for the rush to die down if you yourself aren’t in any rush. It’ll make getting your photos much easier with far fewer people in the background!
What Comes with Your Ticket
Each train ticket comes with a reserved seat on the Pikachu train (of course!), but it also comes with a few little goodies as well!
Each guest gets a commemorative Pikachu train ticket that’s separate from the actual train reservation ticket that you get to bring home. You also get a stamp rally card with stamp slots at four stations along the route between Ichinoseki and Kesennuma Station. Along the route, the train makes several stops where the train attendant brings all the train guests to the station where they can get their Pikachu stamps. Then everyone gets back on the train and rides to the next station! There are 5 stamps to get in total - 2 stamps at Ichinoseki Station, 2 stamps at different stations along the way, and 1 stamp at Kesennuma Station.
Riding the Pikachu Train
Ichinoseki Station
Since the Pikachu train departed from Ichinoseki Station at 11:00AM, we wanted to make sure that we were there with enough time before the train departed so we didn’t miss it. So we left Tokyo extra early and arrived at Ichinoseki Station around 10:00AM.
The town area around Ichinoseki is pretty small and is mostly navigable by buses. We didn’t want to go anywhere too far away and run into any bus schedule issues, so we stayed in the station and waited for the train. There wasn’t too much in and around the station besides a small convenience store and a small waiting area with a noodle shop.
I did love that Ichinoseki Station had a bunch of Pikachu all over the place. They had Pikachu statues, stamp stations, and decorations, especially leading up to the platform where the Pikachu station leaves from!
Boarding the Train
As soon as the train arrived at the station, we were allowed to board. Right away I loved how cute everything was! Literally everything was Pikachu-themed!
The seats are setup pretty close together with each set of 2 seats facing each other. So for a group of 4 adults, it’s a pretty cozy fit, and if you’re facing strangers it can be a bit awkward. But lots of people end up spending most of their time in the playroom anyway, so it’s not too big a deal!
The Train Ride
The train ride one way takes a total of around 2 hours. The stations along the way are really small and don’t have much going on other than the stamp rally station, so if you’re in need of snacks, I would recommend getting them before the train ride and bringing them with you. The train attendant did sell some ice cream along the way, but if you’re looking for something more substantial, you’ll need to be prepared with your own.
The ride itself is smooth and chill. Seeing the landscape of the area is really beautiful, especially in the snow!
Since a lot of the attendees are families with small children, a lot of them spend most of the ride in the Pikachu playroom, so the passenger train is generally pretty quiet for most of the ride. It’s also super fun to hang out in the playroom too! All guests remove their shoes before entering the play area, but you can pretty much hang out there for the whole train ride if you wanted to and sprawl out with all the cute PIkachu plushies!
Station Stops
At the stamp rally stops along the route, each of the stations had additional Pokemon themed statues are characters on the platform that you could check out, which I thought was really cute!
Also, all the station signs were Pikachu themed!
Arriving at Kesennuma Station
When we arrived at Kesennuma Station, we got the last stamp in our stamp rally and completed our card! The return train from Kesennuma to Ichinoseki Station wasn’t for another two hours, so we had to find something to do while we were in the area.
Usually, during the open season, visitors could stop by the Kesennuma tourist center and sign up for a city-wide Pikachu stamp rally. The city-wide stamp rally allows visitors to explore Kesennuma and visit some popular areas, and if you get at least two stamps, you get a cardboard version of the Pikachu train! Unfortunately, since we visited during the New Year’s season, the tourist center was closed so we couldn’t participate :(
Most businesses in the area were also closed so there wasn’t too much to do. We ended up taking a bus out to the marina area and then turned around as soon as it looked like it was about to rain 😅 So we basically took a little bus tour around the city and went back to the station to wait until our train was ready to leave.
We went to the New Days that was connected to Kesennuma Station to get some snacks and a light lunch. A lot of the food was sold out so we had limited options, but we had enough to tide us over for the train ride.
Our Train Ride Back
On the train ride back, we actually ended up getting the cardboard PIkachu train we wanted to get from the Kesennuma stamp rally! The train attendant knew that we wanted to participate but that the center was closed, so she got us all cardboard trains anyway!
The train ride back was basically the same as the ride there. We made the same stops and got another set of commemorative tickets and stamp rally cards.
Since we already filled out or stamp rally card from the initial ride, we decided to just relax on the return trip and have a chill hang out in the train for the duration of the ride. Of course we had to stop by the play room again to hang out with all the Pikachus too!
Recap
This experience was so much fun! I’ve always wanted to ride a themed train since they always look so cute, and it absolutely did not disappoint!
I absolutely loved the cute Pikachu playroom and getting to see all the PIkachu plushies! And the way the passenger car was designed was just so cute!
The one thing I will say is that we were sorely underprepared when it came to food. We spent the entire day subsisting on small convenience store snacks, so we were pretty hungry for most of the day. The first time we got an actual meal was when we arrived back in Ichinoseki Station at the end of the day and ate at the noodle stall before catching another train to Sendai. So if I did something like this again, I’d definitely prepare more easy to eat food and snacks to get us through the whole day.
Overall, though, I would say it was just a really nice fun day spent riding trains! If you’re into that kind of thing and especially if you love Pokemon, I would definitely recommend checking it out!
