As you may have heard, a Pikachu with the hidden ability of Lightningrod will be distributed from September 19 – January 31, 2012. You have to do a bit of work for this pikachu. Much like last year’s Eevee promotion, you have to play an online game to obtain the pikachu. This one’s all in Japanese…but don’t despair. It’s pretty easy to understand. And actually kind of fun.

The big blue button says “Game’s Explanation” that’s what you’ll click next. Also note that pikachu on the right. It says “When you particpate you’ll get a present for Pokémon Black/White 2”

Here you’ll click on the Big red button. But, you might want to note the pikachu with the code on the left: PNU41. You can enter that in another form to get a pikachu piece for your game. I’ll tell you where when we get there. So, if you’re ready, click!

Now, this will (probably) take you to the actual login page (unless you’re already logged in). Yours may look different than mine. You need a Daisuki club account in order to login, but if you have connected to the Japanese Global Link, then you have an account and hopefully you see your account number up there. If you need help with this, feel free to email me.

From here you’ll start a lengthy overview of the game and how to play which you probably can’t (or don’t want to 😛 ) read. Your host will give you Pokémon Chips (ポケモンチップ）which you use to play. The first ones you receive are the starters: Tepig, Snivy, and Oshawott. The chips have 1★. The star denotes how powerful your chip is. I believe they go up to 5 stars, but since I’m only rank 13,000 something maybe you get better ones. The letters in the bottom right corner stand for: D (Defense) S (Speed) or P (Power) which denotes their strength and how they should be placed on the game board.

If you look at the pictures as Natsuki (ナツキ） explains you should get an idea of how to play. You have a “tray” at the bottom of the screen which contains all of your chips. You click the chip you want. And click again over the slot you want to place the chip in to release it.

Then she’ll tell you about your Team Power. That’s that number in the upper left corner. The higher it is, the better.

Now when you put your other two chips in the holders, you’ll notice they glow. You got a bonus for placing those three pokémon. The bonuses (they call them わざ or techniques) you have show up on the left underneath the team power. Also, the more you have of those and the bigger they are the better.

And with that she gives you a full complement of chips and begins a more detailed explanation of how the board works. The back row set in the goalie net is the goal. You want to put a strong pokémon with a D into it. (for an easy way to find your Defense chips, look at the scary multi-colored bar just above them. Clicking on P will show you just your power chips, D your defense, S your speed, and I don’t know what the star is cause I don’t have any. The other buttons sort by type, so if you can’t read them, you can probably tell based on color that the purple one is poison, red is fire etc. When you want to see all of them click on the button furthest to the left.

Now, when you start out you might not have enough defense pieces to put in the defense slots and you may not be able to make great combinations to get good bonuses. Don’t worry about it. Just plop your pieces in the best you can.

The next row is your Speed row. Try to place Speed pieces there, but it’s not imperative. The foremost row is Power. You probably got one super awesome piece. By super awesome I mean that I got a legendary (Zekrom). Place him in the front center P row and you’ll most likely get a 400 point bonus.

Once all your pieces are set explanation will switch over to a guy named Taiyo (sunshine! タイヨウ）. He runs the Pokémon sports news. Essentially he’ll report on your matches. Telling you what side one. Showing you with happy faces and sad faces which pokémon did well, and tell you who the MVP of the game was. The one with the ribbon (mine was my Zekrom imagine that) was the MVP. And who scored the goals. None of this really matters. Winning is all you really care about. Feel free to click on through madly.

Then it’s back to Natsuki. She shows you the box with the shield on it. That’s the pokémon league. You need to participate in that at least once to get your pikachu when it’s distributed in September. I hope to god you don’t need to win it because so far my track record isn’t very good. She takes you to the board again where you can get your team ready for the league. Look in the upper right corner. It should have three pokémon type symbols in the upper right (mine are grass, fire, and water) Pokémon of these type add to your team power, so use as many as you can.

The blue button that she highlights is “participate” (さんか) Click it! Then the box with the shield will have a blue banner on the upper left which essentially means you’re registered for the upcoming match (さんかちゅう) After you’ve participated the little banner will be red. When you click on it at that point Taiyou will tell you how you did against the other teams. I’ve never won all of them, so I can’t vouch for what happens if you do, but usually you get a participation prize, like a pokédoll for your avatar. Or a rare chip.

That was just a mock league battle. You’ll still have to register for the real one.

The button on the bottom that they show you is “back” (もどる) it takes you out to the main page.

If, by now, you’ve had it with this stupid game and its horrible horrible music (that I can’t figure out how to turn off), then click on the NL League shield and get your team ready. Note the three types in the upper right hand corner and add as many as you can. If you want to reset your board hit the purple button. It will send all your chips back to the tray. Clicking the orange button above it will have it make a team for you. When you’re ready hit the blue “league participate!” (リーグにさんか！）button. And check back on Sunday. I should note that throughout the week if you get better chips you can continually change the team you have entered for the league. It’s not set in stone when you do it.

You can do the same for the league to the right of the shield, the GariGari cup. I believe you can participate in either for the pikachu. To be safe, do both.

But, if you actually want to try playing a little, pick up a couple new chips. The button on the bottom left with the lock lets you enter passwords for chips. I only know a couple: PNU41 gets you a pikachu. UHH2Q will get you a keldeo. Entering the code should be self explanatory. Hit the big orange button “けってい!” when you’re done.

As far as the other buttons on the main page, the purple one with the cup shows you your awards. I only have one. 🙁

The gold one with the crown says “ranking” （ランキング) and shows you just how much you suck (or rock if you’re not me).

The button with the fiery flexing muscle is Challenge mode. This is where you can get more chips, but you’re gonna have to fight for them. I took the above pic with my main account and I’ve already beaten everybody. See how it says クリア on the upper left. That’s “clear” and means you’ve beaten the opponent. You can challenge them again, but you won’t get any new chips.

So, click on the blue button on the bottom right to finesse your team （チームさくせい) . When you’re happy with it. Click the blue button さくせい　しゅうりょう. Then click on one of the opponents. I’d start at the bottom as the team power gets higher the further up you go. Their team will be shown so you’ll have an idea what you’re up against. When you’re ready click the big VS button.

I got stomped. I hope you did better. If you won, woo! Get your chip. If you lost, try one of the other people. Just because your number is lower does not necessarily mean you will lose. It seems kinda random what happens. If you lose narrowly, try and tweak something and then try again.

If you are really having trouble, try again tomorrow. When you log in the following day you’ll get to pick a random chip and you may get something really awesome (or a crappy bidoof or something). Last week I was able to get 2 chips a day increasing my odds. (I don’t know if this was from logging in consecutively or what). Just be sure you check back on Sunday to see how your league went. And then you don’t have to worry about playing anymore because you should be entered to get your pikachu.