With the school term starting again soon — or having already commenced in some parts of the world — it’s time to make sure the backpacks are in order and fully equipped for the first leg of the academic year.
As with most companies at this time of year, Nintendo Store has a line of school-bag-friendly gear in its ‘Pop-Up Store’ range, including brand-new bits based on its biggest series — your Super Marios, your Zeldas, your Splatoons, et al. — alongside older items.
There’s a lot of fun stuff here, some of it more exciting than the rest, so we’ve rounded up the best-looking examples below, sorted via the six themes. If you’re in Back to School mode in the last weeks before September and you’re in need of some equipment, take a gander.
In addition to your regulation pens, A4 folders, and notepads, we like the look of the Peach Multi Pouch (kind of a posh pencil case), the Power-Up Pencil Case (a normal pencil case), and the impressively, classily understated Peach Cap.
There’s a bunch of other pouch-like cases and case-like pouches, plus bottles and keychains and other things to scuff up on your first day back.
However, the item that jumps out at us is the fetching Pipe Pencil Holder. It doesn’t get much simpler, though 18 quid feels excessive for a cylindrical bit of “Polyester resin” and “flocking”. But our desk suddenly looks incomplete without one.
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Moving on, there’s not quite as much to pick from with this little-known Nintendo franchise, but what’s there is tempting. You could have a boring black backpack, sure, but it’s the “Premium” green one all the way if you really want to shine ’em on.
Elsewhere, the triangular (pyramidal?) Triforce pouch looks cool, if thoroughly impractical for holding almost anything you might need at school. The Pencil Case looks much more useful for holding your everyday essentials: slingshots, wind-conducting batons, and the like (and check out that green interior).
And you won’t be able to fit your books or pencils or iPad or any school gear whatsoever in a Bomb Flower Pouch, but man is that a handsome bit of vinyl chloride resin.
Time for a bit of class. No garish primary colours in the Animal Crossing range, just subtle pastels and cute designs. The ‘Dōbutsu no Mori’ on the laptop bag is sure to elicit nods of approval from AC connoisseurs (and “wut”s from the rest).
Not quite sure how an “Insulated Food Canister” qualifies as Back to School fare, but hey, you’ve got to put those after-school cookies somewhere, right?
A slimmer selection from Olimar and company, here. Gotta love those Pikmin paperclips, though, and who could resist that little (big) Rock Pikmin charm?
Kirby comes with an even smaller selection of just four items, all of which came out back in 2023, including two sizes of backpack.
The School Stationary Set is perhaps the school-iest item of the entire range, though.
Finally! When it looked like we might get through this thing without a proper, honest-to-goodness lunchbox, the Inklings arrive with one.
Plenty of more colourful stuff here if the Animal Crossing gear is a little sombre for your tastes.
If we split the school year Triforce-style into its three parts, the first one has to be the Term of Power as everyone returns rejuvenated after a nice long break (all you parents out there feel powered-up, right?).
The second term? The Term of Courage, as we all get our heads down and crack on into the new year after the holidays.
Which means we finish with the Term of Wisdom, where all that learning and knowledge manifests in its most potent form. And then school’s out and we all await the return of Ganon the following year. Lovely.
Anyhow, let us know below if you’ll be picking up anything to augment your academia this year.
