Pokémon Shiny Jirachi Myth Debunked By TWO Shiny Hunters On Same Day

The Pokémonfranchise is filled with rumors, myths, and secrets dating back to the first game’s release in 1996, and one of the series’ oldest myths relating to the arduous hunt for Shiny Jirachi has been debunked by not one, but two hunters – on the same day, no less. This 17-year-old hunt was believed by many to be a fruitless endeavor, but that is no longer the case.

Jirachi is one of Pokémon‘s Mythical creatures that was introduced in Gen III, although it did not appear natively in any of the three original titles or remakes. In fact, the only legitimate way players could obtain Jirachi was via a promotional bonus disc that came with Pokémon Colosseum for the Nintendo GameCube. Many deemed this Jircachi beyond Shiny hunters’ abilities, and the required setup for each encounter was enough to drive away even the most masochistic Shiny hunters. Game Freak has since distributed Jirachi a number of times through special events, including Shiny giveaways in America and Japan.

However, Shiny purists were determined to prove that Jirachi’s Shiny form could be hunted normally using the Pokémon Colosseum Bonus Disc, and they were right. On January 10, 2021, both Boblarka and Bean0 posted videos to their YouTube channels of them finding Shiny Wishmaker Jirachi using this method. Until now, it had only been rumored that Jirachi could be normally Shiny hunted using the bonus disc and that the only way to obtain it using the disc was to manipulate the player’s save data. Yet, after a combined total of 6,880 encounters (708 for Boblarka, 6,272 for Bean0), the myth had been busted at long last.

Shiny hunting, in general, can require a lot of patience and determination, but the hunt for Shiny Wishmaker Jirachi is known to be one of the most tedious and mind-numbing hunts. It requires the use of a Nintendo DS, a copy of a Gen III Pokémon game for the Game Boy Advance, a Nintendo GameCube with a Game Boy Player attachment, and a Pokémon Colosseum Bonus Disc. For each encounter, players are required to start a new save file and progress through the first ten minutes of the game. Luckily, both hunters mentioned above were playing on multiple devices (four DSes and four GameCubes), but these multiple-instance runs are still time-consuming. For reference, Boblarka’s 607 encounters took over 67 hours to complete in total.

Expecting speculation to roll in that these Shiny Jirachi were obtained using manipulated save files, both hunters went to extensive lengths to show their setups and prove there was no cheating involved in this hunt. Both creators spent hours of their lives to prove something that was only rumored to be true, and the odds of them both finding the Shiny on the same day are astronomically low. Boblarka and Bean0 have made Pokémonhistory as the first players to find Shiny Wishmaker Jirachi since it was introduced 17 years ago.

Sources: Matt Brandl, Boblarka, Bean0

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