The Story Behind Castform’s Rainy Form Sofubi Figure

Castform (Rainy Form) Pokemon Kids Sofubi Figure by Bandai, 2004

Castform and the Forecast Ability That Makes It Unique

Castform is National Pokedex #351, a Normal-type Pokemon introduced in the third generation of mainline games — Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, which launched in Japan in November 2002. Its defining trait is the Forecast ability, which changes both its appearance and certain stats in response to active weather conditions during battle. In sunshine it shifts to the Sunny Form; in hail, the Snowy Form; and in rain, it becomes the Rainy Form captured in this figure: a rounded silhouette modeled after an inverted raindrop, with a pale upper body, a darker blue band across the middle, and simple dot eyes above a small curved mouth. The sculpted base mimics cloud segments, anchoring the design to Castform’s core identity as a weather-driven Pokemon. By 2004, the third-generation Hoenn-region rollout was ongoing — FireRed and LeafGreen arrived in January of that year, Emerald in September — and Bandai was producing merchandise in step with those releases. Castform fits squarely in that wave.

Pokemon Kids, Sofubi, and Japan’s Shokugan Tradition

Bandai launched the Pokemon Kids line in 1996, the same year the original Game Boy titles debuted in Japan, and it has continued without interruption ever since. Each figure is produced in sofubi — soft vinyl — a flexible, durable material with roots in Japanese toy manufacturing that stretch back to the 1960s, when it became the industry standard for mass-produced kaiju and tokusatsu characters. The hollow base of every Pokemon Kids figure doubles as a finger puppet, a design feature built in from the start. Alongside that play function, the figures belong to the shokugan category: small collectibles packaged with a piece of candy (typically ramune or gum) and sold as a bundled food product through convenience stores, toy shops, and supermarkets across Japan. That distribution model kept the price accessible for children while the sheer scope of the lineup — covering the full Pokedex across multiple series releases — made it equally compelling for collectors tracking down specific entries. The third-generation figures arrived in several waves between roughly 2003 and 2005, bringing Hoenn-region designs including Castform and its four distinct forms into the lineup.

Why Castform Draws Completionist Attention

Most Pokemon with alternate forms swap colors or gain minor visual details, but Castform’s four forms — Normal, Sunny, Rainy, and Snowy — have genuinely different silhouettes. That visual separation means each one functions as a distinct object rather than a variant, and Bandai’s approach of producing individual figures for each form creates a natural four-piece set. The exact series number and full set composition of the 2004 release have not been definitively documented, but the character’s structure lends itself to that kind of lineup. The Rainy Form’s teardrop shape is recognizable at a glance and unlike any other figure in the line. Beyond Castform specifically, Pokemon Kids figures from the early 2000s occupy a window in the franchise’s history when the Hoenn region was still new, the shokugan market in Japan was commercially robust, and Bandai was applying established sofubi craft to an expanding cast of characters — a combination that gives these pieces a clear place in the broader timeline of official Pokemon merchandise.