We make a pair of gloves that are super-effective against playing Pokémon GO in the cold

All the joy of tossing balls unencumbered by chunky gloves, while keeping the rest of your digits toasty warm.

The only thing we at SoraNews24 love more than Pokémon is a good bargain, so we were thrilled when our resident Japanese-language reporter and thrift-hunter Go Hatori revealed that he had come up with a cheap gadget to make playing Pokémon GO easier. Now that we’re thrust deep into the icy climes of Japanese winter, playing Pokémon GO offers a unique challenge unlike other mobile app games—you really have to venture out into the cold to go catch ’em all, and worse, you have to expose your fingers to the elements in order to play properly.

While stores do sell gloves and finger caps that allege to work on touchscreens, even these gloves don’t offer the same fingertip precision that a naked finger will.

▼ These might work for some click-and-wait game, but not Pokémon GO!

So budding Pokémon GO masters find themselves at a crossroads—wear touchscreen-enabled gloves, and suffer the occasional frustratingly off-kilter PokéBall throw? Or forego gloves altogether, and let their fingers become frigid icicles? By the way, once your fingers get that numb, it’s pretty hard to throw the ball with any precision.

▼ I wanna be the very best, but it’s cold!

If only we had some gloves that eschewed covering the thumb and pointer finger altogether so that the wearer could happily scroll, click, and toss balls with their bare skin. But wait! Such a pair of gloves may already lie at your fingertips. Go was startled to see his brother’s Pokémon-GO-playing pal show up to one of the game events with just such a pair of gloves, and in his ignorance, mocked her for it. After he made his own pair and tried playing, he was forced to eat his words. These gloves may not win any beauty contests, but they’ll put you ahead of the competition in catching Pokémon for sure!

Here, we’ll clue you in on how to make your very own pair of Pokémon GO gloves. Ours cost just 110 yen (US$0.96) to make!

First, buy a pair of cute gloves from your local 100-yen store. Any pair will do. (They cost 110 yen because of tax.)

Now for the tricky bit. Isolate whichever finger on the glove corresponds to the finger you use to launch a PokéBall, then snip just the underside of that fingertip away. Ideally, you’ll want to aim away from the seams to minimize loose threads.

Next, you…wait, no, there is no next step. You’re finished. Hooray!

This way a good 95 percent of your hands are covered, which is leagues warmer than playing bare-handed. You can keep your hands warm to stave off the numbness, but maintain the precision and accuracy you’re used to. And all for less cash than it would cost to buy a Raid Pass in the game! Seriously, though, can we get a discount on those any time soon?

The biggest downside is one that Go himself propagated when he first saw these gloves—walking around with an obvious and visible hole in your gloves makes you look a bit unkempt to those around you. Also, while they’re cheap and easy to make, they’re a very limited-use item. We can’t imagine using this for anything other than Pokémon GO, if we’re honest.

▼ Go gifted some to fellow SoraNews24 reporters Takashi Harada and Ikuna Kamezawa, even so.

But still, if you do play Pokémon GO, and are suffering from icy fingers because of it… Why not give it a try? Good luck on your Pokémon journey, and make sure to wrap up, stay warm, and try to dodge the crowds!

Images © SoraNews24
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