Tatsugiri Forms in Pokemon GO: How to Get Curly, Droopy, and Stretchy

Tatsugiri is back in one star raids for Ultra Unlock: Water Festival, which starts today and runs through August 24. The sushi dragon has three forms, they are locked to different parts of the world, and the one you can catch depends entirely on where you are standing.

So the interesting question is not how to beat a one star raid. It is how you end up with all three.

There is a plan that works, and one detail in the remote trade rules that means you should be catching spares today rather than in three weeks. Line up partners on the live trade feed while the raids are up.

Water Festival raid window

The Stardust ramp matters more than it looks, and not for the reason you think. Hold that thought until the trade section.

Three forms, three regions

The lock is on where the Pokemon is caught, not on who owns it afterwards. That is the whole reason trading solves this. A friend who caught a Stretchy in Japan can hand it to you in Ohio and it stays a Stretchy.

All three forms share identical stats and identical movepools. The difference is purely cosmetic, which is worth knowing before you spend anything powering one up. There is no best form to chase for battling, only the two you are missing.

What you are catching

Windy or Rain pushes the catch to level 25, so a boosted one saves you dust later. Run a spread through the CP calculator if you want to see where it lands maxed.

Should you build one

No, and it is not close. Water Gun with Outrage is the best it does, at around 12 DPS, which does not put it on any raid list worth reading. Community rankings put it near the bottom of Great League and lower still in Ultra League, and it goes unranked as a raid attacker.

Dragon and Water is a lovely typing on paper. A 226 attack stat attached to 166 defense and 169 stamina is not.

Treat this as a Dex and collection chase, because that is what it is. Three entries, three colours, one shelf. Log what you are missing in your collections so you know which two you are hunting.

Shiny Tatsugiri

Not available, for any of the three forms. Nothing in the Water Festival raid listing marks Tatsugiri as shiny eligible, and no form has had a shiny release since its debut.

This is good news for once. It means a Tatsugiri is a Tatsugiri, so you are hunting three specific things rather than six, and nobody is holding out for a gold one before they trade.

Getting the other two

Two routes, and they have completely different rules. This is where most guides stop short.

Route one, trade in person

The classic method. Both trainers need to be within 100 metres of each other, so this needs a friend who travelled, a visitor, or an event.

A Tatsugiri form you have never registered counts as a Special Trade, because a form you do not have in your Pokedex triggers it. That brings three limits:

• One Special Trade per day, so two forms means two days minimum
• Good Friends or better before you can do it at all
• Stardust scaling hard with friendship

That table is why the Stardust ramp matters. Doing both swaps at Good Friend costs 40,000 dust. Doing them at Best Friend costs 1,600. The festival is handing out 3x to 5x catch Stardust all week, so if you are stuck trading at a low friendship level, this is the week to fund it.

Route two, remote trade as Forever Friends

Forever Friends sits above Best Friends and takes 90 friendship points after you hit Best Friends. Reaching it grants a Remote Trade that ignores distance completely. You tag the Pokemon you are willing to send, both sides pick up to three from the other's tagged list, then each of you offers one.

The part worth circling: remote trades do not count as Special Trades. Niantic states that outright, regardless of what gets traded. So a Tatsugiri form that is brand new to your Dex does not burn your daily Special Trade when it arrives remotely.

The limits that do apply:

• One remote trade per day total, across all your friends, not per friend
• Forever Friends is repeatable, another 90 points earns another remote trade
• Remote trades do not stack, so spend the one you have before earning the next
• If you are Lucky Friends, a remote trade can still come through lucky

No Stardust figure has been published for remote trades, so plan your dust around the in person table above rather than assuming.

The 30 day rule, and why you catch spares today

Here is the detail that changes your plan. A Pokemon caught within the last 30 days cannot be remote traded. Previously traded Pokemon are locked out too, so you cannot relay one through a third person.

Work that forward. A Tatsugiri you catch on the first day of the festival becomes remote tradeable around September 17. One caught on the final day unlocks around September 23. The raids end August 24 and do not come back on a schedule anyone has announced.

So the sequence is:

1. This week: catch your own region's form, plus every spare you can stand to raid for
2. Late September: those spares age past 30 days and become remote trade stock
3. Then: swap remotely with partners in the other two regions, without touching your daily Special Trade

If you skip the spares this week, you have nothing to offer in September and you are back to hoping a tourist walks past. Spares are the entire currency here.

In person trades have no such wait, so if you have a partner nearby right now, do those immediately and save the remote route for the region you cannot reach. Check any swap with the trade calculator before you commit.

Shiny Dondozo is the better prize this week

Tatsugiri's partner is sitting in three star raids for the same window, and unlike Tatsugiri it can be shiny. If you are choosing where passes go on a quiet day, Dondozo is the better use of them.

It is also a neat bit of flavour. In the main games Tatsugiri rides around commanding Dondozo, and the two showing up in the same event is not an accident.

The rest of the raid pool

Costumed Psyduck and scarf Lapras are both one week collectibles. If you are already spending passes for Tatsugiri, work those in around it.

Elsewhere in the festival: Arrokuda and Barraskewda arrive through Field Research and Rainy Lure Modules, Cramorant debuts in Eggs, the GO Pass, and GO Battle League rewards, and 5 km Eggs carry Azurill, Mantyke, Frillish, and Cramorant. Shiny odds are up for Ducklett, Swanna, Dewpider, and Araquanid.

What to prioritize

1. Raid your own form first. One star, trivial to solo, and it is the only one you can catch at all.
2. Then catch spares. They are your September trade stock and the raids are gone after August 24.
3. Do in person swaps now if a partner is nearby. No 30 day wait, but budget one Special Trade per day.
4. Push partners to Forever Friends. Remote trades skip the Special Trade limit entirely, which is the cleanest path to the two forms you cannot reach.
5. Bank Stardust while it is 4x and 5x. Trading at Good Friend is 25 times the cost of trading at Best Friend.
6. Spend spare passes on Dondozo. It can be shiny, and Tatsugiri cannot.

Track it on PoGoPit

• Events calendar for the full Water Festival window and bonus tiers
• Raids to see what is live near you
• Live trade feed to find someone holding the form you are missing
• Trade calculator before you spend a Special Trade
• Collections to track which forms you still need
• CP calculator to check a catch before you invest

Event and raid data credited to Leek Duck and the community datasets that mirror it. Form distribution, stats, and rankings come from Pokemon GO Hub and community trainer reports. Remote trade and Forever Friends rules are from Niantic's own announcement.

PoGoPit is not affiliated with Niantic, Nintendo, Scopely, or The Pokemon Company.