Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Japanese Promos, Which Do We Get?

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ChaosJim

ChaosJim

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Throughout the history of the Pokemon TCG, we've gotten various levels of the Japanese Promos released, but we've never had ALL of them. I think the only promos we've had in the US that they did not receive, was the Mewtwo promo with art by Christopher Rush of Magic fame, and the Kids WB promos. Even at that, I'm pretty sure they got those cards with different art. I feel like someone may have once described it as "a glut of Japanese promos" and I can easily see the difficulty: Pokemon just isn't as huge here as it is in Japan. I'm under the impression that lately PUI has been trying to lump groups of promos in with the non-Japanese sets, and I think we all appreciate it.

I'm under the impression the Japanese get cards other than Victory Medal for winning Battle Roads now, and I'd like it if we did too. I know in an earlier thread, started by Ruiner I believe, I had mentioned that while people were upset with changes in prize distribution, this was potentially something that PUSA could do to add value to their events without changing costs (presumably).

Lucario EX would've given people pause for thought. I don't really keep up with all of the Japanese promos. Anyone wishing there were some other promos we had gotten? Also, someone bring this thread to a hault if we're now getting nearly every promo and I just don't realize it.

A lot of the threads on here lately have been pretty negative, and I hope people can ditch a tone of "I'm bitter we didn't get" and replace it with a mindset of "in the future, I hope to see more ..." We know POP reads the boards, lets give them something potentially useful.

My big one: I'd really prefer unique promo offerings, instead of 8 different arts for Piplup that do the same thing.
 
I'm always so jealous of everything imakuni? based. I’d love to see any of his promo’s printed, even if they weren’t legal for play. Also things like Ash’s Pikachu lvx. These are just really fun cards that I’d love to have in my collection. This coming from someone who usually isn’t a big fan of collecting.
 
Short answer: we've never had it so good

Long answer: I can give one but it would be looooooooooong
 
..But then they'd have to print something other than Victory Medals... I don't think that's in their budget when all they have to do is make a stamp and slap it onto a card that was mass produced a few years ago...
 
Now that POP sets are no longer being made we will see less reprints of promos since almost all of POP9 (I think) were JPN promo reprints.

However our next set (after HGSS) is most likely going to be the cards from HGSS which we don't get mixed in with some Japanese promotional half deck cards.

It definatly has gotten better over recent years as to us getting more promos but I doubt we'll ever get to a point where we get all of them. For example Japans DP-P promo set was at 124 before it finished to move onto DPt-P. I think alot of Japanese collectors find it hard to collect all of these promos since they are being released at such a huge rate.

This is more possible in Japan since Pokemon is alot more popular to the whole country rather than select groups so they can use more distribution methods, like in much older times (late 90's) some promos were only avaliable if you purchased a Toyota. Since English language promos are generally released as blister packs and tins (not all of course) we would probably end up needing 20+ blisters/tins per set in order to keep up with Japan.

I think for Battle Roads Japan got the Victory Ring card, although I might be mistaken on that due to the fact it seems very rare. I certainly would like to see the Victory Medal card for our Battle Roads changed. Our even if they kept the same one, change how they give them out to the Japanese way, Gold for first, Silver for second (plus now Bronze for third with this eyars introduction of the new designed Pika medals).

And Diaz, I feel the same about cards like that as they are amazing. However I'm pretty confident when I say that we won't get them, as Imakuni? cards are usually joke cards with effects that would be a nightmare to use in game (I think one states that you have to throw the card across the room to use it's effect, can you imagine the chaos haha), and English language releases tend to only focus on cards which are playable rather than ones which are "fun". (The only exception for Imakuni? illustrated cards is the Lucky Stadium which came out in Neo Destiny). The same goes for cards such as Ash's Pikachu, English cards never really reference the anime. Some of them use anime art but only for the characters who also appear in the video games, I doubt we'll get Ash's anything over here.

Although having said that we did get Rumble cards which I think we're quite unexpected so you never know.

See dogma, nothing wrong with a long answer.
 
I was in a bit of a rush this morning so didn't get a chance to say everything I was going too.

One last point I would like to make is about when they choose which promos to realise, they make some very very bad choices. One of my reasons is stated by Jimmy in the first post, the Piplup with 8 different arts, this really annoys me too.

But not as much as a recent stunt just pulled, I was actually talking this over with Cally from Collectorviper briefly and she is annoyed by it too (more than me, she is a biggest JPN collector).

In Japan one of the DPt promos was a rare Pikachu card (not sure of distribution, hopefully Cally can fill in the blanks if she reads this) and it's value was around $300 due to the fact that it was a very rare promo.

Now with the release of HGSS images we find out that this card is to be put in a blister for the next set, this will essentially kill the value of the JPN version (not all the way but a significant amount) as well as killing the rarity of the card overall.

IMO if they are looking for promos to release in English blisters, they should release promos which aren't too hard to get in Japan, not something which collectors would struggle to obtain, as long as it isn't just an alternate art of something rubbish again.

I would also like to say (since I'm not sure if it got across in my last post) that I am rather said to see POP packs go as the collector side of me really enjoyed them. The player side of me likes the fact that Uxie and Claydol are now okay to get, and my collector side does like new shiny cards.

But lets face it, the POP set contents were on the up again. As I see the POP sets, sets 1-4 were very good sets, they had unreleased ex's, lots of new cards, they were generally pretty good. The came POP5, and no words can describe how much I love this set, Ho-Oh, Lugia, Mew, and Espeon and Umbreon Stars all made for what is without contest the best POP set to date (even if Espeon and Umbreon weren't released as holos).

Then came POP6 and 7. Nightmarish horrible reprints of cards that were in no danger of being rotated. If they had stayed at this level I would have fully endorsed to killing of them. But they didn't. POP listened and POP8 had some the most useful trainers in the current format, then along came POP9, no useful trainers but 16 out the 17 cards were brand new cards which had previously been Japanese promos. I do think that the POP packs were on their way back up, and if they had just followed the trend they were going at instead of killing it off then they might have had people going mad for POP packs again. POP10 could have been the new POP5.

Just my 2 cents, but I really hope that the POP packs make a return and continue the trend they were going at, we may have been able to get alot more Japanese promos then.

I know this has gone slightly off topic, but the core idea is still there.

I'm done now.

Promise.
 
ChaosJim said:
A lot of the threads on here lately have been pretty negative, and I hope people can ditch a tone of "I'm bitter we didn't get" and replace it with a mindset of "in the future, I hope to see more ..." We know POP reads the boards, lets give them something potentially useful.
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Jimmy -

You are a classy guy. Thanks for posting this.

As for promos, I would love to get any of the special Pikachu promos. My daughter loves Pika and, for her, the Japanese versions are not the same (contextually).
 
*seconds all of the post above* ash's pikachu, plz....and anything lugia, shaymin land as well.

'mom
 
It would be awesome if we got some new Victory Medals. I lost count on the number of different kinds Japan has. Maybe we can get some kind of HGSS Victory medal to coincide with the re-release of the 2nd generation.
 
PokeDaddy said:
Jimmy -

You are a classy guy. Thanks for posting this.
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Thanks Steve, I try.

DJ Gigabyte, I hear you on the concern for destroying the value on difficult to get cards (WotC did this with Cool Porygon). I think the true Japanese collectors would still want the Japanese version though? It is difficult for PUSA to release cards and the value be high. Toxicroak G (Promo) was an example I think of what they didn't want: a promo that dealers would separate from its original packaging most of the time, to sell for more than its MSRP.

I'm left wishing I had traded for an Ash's Pikachu sooner for everyone who has mentioned him, since its clear that we won't be getting one now that HGSS is on its way and the SP and Level X mechanics are gone to history.
 
An example of POP recently switching things up is with the new energy cards (The ones with the pokemon silhouettes, which rumor has it we are getting). I feel like this is the first step towards changing some of our other long-standing, almost "traditional", cards (Victory Medal, perhaps) into something more along the lines of what the Japanese do: exciting and attention-grabbing promos.
 
...And yet what I love is that those of us with the alternate art LV.X promos that were never released (Porygon-Z LV.X, Garchomp C LV.X) will never be able to use them due to tournament policy!

My "green jobs" Porygon LV.X - which was never released alongside that disgusting default art Porygon-Z LV.X - is dying to get played in a deck. :frown:

http://pokebeach.com/news/0109/porygon-z-lvx.gif
 
I purchased the Ash's Pikachu Lv. X and it's by far my favorite card i have. I was disappointed there isn't an English copy, but for some cards, the Japanese will have to do until/if we get English ones.
 
Thinking of Sunday Lucario brings up another good point. The Japanese have things like Pokemon Centers and TV shows based on pokemon news and live-action pokemon. Promos generated from these are just more promos in the sea of cards we have a small likelihood of receiving.
 
I agree with what Jimmy says.

However saying that, the biggest 2 culprits are can we get original stamped (maybe black star) promos for events rather than a reprinted card and league. I have no issues with the Claydol, Uxie, and other playable cards. However the other 8 cards are just stupid. I don't know why we are reprinting 8 cards that are just not at all sought after. I mean nobody wants them and there really is no need for them. Instead maybe releasing 8 promos that we might not of gotten otherwise. It was why POP sets were so good for a while. Then the reprinting fest began and that is when the POP sets lost their luster. I mean Pop 5 which had a few reprints (good playable cards), but it also had 3 cards that were either worth something or very playable that were original. I would rather have new cards that having the same crappy cards shoved down my throat repeatively. I appreciate all the hardwork that POP does and how hard it is to get everything done in a way that works, but this is something to me that if worked on, could be corrected. However I don't know all the logistics so I really can't be sure on that.

Drew
 
kwisdumb said:
Great analysis, Dan.

fwiw, I'd be extremely interested in your take, Dogma.
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Thanks. My take after I've responded to some stuff

DJGigabyte said:
See dogma, nothing wrong with a long answer.
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Whatever! :biggrin: (I was interested in what you had to say though)

DJGigabyte said:
But not as much as a recent stunt just pulled, I was actually talking this over with Cally from Collectorviper briefly and she is annoyed by it too (more than me, she is a biggest JPN collector).

In Japan one of the DPt promos was a rare Pikachu card (not sure of distribution, hopefully Cally can fill in the blanks if she reads this) and it's value was around $300 due to the fact that it was a very rare promo.

Now with the release of HGSS images we find out that this card is to be put in a blister for the next set, this will essentially kill the value of the JPN version (not all the way but a significant amount) as well as killing the rarity of the card overall.
Click to expand...

Is that the Daisuki? :eek: Urgh, I never thought a stunt like that would be pulled, there's loads who are annoyed with the Eeveelution stars and how they were released here

ChaosJim said:
My big one: I'd really prefer unique promo offerings, instead of 8 different arts for Piplup that do the same thing.
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Yep, totally annoying, and is the reason I am so put off the recent promos. I want something more interesting! At least DP-t P (Japan's Platinum promo series) was better than DP...

My take - it's long winded!

This is a very interesting question and goes way beyond Pokémon itself.

The first TCG ever produced was Magic, by Wizards of the Coast (WotC). The first sets were completely shrouded in mystery. There was no indication of rarity. There was no set/card number. There was no set list, or spoilers, or pre-releases or anything. In fact, WotC wouldn't even admit what cards were in each set.

Well Magic became hugely popular and then the internet became popular. Eventually, enough players hung out at the same forums to share information. When the first major Magic site was made, this no information policy made no sense. That level of mystery will never come back.

What has all this got to do with Pokémon? Well WotC's strategy with the game at the beginning was to fuel the craze. Get the kids to really really want to catch them all. The fad was fuelled by the same mystery that was around Magic at the beginning. Yes Pokémon had rarities and all sorts of innovations right from the start. But no set lists. No information, not real info anyway.

All of that mystery just fuelled the fad. And in the fad WotC seemed to create some 'rules'. (OK, these rules were kinda forced on them by Nintendo/PCL, and they're not official but that's not really important.) No cards based on Japanese references not known anywhere else (bye-bye Imakuni!). No sets with funky distribution methods (Vending just never kicked off and the Gym sets were very different in Japan). And no awesome promos (this one was a Nintendo thing apparently. No need to annoy our Japanese sponsors where some awesome promos were being distributed).

None of this really mattered whilst the fad grew hotter and hotter. But then as all fads do, it bottomed out. This was happening around the Neo era. Fans became more and more knowledgeable, and wanted some cool promos. The Vending series made a brief appearance, and some other cards made their way over.

When WotC made way for Nintendo and TPCi (it wasn't called that then, but whatever) taking control of the TCG, they needed a way to entice people back to the game. How better to show that TPCi are awesome than to be able to suddenly release all these promos?

When TPCi worked out that selling tins and blister packs and stuff would get successful, we really started to get lucky and get a lot of promos released through our sets or an English promo.

Our English sets started to get promo cards to fill 'em up. Yeah, there are other reasons for the increased promos. But DJ covered all that.

Hope that made sense. Told you it was long!! Wow, I could've worked this into a bigger article! Hmmmm....
 
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