Japan’s Next Pokémon Boom Is Warming Up

The Japanese Pokémon market ramping up for a boom.

If it booms, it will follow the English Pokémon market which has been in the Boom Phase since November of 2024, and has seen English Pokémon products to explode in price.

Take a look at everyone’s favorite set, Evolving Skies. A year ago, Evolving Skies booster boxes were selling for $660 USD. Today: those same booster boxes sell for $2,000 USD or more across eBay and TCG Player. And the price just keeps going up…

This isn’t a surprise to anyone reading this: everyone in the hobby knows how crazy this English Pokémon market has been.

But, behind the scenes, you might not have noticed the momentum that has been slowly building for Japanese Pokémon products.

Just about a month ago, I wrote about the first modern Japanese product we’ve seen make dramatic price movements over the past year: the Japan Post Stamp box, which includes the amazing Pikachu and Cramorant promos.

A year ago, this product was still selling for as low as $300 USD. Today: as much as $1,500+.

The Japan Post Stamp box was an exclusive release only available from Japan Post locations in Japan. Most supply estimates put the total print run at around 100,000 boxes, making this a limited release as far as sealed Pokémon products go.

It’s an excellent product (one I wish I bought more of), and it is not surprising to see it front-run the overall Japanese market. A month ago, when I pointed out its price movements, it was the only breakout product I could see within the Japanese market.

But not anymore. Just look at Tag Team GX All Stars.

Tag Team GX All Stars was the high class pack set from 2019 and was the final Japanese set release of the Sun and Moon era. This was always a popular set, but it never quite caught the attention of the market like sets like Eevee Heroes, or more recently, 151.

During the 2023 Japanese boom, this product peaked at around $550 USD.

Today, it’s suddenly selling for around $700 USD, with even higher price sales on eBay, far exceeding it’s previous boom peak.

Eevee Heroes booster boxes, which also peaked around $550 during the 2023 boom, have also been pushing back towards those all-time-high prices again. The market price has recovered from the correction low of $330 back to $470, getting closer and closer to those previous all-time high prices.

Over the past year, the moves in the Japanese Pokémon market have not been as dramatic as the English market. But the Dormant Phase is never dramatic. Instead, it’s defined by this exact kind of slow and steady price appreciation that begins the snowball of attention that triggers yet another Boom Phase.

If you’ve been following along with me and studying the Collectibles Cycle, you will know that (for whatever reason) Pokémon seems to enter a new Boom Phase about every 4 years. The English market has followed this pattern with booms beginning in 2016, 2020, and now 2024. And the Japanese market experienced its most dramatic boom to date in 2023, almost 3 years after the English market began it’s 2020 boom.

This pattern suggests to us that the we should expect the next Japanese market Boom Phase 4 years later in 2027.

But, this data is suggesting that the next Japanese boom might happen even earlier than the established 4-year pattern.

Because, in addition to these recent Japanese product price movements, Google Trends data is suddenly showing a huge spike in interest for Japanese Pokémon cards.

Just look at the Japanese search volume for “pokemon card” (ポケモンカード in Japanese):

The data (which is displayed as a dotted line because it is still being finalized) shows that, recently, the search volume has exceeded that of the previous Japanese boom!

And, the international search volume for “japanese pokemon card” is even more remarkable:

Not only do we see the same massive spike in search volume… but this international search interest is already far above the 2023 boom and is suddenly spiking even higher.

This search data shows us that international interest in Japanese Pokémon cards is already at all-time high levels, while the local Japanese interest is also rising quickly.

And these search traffic spikes are exactly what we saw for English Pokémon cards in early January of 2025, right as the English Boom Phase had become unavoidable. Just look at the traffic pattern I shared in this newsletter post back then.

This trend is a bullish indicator for the future of the Japanese Pokémon market over the next year or two.

Now, of course, I’m biased: during the last few years I focused the majority of my collecting and investing dollars in Japanese products. I would love to see the Japanese market enter the Boom Phase.

But, more importantly, as I’ve learned about the Collectibles Cycle, I’m even more invested in learning to recognize these market patterns and being able to help myself and other make better decisions with their hard-earned money.

So, as I’m writing this, I’m incredibly excited to see my predictions play out.

But, even when I try to acknowledge my bias for Japanese Pokémon cards, I can’t help but conclude that the data doesn’t lie: I think we’re about to go on one hell of a ride.

As usual,

Thanks so much for reading the TCG Buyers Club newsletter. My name’s Grey, I buy cardboard, and I’m on a mission to make collecting and investing in Pokémon simple.

Cheers 🍻

P.S. Did you build any positions in Japanese Pokémon cards? And, if you did, are you planning to sell when the market booms?