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Hi all,

For some time I’ve been working on writing up articles that chronicle the long history of the TCG. Right now I’m doing some research on the 2000 Tropical Mega Battle and have run into a little bit of a confusing situation.

There are 2 Tropical Mega Battles events that happened during the year 2000. One of them is the more well-known international Tropical Mega Battle that took place in Hawaii and produced the famed 9th Lucky Stadium card. The other was a tournament in Japan for children who either didn’t make the top placement for the international event, or weren’t able to attend.

According to a couple of sources, here’s the facts that I’ve compiled:

I also personally contacted Jason K. who won the international TMB events to confirm this date.

  • Bulbapedia states that “Overall winners of the Tropical Mega Battle regional events would represent their country in the World Exchange Battle in Hawaii while the remaining top ranking players would compete in a domestic “Best in Japan” final. Both of these events were also held in late August 2000. The champions of the Secret Super Battle and Tropical Mega Battle “Best in Japan” finals were awarded Holofoil No.1 Trainer cards bearing their photograph superimposed on the illustration.”

So it would seem that both events occurred at the same time in different places. However, a recent set of Yahoo Japan auctions has me confused.

If you go to this sold auctions listing for TMB, you’ll see several items recently sold by the user ‘execa22657’. He claims to have won all of them first-hand:

If you go to this old WotC article covering the international 2000 TMB event, you’ll see that Jason K. defeated Toshiya Tanabe in the finals: web.archive.org/web/20010429024702/http://www.wizards.com/pokemon/main.asp?x=tmb2000 . When interviewing Jason K. over email, he also confirmed that the Japanese player he defeated in the finals was named Tanabe.

The question here is–how was Tanabe in two places (Tokyo and Hawaii) at the same time? The old explanation I was going by was that there were simply 2 players named “Tanabe” in the Japanese tournament circuit.

However, the fact that the same seller has trophies / medals from both the International and Japanese TMBs seems to imply that he attended both, which means they could not have happened at the same time. When I asked Jason K. about this over email, he said he didn’t recall any players being awarded trophy cards at the international event, and as the first place winner he would’ve probably gotten one.

Any ideas on what’s going on here? I feel like I’m missing something rather obvious…

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For ease I will use “Japanese TMB” to refer to World Challenge Best of Japan, Juniors division (exclusive to Japanese players who won regional competitions and awarded the holo personalized trophies) and “International TMB” to refer to the event Jason attended for players around the world, no official tournaments needed to be invited depending on which area) in this post.

The 2000 World Challenge Best of Japan was split into two tournaments, one for the Juniors division and one for the Seniors division.

The Juniors division 2000 World Challenge Best of Japan, aka the Japanese TMB, took place on August 26 in Hawaii to coincide with the International TMB. Toshiya Tanabe was the 1st Place Winner for the Juniors Division in Hokkaido, which won him entrance both to the Japanese TMB and the International TMB. While stressful for any competitors to go back-to-back, it’s easier than to plan two separate events both in Hawaii both in August. If you read Jason’s post closely, you’ll see that he basically spent August 26 doing fun casual activities, and August 27 actually competing. Meanwhile, the Japanese players were having their Japanese TMB on August 26. Because of the language barrier, Jason may not have realized the kid he was facing had already been through a major tournament the day before.

The Seniors division 2000 World Challenge was a separate event that took place in Japan and is likely the source of your confusion. Remember that in 1999, the Juniors division won the “Tropical Mega Battle No. 1/2/3” cards and the Seniors division won the “Super Secret Battle No. 1/2/3” cards. So the TMB theme was already there for Juniors prior to the International TMB.

Another reason for your confusion is unfortunately Bulbapedia has some inaccurate info. I assume you are writing “The other was a tournament in Japan for children who either didn’t make the top placement for the international event, or weren’t able to attend.” due to Bulbapedia’s comment you quoted:

“Overall winners of the Tropical Mega Battle regional events would represent their country in the World Exchange Battle in Hawaii while the remaining top ranking players would compete in a domestic “Best in Japan” final. Both of these events were also held in late August 2000. The champions of the Secret Super Battle and Tropical Mega Battle “Best in Japan” finals were awarded Holofoil No.1 Trainer cards bearing their photograph superimposed on the illustration.”

Based on this you would assume the International TMB was the main competition and the Japanese TMB was some small less-important event for people who didn’t make the cut. I am not sure where they got this from. The “Best in Japan” final was by far the more prestigious tournament in Japan. All the primary sources from this period emphasis it over the International TMB. Each of the 8 First Place Regional winners were invited to the 1999 TMB and it was likely the same with 2000. Other Japanese players also were invited but they did not get to compete in the Best of Japan, only the Top 8 regional winers did. You had to be the best in your region just to be invited. Also not to insult the International TMB, but it was a more casual event, where you were given specific cards to make your decks from and limited to only 90 to choose from, and all the prizes were participation based, not personalized holo numbered trainers. It is likely the Top 8 Regional winners cared much more about winning the Japanese TMB than the International TMB.

Some helpful photos:

**Information that trophy cards were awarded to the Japanese TMB winners in Hawaii alongside the International TMB:

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Zoom to see photo of Jason and Toshiya Tanabe (also confirms he is from Hokkaido)

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Results of 2000 World Challenge, Hokkaido Regional Tournament - Toshiya Tanabe 1st Place Junior:

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Here is information about the Japanese TMB and the Seniors Division tournament (SSB); you can see Toshiya Tanabe in the same Puma shirt as on his trophy card, proving that he won 3rd Place in the Japanese TMB on August 26:

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**

Edit: I was browsing pokemon-card.com for information on the upcoming Japan National Championships and saw that while the 1999 Japanese TMB was indeed held in Hawaii, the 2000 one was held in Tokyo. It looks like you saw this as well based on the articles on the site! So unfortunately, my research was completely in vain and inaccurate in regards to 2000, though hopefully helpful for your 1999 article.
www.pokemon-card.com/20th/chronicle/

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God damn historians over here, both of you. Nice work.

Also, please call the best card ever printed “Lucky Stadium Hawaii” or “TMB Lucky Stadium” or even “Bilingual Lucky Stadium”, definitely not “9th Lucky Stadium”

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Very well written by the both of you!

Always loved the TMB theme. Been hoping a lucky stadium pops up on ebay for a long time lol.

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OK thanks! That clears thing up. I don’t know why I never considered the possibility that Tanabe only attended the 2nd day of the event and wasn’t there for the first “fun activity” day. That’s a pretty grueling series of tournament and travelling for a kid!

And I agree–as I’ve written out these articles I’ve found Bulbapedia to be more and more rife with errors. It’s a shame that PSA puts so much importance on it as a source for their own research :slightly_frowning_face:

For the 1999 Challenge Road + International TMB, I’ve written up an article here: pokumon.com/article/1999-tropical-mega-battle-super-secret-battle/

However, after reading through your post, one part that puzzles me is if a 1999 Japanese TMB actually occurred. From a couple sources I concluded that the Japanese finals actually occurred in Hawaii at the international TMB event. Here’s the official timeline from Nintendo that have them both in the same location: www.pokemon-card.com/20th/chronicle/

It seems like a SSB occurred in Tokyo though in 1999 (well, at least according to Bulbapedia). I haven’t found any first-party sources that corroborate this.

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@qwachansey, One more question–what issue(s) of the trainers magazine are those scans from? I’d like to cite the primary sources in my article (and you too of course for your help :blush: )

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Yes, both a 1999 Best in Japan Japanese TMB occured in Hawaii and a 1999 Best in Japan SSB occured in Japan. As with the 2000 Japanese TMB, the 1999 Japanese TMB took place alongside the 1999 International TMB. These tournaments awarded special medals as opposed to cards. Note that the regional tournaments also awarded medals but these are a different style.

Relevant source from 1999 International TMB:

www.edo-hrzic.com/archive/Tropic.txt

"At the rear of the Japanese room (in front of the announcer),

eight Japanese tournament winners were fighting for the National

Championship. The other Japanese children were simply invited to

the event to play (and they played in their own “minor” games)."

"While I was in the Japanese room, a lady from Osaka began

talking to me (she spoke very good English), asking if I was a

newspaper reporter. I said no, and that I was simply writing an

article for the Internet. It turns out that her son was one of

the top eight players for the Nationals."

Similarly to the 2000 Japanese TMB, the First Place Regional Winners competed for the Best in Japan prizes. These winners had already won the 1999 TMB No. 1 Trainer trophy card during regional competition.

Prizes from Silver Bible:

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**Picture of SSB Medals:

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The 2000 Japanese TMB and 2000 Best in Japan SSB personalized holo prize cards were the first actual trophy cards to bestow the honor of Best in Japan. Prior to this all trophy cards (Pikas, TMB, SSB, Chansey) were regional. There was another Best in Japan tournament in 2000 that awarded “cards” but they were made of metal.

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Oh, while I’m at it - There is no “Battle Road 2002 Best in Japan print” text on the No. 1 Trainer page for Bulbapedia, but this event did occur. Sadly we know very little about it; however, this trophy card matches the prior year style of the name on left side and Japan National Championship on the right side, and competitors once again received personalized photo trophy cards. One hypothesis is the tournament format may have been two players competing as a team, or the Top 4 (those who beat their opponent in the Best of Japan match assuming 8 Regional Winners) each received the card.

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I wish I was that organized, but they’re simply from a Pokémon pictures folder on my computer. I probably pulled them from @prochaos who did the real leg work of scanning and may be able to answer for you.

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As a conclusion to this thread, I’ve finished writing up my article on the 2000 International TMB event here: pokumon.com/article/international-tropical-mega-battle-2000/

Give it a read if you want to go through thousands of words and dozens of exceedingly old photographs :blush:

As for the Japanese TMB event, it’s part of my article on the 2000 World Challenge Summer here:
pokumon.com/article/world-challenge-summer-2000/

Thank you again to @qwachansey for the amazing help in clarify things!

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