Changed link to more comprehensive info, thanks to @mavericknate
inb4 Raichu involved with another non official card leak/myth
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Water Pokémon Master wrote an extremely poor and ill-researched reason behind these two promos being left unreleased. I’m rather disappointed that his story spread so quickly instead of mine! =/
However, for those of you who want to know more about it, I’ve posted my findings below here too, in addition to the Bulbanews article:
Around the time Plasma Freeze was being released, there were plans to release a Landorus Box to the English audiences, containing BW Promo 79, Landorus. This box, which was actually released in other international languages, was extremely similar to the unpopular Emerging Challenges Box. Because of this, distributors did not show any interest in the product, and it was eventually cancelled. However, knowing that the Landorus Promo was going to be a sought after card by the TCG audience, The Pokémon Company International instead repurposed the Landorus promo and released an alternate version of the Deoxys Box’s Druddigon promo into the Plasma Freeze Blisters, kicking out the Pikachu and Raichu promotional cards. This redistribution happened much too quickly for the company to repurpose the Pikachu and Raichu promos, thus leaving them unreleased. This is also the reason why Druddigon comes in both a Cosmos Holofoil and a Tinsel Holofoil.
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I just went and checkout out the Bulbanews article after I posted this from Pokebeach.
Thanks for putting the more detailed info in the thread.
That story lines up perfectly with what Exobyte, a TPCI rep on PokeGym, said. He stated that he confirmed a cancelation of the product that was to contain these promos and that they would not be released in any alternate form.
He also noted that they could be proxied for the sake of binders, which correlates with their scans having been added to Pokemon.com’s main scan database.
Thanks for the info, Nate.
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I definitely used that post as part of my research on this! My friend also ended up contacting him about it at both Nationals and a private support-ticket exchange on Pokémon.com. Couple that with the product patterns in other languages (particularly french), and everything just fell directly into place. Plasma Freeze was also the only set for France not to release Three Pack Blisters, meaning there had to be some sort of problem going on.
I’m just sad that we’re not getting these promos, and that that damned Lillipup indirectly caused this problem (@frost)
I appreciate the support that you gave me by switching the link out. Thank you a ton~
Credit where credit is due.
Any chance they will be released anyway? Are there any out there or did they never go to print?
I think not releasing them as promo’s in a blister was a good move. Since their Japanese counterpart was much rarer. As with the newer classroom art that are now in the fisting firemen set.
No chance of released.
Never sent to print.
And Japanese promo releases are never relevant to English releases.
That’s a shame. On all three answers 
Agreed on the first two.
I prefer the Japanese promos be a separate deal. Haha
Yeah, but if they have a counterpart in English, than make it somewhat similar in rarity.
It’s hard to equate rarities seeing as how we don’t have events like they do. They release a promo every time the wind blows, I swear.
It is a real shame that these never got released here; I actually bought the Japanese versions under the assumption that they’d never be translated and I was right… barely. What a letdown that they couldn’t have just slipped them into one of their numerous blisters instead of random reprints of old cards. Go figure that the BW promo sets for both English AND Japanese ended up being incomplete, too.
Also that Emerging Challenges box WAS ridiculous. It just showed up one day and nobody cared nor ever mentioned it again. I think I was the only person who actually bought one and I didn’t even know that promo existed until I saw it sitting in front of my register when I worked at Walmart. Good memories.