Because Pokemon Japan makes it impossible. English doesn’t lack exclusive artwork because it wants to. It lacks it because Japan has a stranglehold on the artists and they don’t give a fuck about the rest of the world.
I don’t think it makes sense for these particular cards to make an appearance outside of Japan any time soon as they’re tied so closely to a Japanese museum exhibition. I don’t really know what circumstance would make sense for these cards to be released in. That said, I think this has revealed a great opportunity for the Pokémon company to partner with other exhibits around the world to offer similar promotions.
Not at all. The literal head of Organized Play fought for five years to get Pokemon Japan to change the trophy card artwork. And that’s the pinnacle of cards at an event they attend. It eventually got a decade update.
I have personally worked with the arm of the US division that produces promotional cards for tournaments. The rep I was working with said, in a one on one conversation at a steakhouse (not a rushed passing comment) that they have never been able to get exclusive artwork printed for the US tournaments because Pokemon in Japan is not willing to allocate resources to the job. They are willing to produce an exclusive promo every time someone at a company in Japan farts, but they do not care about the US market or the possibility of producing a more robust promotional card line in English.
It is not a secondhand complaint that only high-end collectors have. The US side of Pokemon knows their promos suck. But Pokemon in Japan won’t even come to the table to discuss solutions, let alone actually work to solve it.
Thanks for letting us know! That’s a new Pikachu and new Mimikyu for my list. And might see other foreign releases as well then (German, French, Italian, Spanish, (Brazilian) Portuguese).
About your shared artwork collection, most of the Team Up cards will have four different variations… Just saw the four Pikachu & Zekrom and four Gengar & Mimikyu Team Up cards… Byebye money… 8 variations in 8 languages for Pikachu/Mimikyu, as well as a bunch of English Full Art Supporters. That Team Up set is gonna be so damn expensive for me… And I just got the last three cards of my eight times three Mimikyu-GX of the Lost Thunder set incoming, sigh… Here we go again.