I’ve had a few conversations with older members on this subject and I was curious: Did anyone grow up with Japanese booster packs being available in stores side by side English booster packs?
For some background, when Pokemon first hit the shelves, everywhere in my town from major retail chains - K-Mart, Walmart, etc. - to specialty stores - Newbury Comics, Hot Topic, Spencers - and even convenience stores - Cumberland Farms, CVS, 7/11 - had English Booster Packs. By the time Jungle and Fossil packs came out, Japanese packs appeared almost everywhere alongside but more noticeably within specialty stores (Newbury Comics had the best selection). This continued on for an extensive period of time until around Generation 3 hit and suddenly I only saw English packs.
Has anyone had a similar experience? For me it was such a wave of nostalgia and what got me into collecting both English and Japanese cards. When Generation 2 came out with the Neo sets, Newbury Comics had an entire center display dedicated to new Japanese releases including the Japanese Neo Binder sets (or Premium File sets) that showcased the new starters and Eevolutions, or the infamous “Pikablu” card that we all know and love today.
Japanese packs were readily available. Lots of the 99 cent stores had them and the PX vendors would have them. My local card shop finally had them considerably later.
I don’t remember Japanese packs being at major stores. Mostly Spanish packs.
For many of those months it was nearly impossible to find English packs so merchants scrambled for anything they could find. Japanese were super cheap and sellers romanticized them till they sold and people settled for them.
I remember my local game store in the Netherlands getting loose Japanese booster boxes of Neo Discovery (Crossing the Ruins…) every now and then. So, way before the English release of Neo Discovery, my friends and I were collecting the Japanese set as well. But I remember the packs being very expensive compared to the English boosters, so I never got far into collecting the complete set… perhaps a nice goal to tackle in the future…
Only had a ‘Bart Smit’ in the vicinity but they only sold the English and Dutch varieties. Looking back I’d rather have that they sold English and Japanese cards.
Yes, I also remember big Dutch chains like Bart Smit, Intertoys and such selling the English and Dutch varieties only. My local game store owner picked up on the mystique and absence of Japanese cards here and decided to import booster boxes from Japan.
Nope, I only went to two different toy stores to buy packs as a kid, and all they had were English unlimited edition packs. I have never even seen a Dutch pack before as a kid, even though the Base Set, Jungle set, and Fossil set are released in Dutch. And although I had a few Japanese cards through trades or collections I bought, I’ve never even seen a Japanese booster pack until I came back collecting four years ago.
Living in Belgium, depending on where exactly you lived, we had English, Dutch, French and German packs available to us. The English packs were by far the most common where I lived, followed by Dutch. Japanese packs were nowhere to be seen.
What’s crazy is I don’t recall actually buying Japanese packs however 1/3 of my my collection from back then is Japanese. So I have no idea what happened there. Perhaps I did get Japanese cards and just didn’t find it as memorable as the English ones???
yea over in NYC lots of vendors in chinatown started selling japanese packs for double the amounts of english packs. I remember when team rocket hit the states they got in neo 1 for like 14 a pack but they did sell to random people. it slowly started dying but there was a store near me that had butt loads of japanese packs ready to sell even after the pokemon card game started going down and yugioh was taking over
I honestly miss seeing those rectangle cases in convenience stores that just had a random variety of Pokemon, Yugioh, and Digimon packs. Hell some places even sold Monster Rancher cards. XD
On the point of price, I do remember packs for Japanese sets were about a dollar or two more than the English varieties. Still. My first ever Japanese pull was a Dark Scyther from Team Rocket and I was in love ever since. We didn’t get the English variety until later. So I would see the Japanese sets for new releases before the English releases. It was great!
Glad to hear others had a similar experience. From the few members I spoke to, it seemed like it wasn’t a well spread incident. Funny that alternatives were either Dutch or Spanish.
Little off topic but I remember buying A LOT of repacked foreign base set packs at Walmart for super cheap around the neo era. It was a nice bang for the buck when not having a lot of money growing up.
I remember them being available in a few very specific game/card shops I sometimes went to, I still remember being the first kid in school with Neo Genesis cards before they were released in English haha, my best pull being the no.17 (I think) Typhlosion holo where it’s standing in front of a tree or something .
And although I had a few Japanese cards through trades or collections I bought, I’ve never even seen a Japanese booster pack until I came back collecting four years ago. 