Pokemon Centers in Japan Now Selling English Pokemon TCG Products! What?!

Well this is unprecedented!

Pokemon Centers in Japan have started selling a wide variety of English Pokemon TCG products, including booster boxes, sleeved packs, mini tins, figure collections, Pokemon Center Elite Trainer Boxes, playmats, and card sleeves.

They each have stickers on top of the packaging that say “Overseas version.” The Japanese prices are equivalent to our MSRP. The items have been spotted at multiple Pokemon Centers.

The products include every set from February 2022’s Brilliant Stars through June 2023’s Paldea Evolved.

Furthermore, Japan’s online Pokemon Center has started selling the playmats from our Pokemon Centers.

Why is this happening?

This may be leftover stock from Worlds 2023 in Yokohama, Japan. Most (if not all) of the available products were sold at the on-site Pokemon Center. They also go up to Paldea Evolved, which was the last set to release before Worlds. It may have been cheaper for TPCi to leave leftover stock in Japan for Pokemon Centers to sell. This is all speculation, of course.

It’s also unclear why the products are releasing this week — six months after the event. The timing is especially curious with Pokemon Day next week.

Nicholas H., our correspondent who took the photos for this story, stated “Quite weird right? I saw many shocked Japanese fans at my Pokemon Center. In addition to your theory, these could have been shipped to Japan from the Singapore Pokemon Center. They sell English products. Just a wild guess. No one knows why this is happening.”

Will we see more English products sold in Japan in the future, or is this a unique promotion? We’ll see!