PokemonMarketWatch publishes daily analysis of the Japanese Pokémon TCG market for English-speaking investors, dealers, and serious collectors.

We exist because nobody else publishes this.

What we cover

The Japanese Pokémon TCG market is the upstream production end of the global product. Set release dates, pack pricing, reprint allocations, and sealed product distribution are all decided in Japan months before they reach the United States. Japanese price signals lead US prices on a 6 to 12 month lag for sets and a 5 to 14 day lag for reprint-announcement effects.

Almost no English-language source publishes Japanese-domestic pricing systematically. PriceCharting, TCGplayer, Card Ladder, PokemonPriceTracker, and PokeTrace all source their Japanese-card data from Western marketplaces. They report what Japanese cards sell for to Western buyers, not what they sell for in Japan. That gap is the entire reason we exist.

We pull data daily from the canonical Japanese sources (Snkrdunk, Yuyu-tei, Hareruya2, AmiAmi, Surugaya, Pokémon Center Online), translate the news, and write the analysis in English. We don't compete with TCGplayer on retail transactions. We don't compete with PriceCharting on Western secondary pricing. We compete on the editorial layer above the data: what the Japanese signal means for the US Pokémon TCG market.

What we publish

  • Daily editorial briefs: what moved in the Japanese market today, what it means for US sealed and singles prices
  • Reprint cycle analysis: every major Japanese set tagged by its cycle phase (lottery, launch hype, reprint trough, zetsuban climb), with the implied price trajectory
  • The PMW Japan Index: a single daily-updated number tracking the top-weight Japanese Pokémon market constituents in English
  • Print Run Timeline database: the canonical reference for which Japanese sealed products are in-print, out-of-print, recently reprinted, or in zetsuban
  • The JP-vs-US Delta Tracker: side-by-side current prices on a product across Japanese-domestic, international-facing Japanese retailers, and US-secondary marketplaces
  • 30th Anniversary coverage: continuous market intelligence through the September 2026 worldwide launch window

Our standards

Every factual claim is verified against at least two independent sources where possible. Primary sources (pokemon-card.com official notices, JP-language retailer announcements, Japanese press) are used directly. Predictions are explicitly flagged as predictions, not facts. When sources disagree, we report the disagreement rather than picking a side.

We do not sell Pokémon cards. We are not a retailer. We are not a marketplace. We do not have inventory bias.

We use affiliate links to international proxy buyers (Buyee, ZenMarket, FromJapan) and to international-facing Japanese retailers (Hareruya2, AmiAmi). Those affiliate relationships pay the bills but they do not influence our editorial. Every product we recommend, we recommend because the data supports it.

Who we are

PokemonMarketWatch is published by a small independent team based in the United States. We have been tracking the Japanese Pokémon TCG market since 2023. We are not affiliated with The Pokémon Company, Creatures Inc., The Pokémon Company International, or any of the retailers, marketplaces, or services covered on this site.

We are reachable at [contact email forthcoming once Ghost is configured]. Press inquiries, data licensing requests, and tip-offs welcome.

Contact, RSS, and newsletter

  • Newsletter: sign up at the homepage for daily and weekly digests
  • RSS: available at /rss/ for the firehose feed
  • Twitter / X: handle pending
  • Contact: [contact email forthcoming]