Terastral Festival. The unexpected motivation for fitness?

Temperature 12

Pokémon and Japan are intrinsically connected, often conjuring the image of an overgrown yellow mouse when the name is mentioned. I recently looked up the top ten Japanese mascots and characters ranked by popularity, and the yellow mouse ranked second, just below Doraemon. In the 1980s, Pocket Monsters could be found in arcades and on the pages of gaming magazines. However, as the arcade scene declined, the concept of Pocket Monsters was proposed to Nintendo, which was initially skeptical about its potential. The company went on to launch two games in 1996, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Pokémon Company reportedly experienced a 15 percent increase in revenue from March 2023 to February 2024, generating $1.9 billion in sales from various sources, including games, the new mobile game, cards, and merchandise.

When I arrived in Japan, I was reminded of an old hobby I used to enjoy—collecting Pokémon cards. I grew up during the Pokémon card craze, which eventually led schools in the UK to ban them. I left my original cards sitting in an attic and carried on with my life. Occasionally, I would find a pack or two at Argos and buy them, but nothing excessive. With the ban, the craze fizzled out in the UK. I remember my last card trade outside of school—it was a poor deal for Meowth. Looking back at that trade it would make any card expert slap their face in shame. But young small Becca knew no differently the cards were pretty and Meowth was a kitty.

Embarrassing as a child I had always wanted a cat but was never allowed to own one of these majestic beings. So, I was often swayed by cat imagery. Now I own one and I am less likely to make bad card choices but show me a cat and I am sure a poor decision could be made.

Then Pokémon Go came out, and the world experienced hype like no other. It was everywhere! People in towns formed local groups, and my friends and I would raid together in London during community days. The excitement was palpable. However, over time, the game began to lose traction in the West. Nevertheless, my interest was reignited. Last year, I treated myself to a Pokémon card advent calendar. It came with booster packs and promo cards, and I had a blast opening them. Unfortunately, Pokémon cards aren’t something I come across daily in the UK; finding them is quite infrequent and they are expensive to really indulge in them. My money was sunk into my huge cosplay projects, the electric mouse could wait.

In Japan, however, the situation was very different. I remember going into a convenience store a little after I started to settle down and noticed the collection of Pokémon boaster packs hanging up. A fellow ALT had mentioned that they pull cards on break when bored. Each packet generally costs about 180 yen or just under 1 pound 70 in the UK. Which is madness as the price is insanely low compared to the western ones I was used to. I eventually pulled my first boaster pack, and the rest again was history.

I wasn’t really collecting at the start, but it was fun to see cards in Japanese. But that’s when Electric Shield Breaker Pikachu landed, and things changed. I was aware of the pretty artwork and the elusive card everyone was going crazy over. Never really having committed to a specific deck before, this felt like a great chance to see if I could. I ended up at 84 percent of the deck being completed with some very nice, rare cards and specials. Alas the big card never joined my deck. But by this point I was safely hooked, and the glowing yellow mouse was in my dreams!

Something significant was on the horizon—something the world wasn’t prepared for. A new deck was set to launch in Japan on December 6th, and I was ready to move on from my current deck. I had accumulated so many duplicates that I had multiple boxes to store them. I was eager for something new to get excited about during my lunch breaks.

Then the Terastral Festival entered my life. I was on my way to visit another ALT who was also a collector, so I decided to grab some packs and have an opening party. Little did I know that I would soon come to regret my words: "I don’t want to buy too many; maybe I’ll get some more next week." I also questioned my friend's suggestion to buy a box, thinking, “Nah, if we want more, we can just grab some later.”

The pack opening party was a blast, but out of all the packs we opened, only 1 SAR made it into the deck. Naturally, I wanted to expand my collection and pick up some more artwork. The designs of the latest decks are a major selling point for me; the cards are beautiful. I remember getting super lucky on video calling my card friend. I had found a few packs and was opening them whilst the call was in progress. And nearly screamed the room down. I pulled the Eevee chase card, and my natural reaction was going supersonic. Back at this point I was unaware this card wasn’t the most sought-after card. But I was so happy and proud it didn’t matter. It was my first big Pokémon win.

At first, we attributed the difficulty in finding the new deck to its recent release and everyone’s excitement. However, as the weeks passed and Christmas approached, I found myself stuck at only about 40 percent of the collection. The prices on the cards at this point were starting to skyrocket with the coveted Masterball Umbreon and Umbreon card starting to get scary in price.

I noticed the first signs that something was wrong when convenience stores began to limit the number of packs per person, if they even had stock. After that, only 7-Eleven carried the new deck, and they only received one box for restocks. A box of 10 barely lasting till midday, making my lunch breaks a game of chance. Just before I left for the festive break, something unexpected happened. I had some time before my train, so I decided to visit the local Family Mart. I wasn't really expecting much since other chains typically stopped selling cards at this time. To my surprise, they had a box available and no limit on the number of packs. So, I decided to treat myself before I left and bought four packs. Sitting outside the station I decided to open them and kill some time.

The first pack I grabbed changed everything. Up until that point, my only significant win had been pulling an Eevee card, which, for some reason, wasn't seeing much action on the market. As I usually do, I opened the pack from the back and flipped the cards over to reveal a telltale rainbow border. My mind immediately focused on the pretty RR cards in the new deck. However, as I went to reveal the card, I realized I was very, very wrong. Instead of an RR, I had pulled the Umbreon card, which was second in value only to the Master Ball at that time.

I can clearly remember the shake of excitement and the sudden realization of what had just happened. A wave of exhilaration washed over me, and I quickly understood that I needed to get a hard case for this card immediately. I was about to travel overseas with one of the most sought-after cards in the game. The yen store was opening ten minutes, so I rushed to the bathroom to wrap the card in toilet paper to keep myself from dropping it.

Those ten minutes felt long. But eventually I had a snazzy magnetic case, and my pulse returned to normal.

Last week, the situation with the card supply was dire. 7-Eleven usually restocked only twice a week with just one box each time. The shortages were so severe that they had to reprint the deck, but even those reprints were nowhere to be found. The demand had skyrocketed, especially in the West, where preorders had cleared out the stock, making the deck officially sold out in Japan.

I was fortunate to get my hands on a pack maybe once every two weeks, as the 7-Eleven near one of my schools occasionally had a few packs available. I would always arrive during my lunch break around 1 PM, only to find that usually just two packs remained. The deck officially hit the West on the 17th of January so I had hoped the situation would start to improve. Yet the newest deck to hit Japan was on the horizon in a just a few weeks. So, it’s hard to know If Terastral festival will become more available again.

As I waddled back to my desk with my packs, I decided to open them as a reward every hour after I got through my marking pile. The first hour’s cards were nothing unique but the last pack I opened had those shakes return. This time a gold border caught my eye, completely forgetting that the deck had Hyper rares I was quickly reminded. I pulled the Gold Pikachu and got up from my desk again calmly this time, took my break, and ran to the yen store to get a case! Despite this deck being a nightmare to collect, I was very lucky with my pulls.

The situation this week after the same deck hit the West is like that in Japan, fights and scalping have decimated supply. The hunt is no better in Japan still, me and my card friend took a break in Fukuoka and ended up walking over 6 kms to check every 7eleven in the area and turned up 6 packs after visiting over 14 stores. Healthy living spurred on by the need for cards who knew?

The same idea was replicated this weekend in Saga but only visiting 5 stores this time as Saga is more spread out. But the Kami was smiling upon us. We nabbed 6 packs from the first store and after 3 kms of walking we hit the jackpot. Somehow all the planets must have aligned early, because we landed a sealed box of 10. It sits on the shelf sealed as the question of what do we do now occasionally gets brought up in conversation.

Collecting this deck is a nightmare right now. It is crazy to see that the Pokémon hype never died it just fell asleep for a little and 44 years later. Pokémon cards are creating another tidal wave, and the hype is at an all-time high. I am eager to see the newest financial report from Pokémon company next month and the wager of their worth has risen again! Long live the electric mouse and the new King, King Umbreon!