I Failed: The Japanese Pokémon Investment

In 2021, I made my largest ever bet on Pokémon cards.

But it may have been my biggest mistake.

I had been collecting and investing for less than a year, navigating the high prices of the 2020 Boom Phase the entire time. By late 2021, as I saw reprints finally hit and prices come down across the market, I decided to make my largest purchases to date. Despite the fear in the market, I was confident in my bet.

And, since then, those purchases have nearly tripled in price. That’s a great return, right?

It is… except that in the modern Pokémon boom we’re experiencing in 2025, we’ve seen products like Fusion Strike rise from $80 a booster box, to as high as $780 on TCG Player: a nearly 10x gain that absolutely obliterates my investment.

And, to make matters worse: when I made this bet, I actively chose it instead of the obvious Sword & Shield era booster boxes that have so massively outperformed.

The whole time, I was convinced I was the smart one.

Back then, in 2021, I decided to go all-in on sealed Japanese Eevee Heroes products, instead of Evolving Skies.

And, in 2025, this mistake has cost me an eye-watering tens of thousands of dollars.

Let’s look at the numbers.

Japanese vs English Pokémon Returns

Over about a 1 year period I invested more than $8,000 CAD into sealed Eevee Heroes products, split between booster boxes and the special Gym Set boxes.

(All of this analysis will be completed in CAD because, well, that’s what I paid! And converting back to USD based on historical USD to CAD prices is too complicated for me 😅)

As discussed, those investments have done well! In total, my position is worth about $25,000: nearly tripling in value.

I should be ecstatic! But… the cost here is the opportunity cost of choosing to invest in Eevee Heroes products instead of Evolving Skies booster boxes: an alternative choice I considered and chose not to pursue.

And so, after years 4 years of sitting on Eevee Heroes boxes, I decided to finally do the math.

It turns out, if instead of buying Eevee Heroes, if I put that investment money into Evolving Skies booster boxes, I wouldn’t just have $25,000…

(Hold me… 🤗 )

I’d have: $92,000 🤯

That’s an additional $67,000.

It’s wild to look at that number today: the returns of this one investment, had I made it, would have nearly equalled my entire current Pokémon portfolio.

I missed out on the most obvious bet in Pokémon.

Where I Went Wrong

I’m not afraid of admitting I was wrong when I chose to invest in Eevee Heroes over Evolving Skies.

But, the mistake I made is probably not what you think it is. (More on that later…)

See: despite the popular commentary that Evolving Skies was the obvious choice, I managed to convince myself they were wrong. After all, Eevee Heroes was an exceptional product:

1. It has a better theme: it’s ONLY about the Eeveelutions, and all the product artwork is a dream for any Eevee collector.

2. It’s a smaller, more tightly designed set,

3. Japanese cards are famous for their quality, with incredible colors, texturing, and quality control.

4. Japanese cards are the true “originals” in Pokémon collecting: all English cards are technically “reprints”, and

5. Over time, I saw more potential growth in Japanese product because I believed more international collectors would slowly grow to love the Japanese products, just like me.

To me, Evolving Skies was a messier set (it contains the cards from Eevee Heroes, plus two additional Japanese sets), has worse print quality, and was already printed into oblivion to serve the larger English market.

This was the story I told myself that convinced me to go all in on Eevee Heroes.

Collectors who chose Evolving Skies had a different story:

1. English is the largest market for Pokémon cards.

2. When new collectors enter the hobby, they’re most likely to want the English cards, so the top sets, like Evolving Skies, benefit the most from the influx of new collectors and investors during a Boom Phase.

3. English booster boxes have outperformed Japanese over the long-term, and should continue to.

4. Lower print quality actually creates MORE value in the sealed product: more scarcity within the top condition grade actually encourages collectors and investors to pay MORE for the sealed product in an effort to chase those grades.

5. And so on…

The story of the English collectors looks correct: Evolving Skies has massively outperformed Eevee Heroes.

But, BOTH of these are just that: stories.

Looking back on it, I made up my investing story about Japanese Pokémon cards because I personally prefer Japanese Pokémon cards and wanted to justify building a position in the products I loved.

The English Pokémon perspective is also just a story.

In the end, neither of these stories correctly capture the underlying driver for the current prices of both of these products. Because the real driver is nothing more than the Collectibles Cycle. And the force of the Collectibles Cycle is so powerful, it overwhelms the impact of any of these narratives and is the real reason Evolving Skies has outperformed Eevee Heroes… for now.

Here’s what I mean…

The Collectibles Cycle Tells All

In late 2021-2022 when I was building my Eevee Heroes position, both Evolving Skies and Eevee Heroes were relatively cheap.

Evolving Skies had come down from it’s all-time-high prices around its release, although it did not fall as much as sets like Chilling Reign and Fusion Strike. It was still relatively available below $150 USD at the time.

And, Eevee Heroes had experienced a couple big reprint waves that helped get the prices for that set under control, similarly settling below $150 USD a booster box.

Neither product was cheap, but they were available for the best prices we’d seen. (And, as we now know, the best prices we would ever see.)

But, despite these similarities, there was still a massive difference between the two products that would take me another 2-3 years to really understand:

The English and Japanese markets were in completely different phases of the Collectibles Cycle.

In late 2021-2022, English was in the Correction Phase after the Boom Phase that dominated most of 2021. The Japanese market, meanwhile, hadn’t even boomed yet. It was still in the Dormant Phase.

That changed in 2023 when the Japanese market entered a dramatic Boom Phase, driving prices of Eevee Heroes booster boxes from those $150 USD lows to as high as $550 USD by July 2023.

And, as a Japanese fanboy who made his biggest Pokémon bet on Eevee Heroes: I felt like a goddamn genius. The product was doing exactly what I knew it would because, obviously, it was simply the superior product!!

This is just the story I told myself…

And, despite how much Eevee Heroes product had gained in price, the return wasn’t enough for me. I was determined to hold out for more.

As a result, I fell into the classic investor’s trap by not selling into the hype.

Following the peak Eevee Heroes booster boxes prices of $550 USD in July 2023, the boxes crashed to a low of $330 USD by July 2024, just one year later. A drop of 40% in one year.

The Japanese market had corrected by mid-2024.

Today, the market has returned to the Dormant Phase, where prices are relatively stable. Since the market bottom, Eevee Heroes booster boxes, for example, have only recovered to $400+, still below the all-time high prices of the 2023 Boom Phase.

Evolving Skies booster boxes, meanwhile, have captured the attention of the hobby once again as the English market exploded into yet another Boom Phase and Evolving Skies booster boxes have reached a shocking TCG Player market price approaching $1,800!

And the booming English market has driven other products, like the Fusion Strike booster boxes, to similar highs. Fusion Strike alone has moved from $290 to $800 a booster box in only 6 months.

The Japanese market, and my Eevee Heroes investment, have not been able to keep up with this explosive growth.

At least, not yet.

Because the prices reached on a product during the peak of its Boom Phase simply can’t be compared to the prices achieved during the Dormant Phase! Instead of comparing prices at this moment in time, it’s more productive to compare the prices achieve in each Boom Phase.

And the Japanese market hasn’t reached it’s Boom Phase yet…

A Bright Future for Japanese Pokémon Products?

I believe in the Collectibles Cycle. And, for whatever reason, the English and Japanese market cycles appear to be separated by 2 years: English boomed in 2021, and Japanese boomed in 2023. Now that English has boomed again in late 2024, I think late 2026 and into 2027 could be the next Japanese market boom.

If that happens, I’m expecting the returns on my Eevee Heroes position to catch up to Evolving Skies.

But, even if the timing doesn’t hold (remember: the Collectibles Cycle doesn’t guarantee timelines, it only gives us a guide of what we might expect) whenever the next Boom Phase for Japanese Pokémon cards comes, I’m sure I’ll be happy I held for all these years.

And, when it does, I’ll be sure to check on the prices achieved by Eevee Heroes products, and compare them to the Evolving Skies highs achieved in 2025 to see, more definitively, how the Japanese market performed as an investment compared to English.

My Real Pokémon Investing Mistake

When I reflect on my last 4 years of Pokémon card investing, and my Eevee Heroes investment thesis, I don’t think it was a mistake to choose to invest in Eevee Heroes over Evolving Skies.

In fact: buying Eevee Heroes at its all-time low prices in 2021 and 2022, before the Japanese market boomed, was brilliant!

The real mistake was not understanding the Collectibles Cycle, and failing to take advantage of the Japanese Boom Phase in 2023. The Boom Phase is a time to sell, because if you don’t, you need to be prepared to hold through another full Collectibles Cycle.

By July of 2023, less than two years after making my initial investments in Eevee Heroes products, I had the opportunity to sell for a more than 350% gain. Not just that, but as the Japanese market boomed in 2023, the English market had settled into the Dormant Phase, and all kinds of Sword & Shield and Scarlet & Violet era booster boxes were incredibly cheap.

I could have sold into the hype of the Japanese Boom Phase, and used the proceeds to buy during the English Dormant Phase.

And, in 2025, we all know how those English products have performed…

Instead, because I failed to sell any of my Eevee Heroes position during the Japanese boom, I didn’t have the resources to build new English positions that would have benefitted me in today’s market. And, I’m forced to keep waiting for the next Japanese market boom.

In the end, this lesson is why I’m determined not to miss the selling opportunity of the current English market Boom Phase, and why it’s been a recurring theme in my content.

And, similarly, it’s why I’m more interested in reallocating funds into the Japanese market, which hasn’t begun to boom, instead of buying more English products at this time.

The Collectibles Cycle will repeat itself, and this is how we prepare for it.

As usual,

Thank you so much for reading the TCG Buyers Club newsletter. My name’s Grey, I buy cardboard, and I’m on a mission to make collecting and investing in Pokémon simple.

Cheers 🍻

P.S. I’ve been slower to make YouTube videos these days, and I hope you don’t mind. Instead of trying to force out a new video every week, I’m instead focusing on the concepts and ideas I share in this newsletter, and am preparing a video when I have something I’m particularly excited to speak about to my wider audience. My next video will most likely be based on what this Japanese investment “thesis”, so keep an eye out for it over the next few weeks!