Pokemon’s 25th anniversary is this month, and to celebrate, The Pokemon Company is partnering with cDonald’s to release a special set of 25 Pokemon cards. The special set of cards includes the three starter Pokemon from each of Pokemon’s eight generations of games, plus honorary starter Pokemon and franchise mascot Pikachu.
The set has proved to be incredibly popular, but perhaps too popular, as there have been so many reports of people hoarding the McDonald’s cards to resell them online at a high markup that the fast-food giant has had to release encouraging its franchises to set a limit on how many Pokemon Happy Meals a customer can buy.
Still, those who have been able to get their hands on the specially branded Happy Meals and cards have posting their love for the McDonald’s cards and the incredibly cute packing online. The set functions not just as a celebration of all the starter Pokemon from the games, but also as a kind of best-of for the Pokemon TCG, as the cards are all technically reprints of existing cards from previous Pokemon TCG sets. Above is a photo of all the cards in the McDonald’s set, courtesy of Pokellector.com, an excellent resource for Pokemon TCG collectors.
When compared to their original releases, the art, information, and attacks are all identical. What makes them special is the stamp Pokemon’s 25th anniversary logo at the bottom right corner of the artwork on each card. The other unique feature is that there is also a holofoil version of each of the 25 cards available, and these holofoils have a special confetti pattern, a pattern only used for special promotions such as this.
Though the Pokemon TCG dates all the way back to 1996 in Japan and 1998 in the United States, the oldest original version of any card in this McDonald’s set is from 2011. The Unova starters from Black and White, Snivy, Tepig, and Oshawott, were all originally released as Black Star Promos in 2011. Black Star Promo cards are cards guaranteed to come with certain TCG products and feature a small black star where the icon for what set the card comes from would usually be.
Other cards in the set that were originally Black Star Promos are Treecko, Grookey, Torchic, Scorbunny, Mudkip, and Sobble. Additionally, the Piplup card was also given out as a Black Star Promo at the now mostly defunct US toy store chain, Toys R Us. Snivy, Tepig, and Oshawott are also the only cards in this McDonald’s set to feature artwork originally drawn by original Pokemon artist Ken Sugimori, who has been drawing for the franchise since its inception.
This is far from the first time there has been a McDonald’s Pokemon promotion, or any fast-food company for that matter, as Pokemon has also been featured at Subway, Wendy’s, and Burger King. In fact, 12 of the 25 cards in the set have been in McDonald’s sets in the past in some form or another, as McDonald’s has had cards included in Happy Meals on at least 10 different occasions.
Here is a list of the original set each card hails from, in addition to the year it came out. The cards marked with a * were also released in a previous McDonald’s collection:
- Bulbasaur* – Shining Legends (2017)
- Chikorita – Lost Thunder (2018)
- Treecko* – X and Y Black Star Promo (2014)
- Turtwig – Ultra Prism (2018)
- Snivy* – Black and White Black Star Promo (2011)
- Chespin* – Kalos Starter Set (2013)
- Rowlet* – Sun and Moon (2017)
- Grookey – Sword and Shield Black Star Promo (2019)
- Charmander – Burning Shadows (2017)
- Cyndaquil – Lost Thunder (2018)
- Torchic* – X and Y Black Star (2014)
- Chimchar – Ultra Prism (2018)
- Tepig* – BW Black Star Promo (2011)
- Fennekin* – Kalos Starter Set (2013)
- Litten* – Sun and Moon (2017)
- Scorbunny – Sword and Shield Black Star Promo (2019)
- Squirtle – Unbroken Bonds (2019)
- Totodile* – Phantom Forces (2014)
- Mudkip* – X and Y Black Star Promo (2013)
- Piplup – Ultra Prism (2018)
- Oshawott – BW Black Star Promo (2011)
- Froakie – Kalos Starter Set (2013)
- Popplio* – Sun and Moon (2017)
- Sobble – Sword and Shield Black Star Promo (2019)
- Pikachu – Unified Minds (2019)
These are not the only 25th anniversary celebration cards being released, either. There is a new Pokemon cereal from General Mills that will feature its own lineup of holofoil promo cards, which instead focus on Pokemon from Sword and Shield, like Wooloo and Galarian Zigzagoon, but of course Pikachu will have a card in the cereal as well. The Pokemon Company is also releasing special jumbo prints of base set Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, and Pikachu, in addition to jumbo prints of all of the other starters.
For other celebrations for Pokemon’s 25th, a long-awaited reboot of the classic N64 game Pokemon Snap is releasing on April 30 for Nintendo Switch. The game will feature a new region and a new special type of glowing Pokemon called Illumina Pokemon. Pop star Katy Perry will be performing a concert for Pokemon, as will Post Malone, which was just announced this week.
It has also been rumored for months that a remake of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl could be announced this month. The fourth generation of Pokemon games were the first to come to the Nintendo DS and introduced internet trading. A potential announcement would follow in-line with the franchise’s history of remaking each generation, with developer Game Freak having already remade the first three generations of games in between the release of each new generation of Pokemon.
Some hypothesize and hope that there could also be a Switch remake of Gold and Silver in the style of Let’s Go Pikachu! coming soon. That remake simplified the mechanics of the original games and added in catching mechanics from the mobile game Pokemon Go in order to bring more casual fans into the mainline-style Pokemon Games.
As for Pokemon Go, the game will be having a special “Tour Kanto” event on Saturday, February 20 that will celebrate the original Pokemon Game Boy games. The event will also be the first time the mythical Pokemon Mew will be catchable in shiny form in the game. Developer Niantic has also been teasing that Shiny Ditto may be making an appearance. The event will break players into two teams, Red and Green, as Pokemon Blue in the US was actually Pokemon Green in Japan when it first released on February 27, 1996.
The Pokemon TCG Happy Meals are available now at McDonald’s.
Image Credit: Pokellector
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