The JR Rally 2002 Adventure, ran on the JR East Yamanote Line from August 3 to August 18, 2002. This mini set involved kids getting a booklet which they used to fill up with stamps across various subway stations in Tokyo. Each station had different stamps where they could then obtain one of the six promotional cards at the booth. Below is a list of locations for each card.
The Pikachu card has 2 different artworks, by the same artist, but the distribution method was different. This was an Orienteering Commemorative Card, if you managed to collect enough stamps by participating in different events at the Pokemon Battle Festa 2002 held at the various locations.
I’ve told this story a few times but I won’t pass up an opportunity to tell it again. One of my favorite cards in general is the 2000 Totodile World Hobby Fair promo.
Before Gen 2 came out I was about 5 or 6. My parents got me this Pokemon magazine that had this Totodile card shown on the bottom of one of the pages with some text that said something along the lines of “look out for this brand new Pokemon”. The card was in Japanese so I had no idea what it was called, what it could do or what it could evolve into. The only thing I could go off of was that it was a water-type crocodile that liked to play on lily pads. I remember going to bed that night and imagining it playing on the lily pads and wondering what it could evolve into and what kinds of moves it could use. This was my first big hint that there would be more Pokemon games coming out and I was hyped beyond belief. I know Donphan, Marill and Snubbull were shown in the first Pokemon movie but this card had a lot more mystery behind it.
I don’t really know why, but I love the 2000 Champion Road Neo starters (there are also two other berry promos from the same release).
The reason I don’t know why I like them is that there’s very little difference aesthetically between these, the World Hobby Fair, and set releases. The biggest being the double white star Neo Genesis symbol has gold foiling, which admittedly is a nice touch.
They’re also hard to grade/find mint. I spent a while trying to find clean copies, and was able to put together a 10 set; for a while I thought about trying for another, but that’s a young man’s game.
