Which Pokémon appear in Japan's 019/P Pokémon Center Tokyo?

On my ever-arduous journey to discover all appearances of Pichu in the TCG I keep coming back to Japan’s 019/P Pokémon Center Tokyo, a card which has really interesting artwork that mimics the inside of the Pokémon Center Tokyo store:

he card was released in January 2002 and as such the artwork features products which would have appeared in Pokémon Center Tokyo around that time.

Thanks to PWCC including one of these in their current auction block, we have access to a very high-res image of the card. I’ve cropped the artwork area out to focus just on that:


The full-size image can be found at i.imgur.com/RwLy8hR.png.

From this several Pokémon already make themselves quite visible:

  • Pikachu is in the foreground (duh);
  • Marill Azurilland Kecleon appear in a banner of some sort behind the counter;
  • Chikoritaand Totodile appear in the Intro Pack Neo poster above the display cabinet.

If we then go to CSI levels of enhancement, we can find a few more:

  • The Pokémon Center Tokyo logo appears on the screen(?) behind the counter, revealing Poliwhirl and Charmander;

  • The Intro Pack Neo poster is a smaller version of the box artwork which reveal Smoochum, Cleffa, Magby and Tyrogue and has what I can only assume is “NEO” written in Unown;

This is where my knowledge of Pokémon products ends, however. I don’t recognise any of the boxes and the plush toys near the Marill/Kecleon banner are too fuzzy to make out which Pokémon these actually are.

Are there any Pokémon here I’m missing from the list?

11 Likes

Looks like an omanyte on the shelf

I don’t get what you mean by neo written in unown

2 Likes

Oh yeah I can totally see that now! I thought it was two plushes on top of one another. :grin:

It doesn’t look like it says “neo” like the regular box art. It doesn’t massively look like Unown characters either though.

Paging plushie addict @dizzle24, @dizzle24 will you please come to the front desk.

4 Likes

Where’s the enhance button?

2 Likes

That looks like Azurill in the banner with Kecleon, which would make sense since they’re both Gen 3.

1 Like

Ah yes, you’re quite right! It’d be cool if there’s some actual banner out there featuring those two on. I did try a quick search but couldn’t find anything.

1 Like

lol im here im here.

Ive actually noticed this before about that card ages ago. Its cool for sure, but i never made up my mind as to if its something id buy for my collection. regardless, the attention to detail here for a single trainer is quite killer!

Love the little energy symbols under the desk.

Just like the

M A S T E R S C R O L L

1 Like

Looks like there might be a Slowking standing in between the Azurill+Kecleon banner and the Omanyte.

@pichufan - pretty sure the text is just meant to be “neo” to the best of the pixelated version can be and nothing more.

I love this card though. Every time I come across it, I hope it’s a high-res scan of it so I can see if I spot anything I didn’t spot the first time around. So the fact you blew up the best version is exciting already!

I’m guessing the map on the right side in the case is the Kanto Map given the slight curve from the peninsula:

As others have pointed out - the plushie next to Pikachu is most likely an Omanyte:

For some reason, my gut instinct is to say that there are some Base artworks in the glass case behind Pikachu as some of the colors make me think of that set. If I didn’t know better, we might be able to even identify Bulbasaur and Squirtle by color scheme alone, but this is a BIG reach:

As for everything else, my only guess is artwork from promotional sets and/or stuff regarding the movies. I wouldn’t be surprised if we could identify a matching image for everything.

6 Likes

Hmm just taking a stab at the general shape, they look pretty wide to be cards. My first reaction is neo theme decks, something like these

2 Likes

Can we do more of these threads?! :blush:

4 Likes

Time to move my copy to my cleffa binder

3 Likes

Yeah looking at it again I think you’re spot on. I had been sucked into a world of extreme zoom enhancement where I was beginning to hear the voices of the passengers on board the ANA plane reflecting in Pikachu’s eye.

Thank you for saving me from that!

8 Likes

Ill buy a copy, do a mega zoom on a extremely zoomed high res scan and get back to yall. Definitely excited to see if i can uncover any special pixels

1 Like

@pichufan - careful, you’re going to start having me believe that you might be on to something there. XD

Aside from the Cold Fusion one (but that could just be a weird blurring effect due to the low res), I think you’re right on the dot!

Maybe it’s a mix then of Gen 1 & Gen 2 stuff but with a focus on Gen 2 promo stuff. The blue and yellow boxes on the left could be representative of the Japanese Neo boxes:

or something to that effect. I’m just speculating at this point, but this is fun to conceptualize.

Any ideas on the upper right poster?

2 Likes

This thread is awesome! :grin:

And here I was thinking the shelf above it had the southern island 3 card sets on it, but the colors and size more seem to fall in line with pikachu world collections (Yellow, blue, green).

Thats some serious detective work @azulryu , I would guess its not necessarily cards but the colors may line up more with product for the neo series (neo2, neo1, neo3 judging by pack art and set coloration) but its just a guess from my squinting at blurry blobs.

Reading your and Nish’s comments make me think that if it is decks (the size more or less matches) it would more likely be in the order of hotfoot, light, and wallop.

The more I look at that top shelf, the more waffle and cant decide if its the postcard art from the japanese tropical island sets. Postcards (Beach, Sea, Jungle). Its just so hard to judge what the relative size is.

1 Like

I get more of an Erika’s Bulbasaur vibe from the far left one here.