Japanese Pokémon Card 151 (SV2a): prices, chase cards and box guide

The short version

Pokémon Card 151, set code SV2a, is the Japanese original of the English 151. The two share most of their checklist, but they are different products. The Japanese set comes in a real booster box, 20 packs of 7 cards, and its common, uncommon and rare cards also exist in two mirror foil patterns that the English checklist does not have. As of mid-September 2026 the booster box sells for about $299 on the US market and a loose pack for about $20.

The most valuable card is not Charizard ex. It is Gengar (Master Ball Pattern) at about $671, a parallel printing of an ordinary rare. Pullnomics has no Japanese pull-rate data and computes no expected value for Japanese products, so this guide cannot say what a box returns on average, only what everything costs today. If you want one particular card, buy the single. If you want to open a box, budget it as entertainment.

What Pokémon Card 151 is

The official product page gives a release date of June 16, 2023, a price of 290 yen per pack and 7 cards per pack. The English set followed on September 22, 2023, fourteen weeks later. PokeBeach reported the booster box at 20 packs for 5,800 yen, exactly 20 times the official pack price, so a box holds 140 cards. Bulbapedia's set page adds that every pack has two guaranteed holofoil cards.

The numbered set is 165 cards, with 45 secret cards above that, for 210 in all. PokeBeach's list of the secrets matches the counts on this site: 18 Art Rares, 16 Super Rares, 8 Special Art Rares and 3 gold Ultra Rares, the tier English calls Hyper Rare. The English set has 207 cards. Going by that list and the English checklist here, the three cards with no English 151 entry are the Snorlax and Mewtwo Art Rares and the Mew ex Special Art Rare. Cards run in Pokédex order, so Gengar is #94 and Pikachu #25.

The set page lists 516 entries, not 210. PokeBeach counted 153 common, uncommon and holo rare cards that can carry a pattern, and the site lists each of them three times: the regular printing, the Poké Ball pattern and the Master Ball pattern. That is 210 plus 306. A pattern printing keeps the pattern in brackets in its name.

On supply, the official site announced a made-to-order sale through Pokémon Center Online, and PokeBeach reported in March 2024 that a new print run was due in Japanese stores that May. We found no official print-run figures, so this guide makes no claim about scarcity.

The numbers

These are the live figures from the set page. Every one is a US TCGplayer market price for the Japanese printing, not a price in Japan.

The median listing is worth about 67 cents, 140 listings clear $10 and 14 clear $50. One of every listed printing at market costs about $5,030, a figure that includes both pattern runs.

The site files a pattern card under the rarity printed on the base card, which is why the Common row tops out at about $238, for a Pikachu. About 70 percent of the set's listed value, roughly $3,536, sits in the Common, Uncommon and Rare rows. The 8 Special Art Rares average about $134 and add up to about $1,075, about 21 percent. Everything else is small: the 18 Art Rares average about $14.48, the 16 Super Rares about $5.91, the 3 gold Ultra Rares about $17.48 and the 12 regular ex cards, the Double Rares, about 91 cents.

Chase cards

These are the eight most valuable listings in the set right now.

Gengar (Master Ball Pattern) leads at about $671. Charizard ex #201, the Special Art Rare, is second at about $392, then Pikachu (Master Ball Pattern) at about $238 and Mew ex #205 at about $209. The table runs down to Psyduck (Master Ball Pattern) at about $102. Of the 14 listings above $50, eight are Master Ball Pattern cards and six are Special Art Rares.

Bulbapedia says the set's common, uncommon and rare cards have mirror holofoil variants with a Poké Ball pattern or, rarely, a Master Ball pattern. PokeBeach wrote at release that this was the first time a reverse holo could carry a Master Ball pattern. It also noted that Pokémon's own box-opening video showed a single Master Ball card in the whole box, and read that as "seemingly" one per box. That is an observation from one video, not a published guarantee, and the official page promises no number per box. With 153 cards able to carry the pattern, any specific one is a long shot, and this site has no data to put odds on it. The price belongs to the pattern, not the rarity letter.

Japanese versus English prices

All prices here are as of mid-September 2026, and every pair is the same card in the same role.

The top Special Art Rares sit close together. Charizard ex is about $392 in Japanese (#201) and about $363 in English (#199). Blastoise ex is about $152 against $134, and Zapdos ex about $96 against $92. Two run the other way: Venusaur ex is about $115 in Japanese and $119 in English, and Alakazam ex about $59 against $74.

Below that tier the Japanese copies are much cheaper. The Pikachu art card, #173 in both sets, is about $29 in Japanese and about $82 in English. The full-art Charizard ex is about $22 in Japanese (#185) against about $40 in English (#183), and the regular Charizard ex #6 is about $3.25 against $8.37. As a tier, the 18 Japanese Art Rares average about $14.48 against about $48.02 for the 16 English Illustration Rares. The gold Mew ex breaks the pattern at about $43 in Japanese (#208) against about $26 in English (#205).

The Master Ball cards have no English twin to compare. In the English set the most valuable Rare is also Gengar #94, at about $10.79 for its highest-priced printing. None of this makes either language the better buy. They are separate markets, and Japanese versus English cards explains why the same artwork carries two prices.

Sealed product

The booster box is about $299. At 20 packs that is about $15 a pack, against about $20 for a loose pack. Twenty loose packs would cost about $400, so the box is the cheaper way to get packs. The two Card File Sets are about $191 each. The official page lists their contents as five packs, promo cards of Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle, a card file and a poster. Five loose packs cost about $100, so the rest of that price is for the extras and the sealed set itself. English 151 has no booster box at all. A loose English pack is about $27, but it holds 10 cards against 7, so the two prices describe different products.

What a box guarantees, going by the sources: 20 packs of 7 cards, with two holofoil cards in each pack. What it does not guarantee: any Special Art Rare, any Art Rare, or a Master Ball card, since the one per box idea rests on a single video. The sealed EV board covers English products only, and the English pull rates on the 151 set page were measured on English packs, so neither says anything about this box.

Do not judge the box by its wrap. Our resealed product guide has the background: Screen Rant reported in March 2025 that Pokémon Center stores in Japan remove the shrink wrap at sale, so a bare Japanese box is not proof of tampering. It also leaves no outer seal to inspect. Importers' rule of thumb is that many Japanese boxes open through a cardboard tear strip that cannot be put back, so ask for a photo of it. The Poké Ball logo wrap test for English boxes does not apply.

How to buy it

Every Japanese card and product page shows the US market price, a price history that starts on September 18, 2026, the price that counts as 12 percent below market, and two eBay buttons. Both open eBay filtered to Buy It Now listings from US sellers whose titles say Japanese, JPN or JP, with proxies, lots and other languages excluded, sorted by price plus shipping. The first is capped at 12 percent under market on the item price and the second has no cap. Both are affiliate links. The block below opens the capped searches for this set's booster box and booster pack.

The cap is on the item price, so add shipping yourself. A listing counts as below market only when the landed price is at least 12 percent under market: about $263 delivered for the box. If the capped search is empty, nothing is listed below market at that moment. Use the second button on the product page to see every current price, then eBay's "Save this search" so eBay emails you new matches.

Because the buttons are limited to US sellers, those listings have no import step. If you widen the search to sellers in Japan, a shipment of any value can now pick up import charges, so find that line at checkout before you pay.

For singles, site prices are raw Near Mint. Under the methodology, a Lightly Played copy is measured against 85 percent of market. A Near Mint Charizard ex #201 has to land near $345 to count as below market, and a Lightly Played one near $293. eBay's Authenticity Guarantee covers trading cards sold for $200 or more in the US, the price range of the Gengar, Charizard ex, Pikachu and Mew ex above, so look for its badge on the listing. It does not cover boxes or packs. Confirm the language from photos, front and back, and read how to spot fake cards before you pay three figures for a parallel foil.

Who it suits

• Pattern collectors. The Poké Ball and Master Ball printings are not in the English checklist, and are the reason to pick this set.
• People who want to open a whole box of 151, which English never had. At about $299 it is 20 packs with no promise about what is inside.
• Anyone after one card should buy the single. Eight listings here cost more than $100, and no box guarantees any of them.
• Players should look elsewhere. Japanese cards are not legal at US Championship Series events.
• Completists should know the scale: 516 listings and about $5,030 at market.

Bottom line

Japanese 151 is the same Kanto set as English 151 in a different product: a 20 pack booster box at about $299, 7 card packs, and two pattern runs that put a $671 Master Ball Gengar above a $392 Charizard ex. The top Special Art Rares cost about the same in both languages and the mid-tier art cards far less in Japanese, but they are separate markets. No expected value exists for the box, and one Master Ball card per box is an observation, not a promise. Open a box if opening it is the point. For a specific card, start from the set page or the Japanese index, use the eBay buttons there, and compare landed prices with the Japanese market price only.