The missing Japanese Art Rares, the Japanese ETB that doesn’t actually exist, and more Pokémon box nonsense
THE ETB RABBIT HOLE · PART 4 OF 5 · LAST REVIEWED SEPTEMBER 2026
By Pikajo | Camp Onion
Short on time? There’s a quick-fire FAQ at the bottom.
Picture the scene.
Japan gets a new Pokémon set.
You spot an Art Rare.
It’s beautiful.
You want it.
You wait for the international set to arrive, open the card list and...
It isn’t there.
Fine.
Maybe you missed it.
Scroll back up.
Nope.
Check another list.
Still nope.
Google it.
Definitely exists.
So where has it gone?
Into the Elite Trainer Box.
Oh.
Welcome back to The ETB Rabbit Hole, where apparently even knowing which set a Pokémon card belongs to is becoming an unreasonable request.
This week, we’re going looking for missing artwork.
Then we're tackling something else I've wanted to get my hands on for a while:
Japanese ETBs.
Except...
There is 1 slight problem with Japanese ETBs.
Japan doesn't actually have ETBs.
Excellent.
Let's begin.
First, we need to find Tyrunt
Our first missing Pokémon is Tyrunt.
And when I say missing, I don't mean annoyingly difficult to pull.
I mean you could open Perfect Order until your fingers fell off and you still weren't pulling this particular Tyrunt artwork.
In Japan's Nihil Zero, Tyrunt appeared as a regular card, 043/080, and as an Art Rare, 089/080.
The Art Rare features artwork by Shimaris Yukichi.
So far, perfectly normal.
Then Mega Evolution: Perfect Order arrived internationally on 27 March 2026.
Regular Tyrunt?
Present.
It became 044/088 in Perfect Order.
The Shimaris Yukichi artwork?
Gone.
Well...
Not exactly gone.
Pokémon had moved it.
Instead of appearing as a pullable card inside Perfect Order booster packs, the artwork became MEP Black Star Promo 070, the Tyrunt promo included with the Perfect Order Elite Trainer Box.
And yes, the Pokémon Center ETB got a Pokémon Center-stamped version of promo 070 too.
Because apparently last week's problem is permanent now.
WAIT, WHAT?
So is Tyrunt actually part of Perfect Order?
Oh good.
We've found another collecting argument.
The Tyrunt we're talking about is MEP Black Star Promo 070.
It isn't numbered as part of the Perfect Order expansion itself.
So if your Perfect Order collection means:
every numbered card in the set
then you don't need it.
Probably.
If your collection means:
every card and associated promo released alongside Perfect Order
you're probably going to want it.
And if your definition is:
I saw the dinosaur and now I need the dinosaur
then I can't help you.
That's how I ended up here too.
There is no universal Pokémon master-set police deciding exactly where your collection stops.
But here's the important bit.
In Japan, that artwork was Art Rare 089/080 inside Nihil Zero.
Internationally, it became Black Star Promo 070 inside the Perfect Order ETB.
Same artwork.
Completely different way of getting it.
Tyrunt might have been filed away under Weird Pokémon Nonsense and forgotten about...
...if Zarude hadn't turned up and done it again.
Oh good. Zarude has gone missing too.
17 July 2026.
Mega Evolution: Pitch Black arrives.
Inside the standard ETB is a full-art foil Zarude promo.
The Pokémon Center version gives you the normal promo and, because we all apparently needed another thing to collect, a second version carrying the Pokémon Center logo.
Nothing particularly suspicious there anymore.
Until you go looking at the Japanese set Abyss Eye.
Because there it is.
Zarude Art Rare, 090/081.
When Pitch Black was assembled for the international release, that Art Rare wasn't included in the main expansion.
Instead, the artwork was used for the ETB promo.
Again.
So now Tyrunt looks considerably less like a weird 1-off.
We have:
Japan: artwork available as an Art Rare in the expansion.
International release: artwork distributed as the ETB promo instead.
Which creates the wonderfully ridiculous situation where you can buy packs from an international expansion, know that a particular artwork is associated with that release...
...and have absolutely no chance of pulling it from one of those packs.
Because Pokémon has moved the cheese.
And put the cheese in a large cardboard box.
This makes ETB promos much more interesting
I like a good promo.
Obviously.
I have willingly spent several weeks writing thousands of words about boxes containing Pokémon cards. My position on shiny cardboard is probably clear by now.
But this is different.
An ETB promo isn't necessarily just:
Here's a bonus card we made for the ETB.
The promo slot can also become part of the way artwork is distributed differently between Japanese and international releases.
A piece of artwork can be:
an Art Rare you pull from a Japanese booster
but
a guaranteed Black Star Promo in an international ETB.
That's exactly the sort of tiny collecting detail I love.
Because if you only collect English cards, you could quite easily never realise anything unusual had happened.
Tyrunt is just the ETB promo.
Zarude is just the ETB promo.
Nothing to see here.
It's only when you put the Japanese and international releases next to each other that you realise:
Hang on.
You moved that.
Sneaky.
Right. Japanese ETBs.
I've seen them called Japanese ETBs.
You've probably seen them called Japanese ETBs.
Sellers use the term.
Collectors use the term.
Search for Japanese Pokémon products and you'll inevitably find something that looks rather ETB-ish.
Big box.
Booster packs.
Cards.
Accessories.
Trainer stuff.
There is just 1 tiny technical issue.
Japan does not officially call these Elite Trainer Boxes.
They're Premium Trainer Boxes.
Initially I thought:
Fine. Different name. Same basic idea.
Then I looked inside one.
No.
No, this is considerably more ridiculous.
Japan's 2016 Premium Trainer Box was an absolute unit
On 9 December 2016, Pokémon released the Sun & Moon Premium Trainer Box in Japan.
Let's open it.
You get:
10 Collection Sun booster packs
and
10 Collection Moon booster packs.
That's 20 booster packs.
We're already quite a long way from the ETB we're used to.
But apparently 20 booster packs wasn't enough stuff.
So Pokémon also included...
154 fixed cards.
Sorry?
One hundred and fifty-four additional cards.
Specifically:
40 Trainer cards
6 Special Energy cards
and
108 Basic Energy cards.
Pokémon even dipped back into the XY and XY BREAK eras for some of the reprinted cards included in the selection.
Then there were:
64 deck sleeves
a card box
a Pokémon coin
a GX marker
acrylic damage counters
premium poison and burn markers
and a player's guide.
And the storage box itself was designed to hold around 650 cards.
Twenty packs.
154 fixed cards.
Accessories.
Storage for hundreds more cards.
At this point you aren't opening a product.
You're moving in.
Calling this a Japanese ETB almost feels unfair to the ETB.
Then Scarlet & Violet somehow made it sillier
Fast-forward to 20 January 2023.
Japan launches the Premium Trainer Box ex alongside Scarlet ex and Violet ex.
Once again:
10 Scarlet ex booster packs.
10 Violet ex booster packs.
Twenty packs total.
Then comes the fixed card selection.
This time Pokémon included:
196 cards.
One hundred and ninety-six.
Broken down, that's:
7 Pokémon
49 Trainer cards
4 Special Energy cards
and...
136 Basic Energy cards.
I checked.
Then I checked again because that sounds like the sort of number I'd accidentally type while sneezing.
It's correct.
Pokémon highlighted useful cards in the selection including Lumineon V, Mew, Serena and Path to the Peak.
Then there was the card box, Pokémon coin, acrylic damage counters, premium poison and burn markers and a metal damage-counter case.
This isn't really:
Here's the Japanese version of an ETB.
It's much closer to:
Here is an enormous Pokémon TCG toolbox. Please go and build something.
And possibly:
Please take some Energy cards. We appear to have too many.
WAIT, WHAT?
So why do people call them Japanese ETBs?
Because as collector shorthand, it makes sense.
If you're trying to describe a large Japanese Pokémon product containing boosters, cards and play accessories, saying Japanese ETB immediately gives another collector a rough idea of what you're talking about.
I know what you mean.
You know what you mean.
The seller knows what you mean.
Pikachu probably knows what you mean.
But if we're being annoyingly accurate, which after 4 weeks down this rabbit hole I absolutely intend to be:
Premium Trainer Box is the official Japanese product name.
Not Elite Trainer Box.
And this isn't a new idea either.
We've just gone back to a Japanese Premium Trainer Box from 2016.
Jump forward to 2023 and we have the Premium Trainer Box ex.
And then, on 1 August 2025, Japan's Premium Trainer Box MEGA arrived alongside Mega Brave and Mega Symphonia.
Inside?
10 Mega Brave packs.
10 Mega Symphonia packs.
Yep.
20 again.
Plus...
172 fixed cards.
That breaks down into:
13 Pokémon
59 Trainer cards
4 Special Energy cards
and
96 Basic Energy cards.
Apparently 136 Energy had been deemed excessive.
Good to see restraint finally winning.
So now you have a new fact to deploy at your next card show.
Someone says:
Have you seen the Japanese ETB?
You can push your glasses up your nose and say:
Actually...
Please don't tell them I sent you.
Meanwhile, Pokémon has been fiddling with our ETBs again
While we've been distracted by stamped promos and disappearing Art Rares, Pokémon has quietly been changing some of the little things inside international ETBs too.
Not enormous changes.
The sort of changes you might not notice unless, for reasons I can no longer explain, you're comparing ETB product specifications.
Hello.
It's me.
I've been doing that.
Take Scarlet & Violet.
Those ETBs included 45 Energy cards and 4 dividers.
Now look at something like Perfect Order from the Mega Evolution era.
Inside the standard ETB you'll find:
9 booster packs
the Tyrunt promo
65 card sleeves
40 Energy cards
6 damage-counter dice
a competition-legal coin-flip die
1 plastic coin
and
6 dividers.
Wait.
Six dividers?
Yep.
Scarlet & Violet gave us 4.
Perfect Order gives us 6.
Somewhere along the way Pokémon apparently decided:
MORE DIVIDING.
Meanwhile, the Energy stack went from 45 to 40.
So we've gained 2 dividers and lost 5 Energy cards.
I don't know who negotiated this deal.
But I'm choosing to believe there was a meeting.
And there's a coin now
The plastic coin is another easy little change to miss.
Scarlet & Violet's ETB contents included 2 plastic condition markers.
Perfect Order's official contents instead list a plastic coin.
Not exactly an earth-shattering development.
Nobody is standing outside Pokémon HQ demanding answers.
But it matters to the bigger story.
Because ETB contents aren't fixed.
Even the little pieces change.
And buried underneath all the collecting nonsense, sealed-box speculation, stamped promos and us examining cardboard dividers like we're conducting a forensic investigation...
...these are still products designed with playing Pokémon in mind.
Cards.
Sleeves.
Dice.
Energy.
Storage.
Play accessories.
That original DNA is still there.
Pokémon has just spent years rearranging the furniture.
Sometimes adding things.
Sometimes removing things.
Sometimes changing the promo.
Sometimes moving an Art Rare into the box.
Sometimes giving us 2 extra dividers.
And sometimes Japan turns up with 136 Energy cards and makes everybody else look woefully underprepared.
There isn't 1 ETB recipe
That's probably the biggest thing I've taken away from this entire rabbit hole.
It's very tempting to talk about the contents of an ETB as though there's a recipe carved into a stone tablet somewhere at Pokémon HQ.
There isn't.
The recipe changes.
And not just between generations.
The role of the box changes too.
An ETB can be your way into a new expansion.
It can give you storage, sleeves and play accessories.
It can contain a guaranteed promo.
A Pokémon Center version can give you an exclusive stamped variant of that promo.
And now we've seen examples where the artwork used for that promo was an Art Rare inside the corresponding Japanese expansion.
Meanwhile, Japan has its own Premium Trainer Box line doing something considerably more substantial with 20 packs and enormous fixed-card selections.
Which is why I increasingly think the most dangerous sentence in Pokémon collecting is:
ETBs always...
Whatever comes after that sentence, there's probably a box somewhere waiting to prove you wrong.
Your turn: where does your master set actually stop?
Let's cause 1 more argument before we leave.
You're collecting Perfect Order.
You've got every numbered card in the expansion.
But the Tyrunt artwork that Japan received as Art Rare 089/080 became MEP Black Star Promo 070 internationally.
Do you need Tyrunt before your Perfect Order master set feels complete?
And if the normal Tyrunt promo counts...
does the Pokémon Center-stamped Tyrunt count too?
👇 Tell me where your master set stops.
There isn't an official master-set police.
Although judging by some Pokémon Facebook groups, several people have already bought the uniform.
Next week at Camp Onion...
How Did a £40-ish Pokémon Box Become Worth Thousands?
Right.
We've avoided this long enough.
Plasma Storm.
Generations.
Team Up.
Evolving Skies.
Pokémon 151.
Some ETBs that started life as relatively ordinary retail products now change hands for amounts that would have sounded completely absurd when they were sitting on shelves.
But we're not going to look at an eBay listing where somebody has typed £19,999 OR BEST OFFER and declare ourselves financial analysts.
We're going looking for actual completed sales.
And we're going to separate a few things the Pokémon hobby has a habit of chucking into the same pot:
Expensive.
Desirable.
Hard to find.
Actually scarce.
Because they aren't necessarily the same thing.
We'll look at what old ETBs have really sold for, why certain boxes attract collectors, what Pokémon Center exclusivity changed and why sold out does not automatically mean rare.
And somewhere along the way we need to deal with a Plasma Storm ETB that sold for an amount of money I would personally describe as:
Absolutely not.
The final descent into The ETB Rabbit Hole is next week.
Bring snacks.
And maybe don't tell your bank.
Pikajo 🧅
ETB promos and Japanese Premium Trainer Boxes: the quick version
Can artwork from a Japanese set become an international ETB promo?
Yes. Tyrunt is a confirmed example. In Japan's Nihil Zero, the artwork appeared on Art Rare 089/080. Internationally, the same artwork was used for MEP Black Star Promo 070 in the Perfect Order ETB.
Can I pull that Tyrunt artwork from a Perfect Order booster pack?
No. The international card using that artwork is a Black Star Promo distributed with the ETB, not a numbered Perfect Order card.
Did something similar happen with Zarude?
Yes. Zarude's artwork appeared as Art Rare 090/081 in Japan's Abyss Eye. Internationally, that artwork was used for the Pitch Black ETB promo rather than appearing as an Art Rare within the main Pitch Black expansion.
Does an ETB promo count towards a master set?
There isn't a single official collector definition of master set. Some collectors stick to the numbered expansion checklist. Others include associated promos and variants. Decide what complete means for your collection before your binder starts making financial decisions on your behalf.
Does Japan have Elite Trainer Boxes?
Not under that official product name. Japan has its own Premium Trainer Box product line. Japanese ETB is useful collector shorthand, but it isn't the official product name.
What was inside the 2016 Japanese Premium Trainer Box?
It contained 20 booster packs, 154 fixed cards and a large selection of play accessories. The fixed cards consisted of 40 Trainers, 6 Special Energy and 108 Basic Energy.
Did the 2023 Premium Trainer Box ex really contain 136 Energy cards?
Yes. It contained 196 fixed cards, including 136 Basic Energy cards.
Still funny.
What about Premium Trainer Box MEGA?
The Japanese product released on 1 August 2025 contained 20 booster packs and 172 fixed cards, alongside its accessories.
Have international ETB contents changed too?
Yes. For example, Scarlet & Violet ETBs contained 45 Energy cards and 4 dividers, while Perfect Order contains 40 Energy cards, 6 dividers and a plastic coin.
What's next?
Part 5: How Did a £40-ish Pokémon Box Become Worth Thousands?
We're finishing the series with the money, the hype, the genuinely expensive boxes and, most importantly, what people have actually paid for them.
Because listed for and sold for are about to become 2 very different things.
See you next week.
Pikajo 🧅
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