Japanese shop bans adults from buying Pokemon cards
Pokemon JourneysA Japanese card shop has restricted specific Pokemon card packs to only schoolchildren, preventing adults from purchasing them.
On April 19, The Pokemon Company International responded to the theft of hundreds of cards from the Sword & Shield Fusion Strike expansion at a Texas store. The company claimed the robbery had affected the “integrity” of the high-valued cards. However, thieves have not only ravaged card shops in the United States but also in Japan.
In January 2023, Japan experienced a string of robberies that resulted in “tens of millions of yen” in Pokemon cards being stolen. Now, a leading Japanese game shop has prohibited adults from purchasing select Pokemon cards.
Japanese shop prohibits adults from a particular Pokemon card section
Twitter: SakurasCardShopHareruya 2 – located in Tokyo’s Akihabara district – has revealed it would dedicate a store section to junior high school students and younger. On Twitter, the shop announced it would limit 10 packs a day per person of the Snow Hazard and Clay Burst packs. Additionally, it would start checking identification to confirm the buyer’s age.
On the first floor, Hareruya 2 would keep selling the packs until they ran out each day. The new rule would also ban parents and guardians from purchasing Pokemon cards for their children.
i think thats rather fair, but there isnt anything stopping adults from paying kids to get the packs for them, or worse, hiring multiple kids to go in and pick up a bunch of packs
— TheHiddenLettuce (@maxion23) May 1, 2023
Twitter user TheHiddenLettuce believed Hareruya 2’s restriction was justifiable. However, it would not stop adults from paying children to buy Pokemon cards for them.
In an interview with Japanese news site Livedoor, store manager Sho Watanabe explained the decision.
“Many shops exhaust their entire stock [of Pokemon cards] as soon as they go on sale, and people active late at night or early in the morning always seem to buy [the cards],” Watanabe said.
“By allocating half our stock for general customers, shops can continue to sell [the cards] to students and young children. Selling [goods] to children not only pleases them, but their parents as well. [We] feel this method of sales enables us to satisfy the greatest number of customers when the items are in such limited supply.”
Would you pay a kid to buy you Pokemon cards? Maybe it depends on the rarity of the TCG pack.