Japanese or English? The same Pokémon is not the same price.
By the person who runs Giraffe Trendz · October 2, 2026 · 5 min read
People assume Japanese cards are the premium version. Better print quality, earlier release, nicer texture. So I checked whether the prices agree. Mostly they don't.
How I compared them
For each Pokémon I took every Near Mint card worth at least $1, in English and in Japanese, and found the typical price in each language. I only kept Pokémon with 20 or more cards on both sides, so one rare promo can't decide the answer. That leaves 153 Pokémon.
English was the more expensive language for 130 of them. Japanese won for 23.
The big names
| Pokémon | Typical English card | Typical Japanese card | Japanese as a share of English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Umbreon | $83.11 | $22.10 | 27% |
| Rayquaza | $67.69 | $33.16 | 49% |
| Lugia | $43.47 | $22.61 | 52% |
| Charizard | $49.76 | $32.21 | 65% |
| Mewtwo | $28.59 | $19.64 | 69% |
| Gengar | $52.91 | $39.40 | 74% |
| Blastoise | $35.06 | $30.00 | 86% |
| Mew | $33.81 | $34.99 | 103% |
| Pikachu | $24.42 | $25.70 | 105% |
| Eevee | $10.12 | $11.99 | 118% |
Prices as of October 1, 2026. Typical means the median card for that Pokémon in that language.
Umbreon is the one that jumps out. The typical English Umbreon is $83. The typical Japanese Umbreon is $22. That's about a quarter of the price for the same Pokémon.
Pikachu, Mew and Eevee go the other way, but barely. These are the mascots. Japan gets a lot of exclusive promos for them, and those promos carry the Japanese number up.
Where Japanese does win
There's a short list where the Japanese card is clearly worth more: Genesect at $9.99 against $3.73, Magneton at $13.29 against $8.04, Garchomp at $19.43 against $14.43, Celebi at $34.99 against $29.94. I don't have one clean reason for these. My guess is a handful of older Japanese-only printings doing the work, but that's a guess and I'm labeling it as one.
The widest gaps the other way
The biggest English premiums are Johto and old-school favorites. Ho-Oh is $37.11 in English and $6.00 in Japanese. Tyranitar is $45.27 against $10.00. Feraligatr is $44.47 against $10.00. Leafeon is $24.99 against $6.08.
Why I think this happens
- Most buyers on a US marketplace want the English card. More demand, higher price.
- Japanese sets tend to have better pull rates, so there are more copies of the good cards.
- Old English cards got played with and beaten up. Clean copies are scarce, so Near Mint costs more.
What this does not tell you
This compares the typical card for a Pokémon, not the exact same card in two languages. The English pool and the Japanese pool are different cards. It also only sees what's listed on a US marketplace, where Japanese coverage is thinner: I track about 20,700 English cards over $1 and about 12,900 Japanese ones. Prices in Japan itself could look different.
If you're buying to collect, this is good news. The Japanese version of your favorite Pokémon is probably the cheaper way in. If you're buying to resell here, the English card is where the money has been. You can filter by language in Analyze and see it for your own Pokémon.
Keep Reading
- Old sets went up. New sets went down. Here is how lopsided it was.Nine weeks of nightly prices across 184 sets: 119 rose, 34 fell, and almost every faller was printed in the last two years.
- One in five cards moved 20% in nine weeks. At every price.I expected cheap cards to be jumpy and expensive cards to be steady. The data says the jumpiness is about the same from $1 to $100 and up, and the reason is how few times a card actually sells.
- Which Pokémon carry the market? I added it up.One copy of every Near Mint card, summed by Pokémon. Charizard and Pikachu lead, but they are not the ones growing fastest.
Market reporting, not financial advice. See how the numbers are gathered.