Special Pokemon card breaks major milestone for the Trading Card Game

Brent Koepp
pokemon coco movie poster

An upcoming Pokemon card is set to hit a major milestone for the Trading Card Game that hasn’t been reached since 2002. The collectible item is a promo from the film Coco which releases in Winter 2020.

The Pokemon TCG made its debut in North America in 1999, and quickly became a worldwide phenomena. Decades later, the hobby has never been more popular, with stars like Logan Paul and former rapper Logic dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars on rare items.

The Trading Card Game is about to reach a new milestone this December with the release of the upcoming full-length film Coco. A promotional card given out at theaters will be the first of its kind since 2002’s Wizard’s of the Coast set Skyridge.

pokemon movie coco promo art
The upcoming film will get a promo card based on the main character called Koko.

Pokemon Coco film to release special card

This December, the Game Freak RPG will get its 23rd film called Coco. To celebrate its release, a special promo card will be given out in Japan to fans who attend the movie at theaters nationwide.

However, the item isn’t just any ordinary card – it’s actually the first of its type going back to 2002. The promo features Koko, the boy from the film, on a Pokemon card. This is different from human characters who are normally featured on Trainer cards.

Joe Merrick of popular Pokemon site Serebii posted the interesting fact on Twitter. “They’re releasing the third ever publicly released Pokémon card featuring a non-Pokémon and the second to actually be playable since Buried Fossil in Skyridge back in 2002,” he said.

This is interesting, seeing as Koko is said to have been raised in the wild by Legendary Pokemon Zarude. So him being considered a “Pokemon” in the card game is fitting of his story.

The Coco promo is the second “non-Pokemon” Pokemon card available to the public that is playable in the TCG. Although, the last time a similar card was released was the incredibly bizarre M Sachiko EX from the 2017 X & Y set, which can not be played in the game. 

These three unique items are similar in that they are “non-Pokemon” Pokemon cards.

Non-Pokemon Pokemon cards are nothing new. The TCG has seen a fair share of them over the years, although they are rarely playable and available to the public like the Coco promo will be in 2020.

Perhaps the most interesting item in this category is the insanely rare Ishihara GX Promo, which features the artwork of The Pokemon Company’s President and CEO. The item was only given out to employees, and has fetched over $50k at auctions.

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About The Author

Brent is a former writer at Dexerto based in the United States, who covered topics such as Pokemon, Gaming, and online Entertainment.