Pokémon phone cards, year by year

Sixty-nine designs across eight years, and the spine of the whole family is the summer movie.

The checklist that documents this family counts 69 designs: eleven dated to 1996, thirteen to 1998, nine to 1999, ten to 2000, and a thinning tail after that, two in 2001, five in 2002, one in 2003, with eighteen further designs filed as special promotions that resist exact dating. Read in order, the cards chart Pokémon's own biography: a manga and magazine phenomenon in 1996, a movie and retail empire by 1998, and a yearly summer ritual thereafter.

A note on honesty: the earliest year has no 1997 section in the checklist at all, a reminder that this is a collector-built archive of a scattered family, not a publisher's catalogue. Where a design's year is documented, it is given; where the archive files a card under special promotions, this page says so.

1996 TO 1999

Manga cards, then the movie machine

1996 · PiPiPi Adventurer

Five designs tied to the PiPiPi Adventurer manga, one of them a lottery prize: phone cards were manga merchandise before they were movie merchandise.

1996 · CoroCoro Red and Green

The magazine of the games' homeland issued Red and Green designs in the first year: the medium and the message in one object.

1996 · The Legendary Birds

Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres designs close the first year, Articuno in two variants, with and without gold.

1998 · Pokémon Center sets

The Tokyo grand opening telephone card set and the Osaka cards: the stores arrive, and the teleca marks them.

1998 · Mewtwo Strikes Back ×5

Five designs for the first film, plus three Pikachu's Vacation cards, vertical, horizontal and combined art: the movie summer becomes an annual institution.

1999 · Lugia's Explosive Birth

Four designs for the second film, two of them also in holo variants, beside a 3rd Anniversary set and the first ANA card.

2000 TO 2003, AND THE SPECIALS

The tail, and the cards that resist dating

2000 · The Entei summer

Two Lord of the Unknown Tower designs, two Pichu and Pikachu cards, a Hide and Seek design and a Celebi card, with Famitsu and ANA cards beside them.

2000 · Christmas Pichu

A pair of Christmas 2000 Pichu cards: the family at its most purely decorative.

2001 · Two cards

A Shiny Concert card and a Celebi: Timeless Encounter design: the year the flow slows to a trickle.

2002 · Latias and Latios

Two designs for the fifth film, one also in a shiny variant, plus a Latios and Latias card and a Shining Charizard.

2003 · Jirachi

A single design, for Wishing Star of the Seven Nights: the last card in the checklist, as mobile phones close the era.

Special promotions · 18 designs

Four ANA archive cards, a Pokémon Stadium card, Banpresto and TOMY designs, Showa Note's Pikachu and Togepi, manga artist Mato's cards, and a signed-style Keiko Fukuyama artist card.

Pokémon phone cards, year by year

1996 TO 1999

2000 TO 2003, AND THE SPECIALS

THE FIRST WORD