Quick answer
The 30th Celebration Pikachu subset is 30 cards drawn by 30 different illustrators, numbered 01/30 to 30/30 on the card face, and CardSpicy (cardspicy.com) tracks it as one of the two Simplified Chinese lines worth building a collection around. One of the thirty is guaranteed in every booster pack, so no pack is a blank and the run can be completed by opening product rather than by hunting singles. The numbering is the thing to understand before you buy: the subset number is not the set number. In the English release the thirty cards occupy #023/128 to #052/128, and in the Japanese release the same thirty occupy #017/103 to #046/103.
How the Pikachu subset works
Thirty Pikachu, thirty pairs of hands. The subset was built as a single idea: hand the same character to thirty different artists and let the styles do the talking. Three rules govern it.
- One per pack. Every 30th Celebration booster pack contains one Pikachu from this subset as a guaranteed slot, alongside the other foil cards. That is stated officially for the English product, and it changes what opening a box is for: you are not fishing for a chase, you are assembling a 30-card run.
- Every card is foil, with a fireworks holofoil layer across the whole card. Because every card in the set is foil, there is no non-holo baseline and therefore no reverse-holo version of any of the thirty.
- Each card carries its own marker. The set number sits beside a second number printed as x/30, which records the card’s position in the run and is why the subset can be collected as a defined 30 rather than as an open-ended character list.
Two of the thirty carry a documented origin story rather than a free interpretation. The opening card, 01/30, is Ken Sugimori redrawing his own Pikachu from the Jungle expansion. And 25/30 comes from Atsuko Nishida, the artist behind the character’s original design. Between those two bookends sit twenty-eight more.
The thirty, at a glance
Illustrator names above are as printed on the cards. The Japanese release uses the same thirty illustrations and the same x/30 markers, but places them at #017/103 to #046/103 — six numbers lower than the English run, because the two set lists are not the same length.
The thirty, one by one
01/30 — Ken Sugimori — 023/128
A redraw rather than a reprint. Sugimori returns to the Pikachu he drew for the Jungle expansion and paints that same chubby, early-era creature again, now under the anniversary foil. He was the franchise’s original art director, so opening the run with his hand is the set stating its own premise: thirty interpretations of one character, beginning with the one that set the standard.
02/30 — danciao — 024/128
A deliberately modern counterpart to the opening card. Where 01/30 looks back, danciao goes for an action-packed composition — movement and framing that belong to the current era of Pokémon art rather than to 1997.
03/30 — satoma — 025/128
Warmth is the whole point here. satoma works an expressive, high-contrast face and a soft palette, letting Pikachu’s expression carry the card instead of its pose.
04/30 — Takeshi Nakamura — 026/128
A background card as much as a character card. Nakamura builds a meticulously detailed, almost poetic setting and places Pikachu inside it, so the card rewards being looked at closely rather than glanced at.
05/30 — Asako Ito — 027/128
The subset’s most unexpected technique. Asako Ito is known for photographing crocheted amigurumi rather than painting or drawing, and this card carries that signature: a Pikachu built from yarn and photographed as an object. Among thirty illustrations, it is the one that is not an illustration.
06/30 — sowsow — 028/128
A quiet, lonely scene. Pikachu sits surrounded by fluffy decorative pillows, clutching a Friend Ball cushion, with one floppy ear and a soft expression. sowsow’s painterly texture gives the card a storybook feel, and the mechanics match the mood: this Pikachu’s Ability, Lonely Gaze, reduces incoming damage while it is the Active Pokémon, so the card plays as passive as it looks.
07/30 — James Turner — 029/128
Bold outlines and a Western comic sensibility. Turner’s card is the most graphically assertive in the run, drawn with the heavy linework and flat confidence of a comic panel rather than the soft shading the character usually gets.
08/30 — DOM — 030/128
Pure colour. DOM treats Pikachu as a graphic subject and pushes saturation hard, producing a card that reads as a poster rather than a portrait.
09/30 — Atsushi Furusawa — 031/128
A lively, brightly lit scene. Furusawa is known for radiant lighting, and here the light source does most of the composition work, with Pikachu placed in the middle of it rather than in front of it.
10/30 — Tomokazu Komiya — 032/128
Komiya’s raw, outsider-art aesthetic is unmistakable — wonky linework, flat blocks of colour and an expression that is somehow both blank and delighted. It is the card in the run most likely to divide a room, and that is the point of including him.
11/30 — Narumi Sato — 033/128
A naturalist’s card. Sato places Pikachu outdoors with delicate shadow work and careful attention to the environment, so the animal reads as something observed rather than staged.
12/30 — USGMEN — 034/128
Minimal and funny. USGMEN’s style strips the frame back and lets a single visual joke do the work, closer to a webcomic panel than to a trading card illustration.
13/30 — Susumu Maeya — 035/128
Caught mid-motion. Maeya builds the card around a single dynamic instant, with the body tilted and the composition angled so the card feels like it is still moving.
14/30 — OKACHEKE — 036/128
Digital craft front and centre. OKACHEKE layers intricate texture and subtle, controlled lighting to give the card a rendered, almost three-dimensional finish that stands apart from the flatter pieces around it.
15/30 — Yuu Nishida — 037/128
A bright, soft-edged portrait. Nishida keeps the framing simple and the light generous, letting Pikachu fill the card as a character study rather than a scene.
16/30 — Tetsu Kayama — 038/128
Pointillism. Kayama builds the image out of dots, which is a genuinely unusual choice for a trading card at this size and produces a texture that changes as you tilt the foil.
17/30 — Teeziro — 039/128
Sleek and high-contrast. Teeziro goes for graphic design rather than illustration, with heavy blacks and a hard edge that makes the card read cleanly at thumbnail size.
18/30 — Shinji Kanda — 040/128
Gritty, kinetic linework. Kanda’s card is all nervous energy — scratchy, dense and graphic, closer to street art than to the soft side of the character’s usual treatment.
19/30 — Rianti Hidayat — 041/128
Fairy-tale whimsy. Hidayat leans into the decorative and the storybook, wrapping Pikachu in a scene that feels illustrated for a children’s book rather than drawn for a game.
20/30 — Akira Komayama — 042/128
Motion and mood together. Pikachu bounds across a vibrant pink plain under a bright blue sky filled with halftone dotted clouds, with pastel streaks in the foreground carrying the sense of speed. The mechanics keep up: this card’s Charge-Up Dash finds and attaches Basic Lightning Energy, and Pika Bolt does 50 damage.
21/30 — OOYAMA — 043/128
Offbeat and geometric. OOYAMA’s composition is built from flat shapes and odd angles, giving Pikachu a strangeness that no other card in the run attempts.
22/30 — akagi — 044/128
Depth of colour. akagi works in a rich, heavily textured palette with deep shadow, producing the most saturated and atmospheric card among the thirty.
23/30 — Naoyo Kimura — 045/128
A pastoral card. Kimura sets Pikachu in a realistic rural landscape with natural light, treating the character as an animal in a real place rather than an icon on a background.
24/30 — svlt — 046/128
Perspective and line. svlt uses a dramatic viewpoint and very clean draughtsmanship, so the card’s interest comes from how the image is built rather than from decoration.
25/30 — Atsuko Nishida — 047/128
The card the subset was arguably built around. Atsuko Nishida designed the character itself, and her contribution here returns to its original traits rather than reinterpreting them — rounded proportions, a plain expression and the silhouette as it was first drawn. Placed at 25/30, it sits exactly halfway through the run as a hinge between the two decades either side of it.
26/30 — KIYOTAKA OSHIYAMA — 048/128
Animation craft. Oshiyama — an animator by trade — draws movement and expression with the economy of someone who works in frames, and the card shows it: the pose is a key frame, not a portrait.
27/30 — Nurikabe — 049/128
Contemplative and detailed. Nurikabe builds a rich, busy background and lets Pikachu sit inside it quietly, the opposite instinct to the cards that clear the frame to show off the character.
28/30 — Shimaris Yukichi — 050/128
Appetite as a theme. Pikachu is caught stuffing its cheeks with Berries, mid-snack and entirely unbothered, framed by the thick white border that is Shimaris Yukichi’s signature. Against the lush greenery the border does real work, pushing the character forward. It is also the heaviest card of the three officially previewed, at 80 HP, with Satisfied Spark hitting for 100.
29/30 — nagimiso — 051/128
A semi-realistic finish and a strong composition. nagimiso moves away from cartoon shorthand towards rendered fur, light and form, which makes the card feel like it belongs to a different discipline from its neighbours.
30/30 — Kazuki Minami — 052/128
The closing card, and the most deliberately iconic. Minami ends the run with a radiant, hero pose — the character lit and centred — which is the right note to stop on after twenty-nine other interpretations.
What the subset is worth collecting for
The run is designed to be completed, which is unusual. Most chase card lists in a modern set are defined by scarcity; this one is defined by supply. With one guaranteed per pack and thirty possibilities, opening a booster box gives you twenty cards from the set of thirty, and the distribution across those twenty is random — duplicates are expected and useful, because a duplicate is trade material for the ones you have not pulled.
Three practical points follow from that.
- A box, not a pack, is the sensible unit. Twenty cards from a thirty-card run moves the collection materially; one card does not.
- Grading is where the premium sits, and it is a curation problem, not a rarity problem. Every card in the set is foil, so surface scratches decide most grade calls. Fifteen of the thirty are artwork-led rather than playable, which means the ones worth sending to a grader are usually the ones you would keep anyway.
- The illustrated cards are the entry point for Simplified Chinese collectors. The subset is printed in Simplified Chinese as part of the same worldwide release, which is the first time a Chinese Pikachu subset has existed on day one rather than months later.
Frequently asked questions
How many Pikachu cards are in 30th Celebration?
Thirty, each drawn by a different illustrator, sub-numbered 01/30 to 30/30 on the card face. One of the thirty is guaranteed in every booster pack. In the English release the thirty occupy set numbers #023/128 to #052/128; in the Japanese release the same thirty illustrations occupy #017/103 to #046/103.
Why are the subset number and the set number different on these Pikachu cards?
Because the subset is defined separately from the set list. The set number records where the card sits in the 128-card English expansion; the x/30 marker records where it sits in the Pikachu run. The two are always offset by 22 in English — 01/30 is 023/128, 30/30 is 052/128 — so a card advertised as “23/128” is the first Pikachu of the thirty, not the twenty-third Pikachu.
Which Pikachu cards in the subset are worth grading?
Grading is a condition question before it is a rarity question, because every card in the set is foil and surface scratches drive most 9-versus-10 calls. Among the thirty, the two with documented provenance — 01/30 by Ken Sugimori and 25/30 by Atsuko Nishida — are the ones collectors ask for first, followed by the artist-led pieces that carry a strong visual identity of their own. Grade clean copies; a 9 does not carry the premium a 10 does.
Are the 30 Pikachu cards in Simplified Chinese?
Yes. The 30th Celebration set released in Japanese, English and Simplified Chinese on the same day, which had not happened before, and the Pikachu subset is printed across all three. The illustrator names are the same on every language version; the set numbers are not, so match the language version before comparing, checking or pricing a card.
Can I complete all 30 Pikachu without buying singles?
In principle, yes, because the distribution is guaranteed rather than rare. In practice it takes volume: a booster box yields twenty cards from a pool of thirty, so a second box is usually needed to close the gaps, and duplicates are the normal outcome rather than a bad draw. Buying the last two or three as singles is faster than opening another box for them.
Sources
Sources and further reading
- The Pokémon Company — Pokémon TCG: 30th Celebration announcements and the Pikachu subset preview, including the official statement that every pack contains one of thirty Pikachu and the artwork notes for the cards previewed.
- Card faces — every illustrator credit on this page is read from the printed credit on the card itself, and the x/30 and set numbers are read from the printed numbers.
- The official Japanese card database for 30th CELEBRATION (M6a) — the source for the Japanese set numbering, #017/103 to #046/103 for the subset.
- CardSpicy catalogue — our own Simplified Chinese card and product records, including the 30th Celebration booster box contents.
Illustrator names appear as printed on the card faces. Set numbers differ between languages; the numbers quoted here are the English release unless the Japanese release is named. Prices are not quoted on this page, and nothing here is a forecast.
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