About Simplified Chinese Pokémon TCG

The Simplified Chinese Pokémon TCG launched on October 28, 2022, with Storming Emergence — the first set printed in Simplified Chinese for Mainland China, based on the Sun & Moon era. Cards are printed in Japan, maintaining consistent print quality with other major regions.

Since launch, Chinese releases have tracked the international release cadence and competitive meta. Booster boxes and set compositions, however, remain distinct from other language editions rather than direct reprints.

Simplified Chinese cards are printed in Japan, to the same production standard as Japanese releases. Print quality, cardstock, and holo treatment are what you would expect from an official Pokémon product — these are not a lower-tier regional printing.

They use the international card back rather than the Japanese one, so a Simplified Chinese card sits alongside English cards without standing out from behind.

Front and back of a Simplified Chinese card, with the anti-counterfeit stamp circled.

Every card carries an official anti-counterfeit marking applied for the mainland market. It is the quickest way to confirm a card is a genuine Simplified Chinese print rather than a reproduction, and it is the first thing we check on anything entering our stock.

Simplified Chinese main sets do have proper names — Reward Round, Chasing Glory, and so on — but in practice almost nobody uses them. Collectors, shops, and distributors refer to sets by number instead: 5.0, 7.0, 12.0. The current set is 18.0, officially Chasing Glory, though most people know it simply as the Team Rocket set. Chinese sets do not map one-to-one onto Japanese releases either — content is regrouped and resequenced for the Chinese schedule.

Set codes follow their own convention too. Main Scarlet & Violet era sets use CSV codes, Gem Pack volumes use CBB codes, and Collect 151 uses CS-series codes. Knowing which code you are looking at is the fastest way to identify a product.

That restructuring is why Chinese exclusives exist at all. Because the sets are rebuilt rather than translated, there is room for cards that have no equivalent release elsewhere — and The Pokémon Company has consistently used that room for exclusive artwork.

Gift-giving occupies a particular place in Chinese culture, and Pokémon China leans into it. New gift boxes appear almost every month — a release cadence that has no equivalent in the Japanese or English markets.

What makes them interesting is that the format has no fixed rules. A gift box will contain booster packs, but the accompanying item varies enormously. We have seen photo frames, card frames, plushies, plates, keychains, and mirrors, among many others.

Alongside anniversary releases, China also produces gift boxes tied to the festival calendar — Chinese New Year, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival among them. These are seasonal by nature and rarely restocked once the window passes.

Several product lines exist only in Simplified Chinese, and a number of individual cards appear in Chinese boosters and nowhere else. We keep a complete list, photographed from our own stock.

See every Chinese exclusive card