I have collected older information about Burger King toys serial numbers.
Over the years, each of the eight Pokémon movies have been released in the U.S. after some time. You should be able to find the most recent ones at most video sales locations.
The last Wizards' expansion, called Skyridge, became available in May 2003, as a 182 card set (more if you count the reverse holofoils as separate cards!) with three new energies (Bounce, Cyclone and Retro) and 2 theme decks (WEeveelution and Mind Machine). This is the equivalent of the Japanese eCard expansions 4 and 5.
Beginning late 2002, Wizards changed the style of the promotional cards they
released one last time, in conjunction with the newly renamed
BattleZone.
The last promos were called "Best of Game".
They produced 7 promos in this series, along with 2 variants of each.
The 9 cards were: Electabuzz, Hitmonchan, Reverse Holofoil Prof. Elm,
Rocket's Scizor, Rocket's Sneasel, Dark Ivysaur, Dark Venusaur, Rocket's MewTwo
and Rocket's Hitmonchan.
The variants include a Jumbo sized version of each of these (very limited
quantities) and a version without the special gold marking for Best of.
A variety of promotional cards were available from Wizards. See the
Wizard's promo card page
for the list of what cards were released, where, and when.
Over the years, the Wizards WWW site made available a number of useful
reference documents. You could find the card text for each TCG expansion
as well as a
document
detailing a variety of rulings relating to the various Pokémon
cards.
Wizards also made available some
resources for learning the Trading Card Game.
After Skyridge, Nintendo began making the expansion packs for the trading card game.
Nintendo has published 13 expansion sets to date, with the fourteenth to appear during August, 2006.
Several special GameBoy Advanced (GBA) and DS game device models, featuring various Pokémon characters, have been made available for limited time runs in Japan and the US over the past year. For instance, during the opening of the New York Pokémon Center, a special gold colored GBA with Pokémon characters on it was sold in the US. Recently, there was a DS model produced in Japan which featured Pikachu's image. A device called a Pokémon Mini was released during 2001. It is a tiny game oriented device, similar in size to the Pocket Pikachu and Pocket Pikachu 2 sold in the previous years. The difference is that there are mini-cartridges containing different games. See the Pokémon Center for more details. New game cartridges for this device continue to be produced. Finally, Pokémon characters have guest starred in a few other Nintendo games, like Smash Brothers Melee 1 and 2.
Viz Comics was publishing a series of short run comics (typically 4-6 issues each) covering a variety of adventures - some from the characters of the TV series, more recent series from alternate universes, etc. It appears that the rate these series are being produced has slowed dramatically. In fact, during 2003, Viz has apparently ceased printing any of their monthly comics, and is focusing on graphic novels which up to now were collections of the monthly comics. During early May 2003, Viz announced they were just going to print the graphic novel formats of comics. Some Pokémon related titles were still being printed in early 2003 - it remains to be seen whether these comics, based on the Japanese manga comics being printed, will continue to be published.
Wizards of the Coast published four volumes of a series of strategy guides for parents and players of their card games. Two of the volumes in this series are general ones titled Pokémon Made Simple and Let's Play Pokémon and two books (focused on particular expansions) titled Pokémon Team Rocket Strategy Guide and Pokémon Gym Heroes Strategy Guide.
Creators.com was the distributor for the Gerard Jones, Ashura Benimaru/Viz Communications, Inc. Pokémon Comic strip, featured in a variety of newspapers around the US. It has since been canceled, but the strips were collected into a paperback anthology available from most general book stores.
Here is a page where I discuss Pokémon Collectible Card Game terminology.
Here is a page where I discuss Pokémon pricing issues.
Another interesting area is the newest Japanese expansion sets - the latest has been a number of series which include nearly invisible to the eye bar codes that provide trivia, etc. via the GameBoy Advance electronic barcode scanner. Information will be found at most of the heavy traffic Pokémon web sites like Pojo.
In unrelated news, Wendy's is running a Pokécom related promotion, including toys and collectible trading cards (but these are NOT related to the Wizards TCG!!!).
Adopt One Yourself @
Pikachu Adoption Center
Adopt One Yourself @
Pikachu Adoption Center
An attempt at identifying some of the origins of "pet monster" animation in Japan
Creator of Pokémon preaches non-violence
Time Magazine article on Pokémon
Note that I am interested in hearing from anyone out there using a Palm Pilot
type device in relation to Pokémon. If you have a database or
application on your Palm Pilot,
drop me an email and let me know
about it. I have actually a series of small
DB databases of
Pokémon info; American TV episodes, Pokémon merchandise,
Pok´mon American Wizards of the Coast Collectible Trading Card Game cards,
and others that I make available here.
Palm Pilot Pilot-DB databases and application
© Copyright by Larry W. Virden <lvirden@yahoo.com>, 1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006 http://www.purl.org/net/lvirden/Pokemon/