Japanese SEO company KABUKI Inc. launches pokécazilla, a new price comparison site for Japanese Pokémon TCG singles

A huge industry has built up around the Pokémon Trading Card Game internationally. According to The Pokémon Company, they will have produced roughly 53 billion Pokémon cards as of this year. Demand for the Pokémon TCG grew dramatically during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was accompanied by a massive surge in online selling and buying of TCG singles. Many English-speaking fans buy cards from sites such as eBay, while Japanese-speaking fans use sites like Mercari.

With this big industry, however, comes scalping, the practice of buying TCG cards at retail prices and then selling them at egregiously higher prices. These sorts of practices, together with concerns about fake cards and cards behind sold ahead of official release dates, led The Pokémon Company and Yahoo! Japan to sign a memorandum of understanding in July this year regarding ensuring fans could safely and securely trade and sell Pokémon cards via Yahoo! Japan's online services.

In the English-speaking world of the TCG, sites like PriceCharting and TCGPlayer allow purchasers to compare prices and find the average selling price of cards they might be looking for. Up until now however, Japanese fans have had much fewer options for their own local market. It's seems that's about to change however, with SEO company KABUKI Inc. having recently opened pokécazilla (ポケカジラ), a brand new website for comparing the prices of Japanese Pokémon cards. According to a press release from KABUKI Inc., the goal of the site is to prevent scalping, and allow purchasers to find cards at reasonable prices. In addition to enabling purchasers to easily compare prices between different online marketplaces, pokécazilla also allows for making purchases directly through the pokécazilla website itself.

KABUKI Inc. seemingly doesn't plan on stopping at just the main site either. The group have already promised to continue expanding their horizons, with plans for building a wiki and YouTube channel, as well as supporting tournaments and other community events.