Ken Sugimori drew the first Pikachu in the 30th Celebration set
Pokemon revealed a Pikachu card by original artist Ken Sugimori, plus the day and night versions of Pikachu ex. The set arrives worldwide on September 16.
Pokemon has revealed a new Pikachu card from 30th Celebration, and it was drawn by Ken Sugimori, the artist who designed the original Pokemon. PokeBeach reports that the card is marked as the first Pikachu in the set, which fits: the man who drew Pikachu in the first place gets card number one.
The art itself is the point. This Pikachu is chubbier than the slimmer Pikachu you see today. Anyone who owned a Pokemon card in the late nineties will recognise that shape straight away, and that recognition is exactly what an anniversary set is selling.
Why the round Pikachu is the whole idea
Pikachu's design has quietly slimmed down over three decades. Nobody announced it. It happened one game and one cartoon at a time, and most people never noticed until someone put the old drawing next to the new one.
Going back to the round version, drawn by the original artist, is a clean way to say "thirty years" without printing a slogan on the card. It also gives collectors who left the hobby years ago a reason to look at a modern set.
The day and night Pikachu ex
The Pokemon Company International also showed day and night versions of Pikachu ex. A card marked ex is a stronger version of a Pokemon, and knocking one out hands your opponent extra Prize cards, which are the cards you collect to win a match. Strong card, higher risk.
These two are the regular versions. According to PokeBeach, promo versions of the same day and night pair go inside Ultra-Premium Collections, one of which also holds Espeon ex. A promo is a card that comes packed with a product instead of being pulled from a booster pack. The report we have does not spell out the full list of those collections, so we are not going to guess at it.
That split matters if you are shopping:
| Version | How you get it | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Regular day and night Pikachu ex | From packs in the set | Players and set builders |
| Promo day and night Pikachu ex | Packed in an Ultra-Premium Collection | Collectors who want the special finish |
If you only want a playable copy, the regular version does the same job in a deck for a lot less money. The promo is a collector item, not a stronger card.
Where this fits
30th Celebration products go on sale worldwide on September 16, 2026. Every booster pack in the set contains one of 30 different Pikachu, so these reveals are two of thirty. Expect the rest to trickle out over the next five weeks, which is the pattern The Pokemon Company International has used all summer.
Also worth remembering before you plan a purchase: the packs are not sold on their own. They only come inside larger products, and no official price has been announced for the English lineup yet.