Sorry, nerds.
A store in Akihabara, Japan has imposed a strict ban on buying Pokemon cards. However, this rule is only for adults, due to the release of the new Clay Burst and Snow Hazard packs for the trading card game.
These new packs certainly will see a swarm of adults collecting them, as they include special rare cards of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet gym leaders Grusha and Iono. We’ve already seen what happened during their initial release, when adults lined up outside different shops in Akihabara to get new packs (and sadly, sell them for a good profit).
The retail store, Hareruya 2, the self-proclaimed world’s largest Pokémon trading card specialty store in Akihabara, imposed a ban that aims to let young kids still enjoy getting and playing these cards without adults buying them all off the shelves. The establishment will only allow junior high schoolers and younger children to snatch these collectibles up. The company posted the news on Twitter. The staff inside will reportedly check IDs to confirm age.
“Many shops exhaust their entire stock [of Pokémon cards] as soon as they go on sale, and people active late at night or early in the morning always seem to buy [the cards],” store manager Sho Watanabe shared. “By allocating half our stock for general customers, shops can continue to sell [the cards] to students and young children. Selling [goods] to children not only pleases them, but their parents as well. [We] feel this method of sales enables us to satisfy the greatest number of customers when the items are in such limited supply.”
Image credit: Erik Mclean