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Is One Piece Overpriced Compared to Pokemon? Rarity + Price Analysis — Transcript

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0:00Hello and welcome to OnePiece of
0:02Insight. In today's video, I will be
0:04comparing estimated populations for
0:06total number of packs printed for
0:09Pokémon versus One Piece to see if we
0:12can understand how rare One Piece is
0:15compared to Pokémon and whether or not
0:17prices seem balanced based on that level
0:19of rarity. So, as always, this is
0:21intended to be interesting and
0:22informative, but not financial advice.
0:24Let's jump right in. So, the first thing
0:26we need to do in order to do this
0:27analysis is we need to understand
0:28approximately how many Pokémon packs are
0:31printed in English in a given year so
0:33that we can compare them against One
0:35Piece packs. So, luckily, the Pokémon
0:37company has been giving us official
0:39print runs for total number of cards
0:41printed, right? So, like in this video,
0:43I'm not going to be able to cover like
0:44how many cards are in each set or which
0:46sets are printed more than others, but
0:48what we can do is convert a number of
0:50cards printed in a year to a what I
0:52think is a reasonable estimate of the
0:53number of English packs
0:55uh that are printed and then compare
0:57that to One Piece. So, the Pokémon
0:58company has told us that uh starting in
1:012022, they printed 9.7 billion cards,
1:04then it went up to 11.9 billion in '23,
1:0710.2 billion in 2024, and 10 billion
1:10again in 2025.
1:12Uh so, you know, the decrease there is
1:13really, really interesting.
1:15I don't think it suggests that there's a
1:17decrease in demand. It suggests that
1:18there's a decrease in production
1:19capacity. I'm not really sure what's
1:21happening there, but it's something
1:22interesting to keep an eye on. Okay, so
1:24how do we convert this into a number of
1:26packs? Well, first of all, there are 10
1:27cards per pack, right? So, if we take
1:29about an average of 10 billion cards
1:31printed per year, that would give us
1:32about a billion packs per year. But of
1:35course, that's not the full story.
1:36Number one, Pokémon is printed in many,
1:38many different languages,
1:40uh and also Pokémon prints lots of other
1:42cards that don't go in packs that
1:44presumably factor into this 10 billion
1:46number.
1:47So, while I don't have any information
1:49to back this up, I'm going to go ahead
1:50and assume that about half of what the
1:52Pokémon company prints are English.
1:55And then I'm going to assume that about
1:5720% of the cards they print in English
1:59don't actually go into packs. They go
2:01into promo cards like precon decks, like
2:03that sort of thing. Uh and so that gives
2:05us an estimated number of 400 million
2:07English packs printed per year. So
2:10again, take this with a massive grain of
2:12salt, right? This is just to help us to
2:14understand like an order of magnitude
2:16relationship between Pokémon and One
2:18Piece. Now let's talk about what's going
2:19on in One Piece. So One Piece does not
2:22put out official numbers for how many
2:24cards that they have printed, but since
2:26I have gone through and done an estimate
2:28of how many cases have been printed of
2:30each one of the sets, I was able to take
2:32that by year and condense them together.
2:35Uh and then I had to make an estimate of
2:37how many cases still remain unopened to
2:40factor that in. And so I estimated that
2:4333% of them are still sealed. Um all of
2:45that is a long way to say that I'm
2:47estimating that there's around 40
2:48million packs that were printed in 2023,
2:5150 million that were printed in 2024 and
2:53around 60 million in 2025. So number
2:57one, this is an incredibly rough
2:58estimate. Number two, what's interesting
3:00here is that unlike Pokémon, the size of
3:02the print runs for One Piece does
3:04actually seem to be increasing. So that
3:06is something that could potentially
3:07affect like this ratio of what the price
3:09relationship should be moving forward.
3:11Okay, so how do we compare these two?
3:12Well, if we're estimating that there's
3:14about 400 million packs that are printed
3:16in English in Pokémon every year and we
3:18compare that to One Piece, that gives us
3:20a range of about 6.7 times as many
3:23Pokémon packs as One Piece packs for the
3:25most recent year and 10 times as many
3:28Pokémon packs as One Piece packs for the
3:30first year that One Piece was printed.
3:32So for the purposes of this video, we're
3:34assuming that there's between 6.7 times
3:37to 10 times as many Pokémon packs as
3:39they are One Piece packs. So when we
3:41look at the pull rates within specific
3:43packs, that's what we're going to be
3:44comparing against. Okay, so a few
3:47operating assumptions before we get into
3:48the specific numbers. Number one, I'm I
3:51don't have a way to measure demand,
3:52right? Or to compare demand. All I can
3:54compare is supply. Both games are
3:56really, really hard to get. Both games
3:58are being priced over MSRP. So, I'm
4:00going to go ahead and assume the demand
4:02is equal to the amount of supply that's
4:05being printed for both, right? Is that
4:07actually true? It's probably not
4:08actually true, but I don't have any way
4:10to nuance it any further. So, that's
4:12what we're going to use as an
4:13assumption.
4:14So, that means that I'm assuming the
4:16demand for Pokémon is approximately 10
4:18times what the demand is for OP. We're
4:20going to assume that given that Pokémon
4:22is producing about 10 times the amount
4:24of product that One Piece is, uh the
4:26demand must be about 10 times for us to
4:27see similar market dynamics.
4:30And so, as a result, we're also assuming
4:32then that equivalent Pokémon cards with
4:3410 times the population should be the
4:36same price. Now, obviously there's a lot
4:38of nuance to this. We're going to get
4:39into the nuance there, um but this is
4:41going to be sort of like our clean
4:43operating assumption for comparing these
4:45two games. Okay, so let's start by
4:47comparing alt arts in One Piece to
4:49illustration rares in Pokémon. So, in
4:52One Piece alt art, you will pull
4:54approximately one out of every 14.5
4:57packs, whereas a Pokémon illustration
4:59rare, you'll pull approximately one out
5:01of 11 packs. Now, note that while
5:03generally the pull rate for One Piece is
5:05pretty similar across sets, the pull
5:06rates for Pokémon can vary quite wildly
5:08across sets. So, this is sort of like
5:12a rough approximation of what the pull
5:14rates are. It's going to vary quite a
5:15bit by set. And you know, for example,
5:17this Magikarp I believe is actually like
5:18one in 13 as opposed to one in 11. But,
5:21if we take that, uh that gives us a
5:23total population of One Piece alt arts
5:25in a given year, that's 2.75 million up
5:28to 4.15 million. Compare that to Pokémon
5:31where our given population for alt arts
5:33is around 36.36
5:36million. So, that gives us a multiple of
5:388.8x to 13.2x depending on which year in
5:41One Piece you're comparing it to.
5:43So, how does that compare to price? If
5:46we assume that this Magikarp, which is 1
5:48in 13, is 11.2 times the population of
5:53this Luffy from OP-01, which is going to
5:56be the low end of our range cuz it came
5:57out in the first year,
5:59the Luffy is $195
6:01and the Magikarp from Paldea Evolved is
6:03$363.
6:05Now, as we said in the operating
6:06assumption slide, we would assume that
6:08if a Pokémon card had 10 times the
6:10population of a One Piece card, we would
6:12expect their prices to be pretty
6:14comparable. In this case, the Pokémon
6:16card is significantly more expensive
6:18than the One Piece card.
6:20And so, while I have here overpriced
6:22versus underpriced, that doesn't
6:24necessarily mean that like I'm saying
6:26that the Magikarp is overpriced, right?
6:29I'm just saying that as it relates to
6:30the model that we've laid out, this is
6:32more expensive than we would expect
6:34based on its rarity, and the Luffy from
6:36OP-01 is less expensive than we would
6:38expect based on its rarity. Now,
6:40something I suspect that we're going to
6:41see as we continue to go through this
6:42video is that like demand for Pokémon is
6:47much broader, and that means there are a
6:49a wider pool of different types of
6:51collectors, right? So, like, you know,
6:52cards that are still quite common but
6:55have extremely high demand uh for that
6:58particular card can perform better than
7:00like similarly situated One Piece cards.
7:02That's at least one of my hypotheses.
7:04So, now let's compare another similar
7:06class of card across Pokémon and One
7:09Piece. So, in One Piece, we have SPs,
7:11which are approximately 1 in 144 packs.
7:14You're getting two per case. And then in
7:16Pokémon, we have SIRs being
7:18approximately 1 in 66 packs. Now, this
7:21is another one where there is like
7:22shocking amounts of variation in terms
7:25of how rare they are. You know, the most
7:26recent 30th uh anniversary set, they're
7:29like, you know, 1 in 21. There are also
7:32SIR sets that are like 1 in over 150
7:35packs, right? So, again, this is
7:37intended to be like a middle point
7:39between those. So, if we look at the One
7:41Piece SPs, we're estimating there to be
7:43approximately 278,000 to 417,000
7:47SPs printed in a given year, depending
7:50on which year you're looking at.
7:51Whereas, Pokémon will have around 6.06
7:54million SIRs printed in English uh in
7:57any of the last 3 years. So, now if we
8:00look at the specifics of the Boa Hancock
8:02SP from OP-04 and the Phantasma Flames
8:05Charizard SIR, we see that there are
8:07approximately 18 times as many SIRs in
8:10Phantasma Flames as there were SPs in
8:13OP-04, which gives us an 18x multiplier.
8:16So, if we look at the price for the Boa,
8:18it's $1,100, and the price for the
8:20Charizard is $670.
8:22Based on our operating assumption that
8:2410x should be parity, at 18x we would
8:27expect the SP to be slightly less than
8:30twice as expensive as the Charizard SIR.
8:33And that's exactly what we see here. So,
8:35this is extremely consistent with what
8:37we would expect to see based on our
8:39operating assumptions. So, while again,
8:42you know, this is how well does it fit
8:43within the model we've created, not
8:45whether or not I think they're
8:46objectively fairly priced or not. I'm
8:48going to label these two as fairly
8:49priced because this is fitting very well
8:52within what we would expect based on
8:53rarity alone. I would also add to that
8:55in some ways, I think this is probably a
8:57more representative example than the
8:58OP-01 versus Magikarp because a lot more
9:02people collect SPs. SPs are generally
9:04considered to be more desirable than alt
9:06arts, even if it is the first alt art of
9:09Luffy. Um and there is something weird
9:12about Paldea Evolved, which is that the
9:13SIRs and the IRs uh basically have the
9:16same pull rate, and so that even though
9:19it's an IR, ends up being just as
9:21desirable as an SIR, right? Whereas,
9:23this I think you're really comparing
9:24really strong apples to apples, right?
9:26You're comparing like the most desirable
9:27cards in their given sets
9:30uh against each other and seeing a
9:31relative parity of price based on
9:33rarity, which is what we would expect,
9:35which I think is really interesting. So,
9:36next I wanted to look at, you know, an
9:38even rarer set of cards. Now, this is
9:41really tricky because Pokémon for the
9:43most part, their bread and butter right
9:45now are their illustration rares, their
9:47special illustration rares. That's what
9:48most people collect. In Mega Evolutions,
9:50they released these mega hyper rares,
9:52which were incredibly hard to pull, but
9:55have proven to not be very, very
9:56popular. So, we're going to have to take
9:58this analysis with even more of a grain
9:59of salt than usual, but this is the
10:01closest to what I could find in terms of
10:03a rarity comp for mangas in One Piece.
10:06So, in One Piece, mangas are
10:08approximately one in 864 packs on
10:11average, which gives us a total per year
10:14of around 46,300
10:16to 69,500,
10:18whereas Pokémon mega hyper rares are one
10:20in 1,125
10:22packs, which gives us about 356,000
10:25per year for a multiple of 5.1x to 7.7x.
10:29So,
10:30this is the first instance that we've
10:31looked at where the Pokémon card is
10:33actually harder to pull than the One
10:35Piece card. So, what do we see when we
10:37look at the prices? Well,
10:39we see the OP01 Shanks manga being worth
10:41about $4,000
10:43and the Pokémon mega hyper rare
10:45Charizard being worth $300 at only a
10:487.7x multiple. So, based on our model,
10:51at a 7.7x multiple, we would expect the
10:54Pokémon hyper rare Charizard to be more
10:57expensive than the Shanks manga. And
11:01yet, here we have the Shanks manga being
11:03like 13 times more expensive than the
11:06Pokémon card. So, this is a very, very
11:09tricky one because I think you're
11:11comparing a card that is, you know, has
11:13very high desirability to a card that
11:16has like proven to have much lower
11:17desirability, uh but at the same time,
11:20just strictly based on rarity, you know,
11:22the Pokémon card is coming in extremely
11:25underpriced relative to our model,
11:27whereas the Shanks manga is coming in
11:28extremely overpriced relative to our
11:31model. I think it's pretty clear that
11:33the Charizard is way underpriced what
11:35you would expect, but how much of this
11:37ratio is the Charizard being underpriced
11:39versus the Shanks being overpriced is
11:41really hard to say in my opinion. So
11:42again, I'm not saying that you should
11:44like rush out and sell your Shanks or
11:45rush out and buy this Charizard, but
11:47according to the model that we've
11:48developed, these two do not fit well
11:50within that model. And then the final
11:52thing I wanted to look at was like some
11:54of the rarest cards of all. This is an
11:55analysis that we historically wouldn't
11:57have been able to do because Pokémon has
11:59never really had cards as rare as the
12:02rarest One Piece cards. But now, with
12:04the release of the 30th anniversary set,
12:05they actually do have some cards that
12:07can give them a run for their money. So
12:09the question was could we figure out
12:11approximately how many were out there?
12:13So Skybox Collectibles posted on
12:15Instagram
12:16a list of how many units of each type of
12:1930th anniversary product were going to
12:21be released, which enabled us to
12:23calculate how many packs are estimated
12:27to be released as part of this set. Now,
12:30do I know if this is true? I do not know
12:32if this is true. I do not know where
12:34Skybox Collectibles got this information
12:36from. This was the only bit of data that
12:39I could grasp onto to do this type of
12:41analysis, but assuming for the sake of
12:43argument that their analysis is true,
12:45that there's going to be around 137
12:47million of these 30th anniversary packs
12:50that are printed, again, I'm not even
12:52sure if this is specifically referring
12:54to like the initial wave of all of their
12:56different products or if this includes
12:59like all of the reprints they have
13:00planned, but based on what we've seen
13:02online, the RGB Mew seems to have around
13:051 in 4,000 pack pull rate.
13:09This would put it at around 34,300
13:12total of each of the different Mews.
13:15Whereas the OP-09 Gold Roger had a pull
13:18rate of about 1 in 24 cases, so that's 1
13:22in 6,900
13:24packs. So again, it's rarer and harder
13:26to pull than the Mew is.
13:28So, that gives us an estimated
13:30population of the Roger of around 1,600,
13:33whereas we think that the estimated
13:35population for the Mew is around 34,300.
13:38Now, big caveat here, unlike the other
13:40ones where we've looked at where we were
13:42looking at basically like how many of
13:44that card type were printed in a given
13:46year, this is actually using estimated
13:48print runs for these specific sets. So,
13:50this is estimating that the population
13:52of Gold Roger is around 1,600 and the
13:55population of this red Mew will be
13:57around 34,300.
13:59So, in terms of what they're currently
14:00selling for, at a multiple of 21.4x,
14:04uh we would expect the One Piece card to
14:06be about twice as expensive as the
14:09Pokémon card, uh because it is about
14:11twice as rare as the typical ratio
14:13between a One Piece card and a Pokémon
14:15card. And that's actually exactly what
14:17we see here. We see the Gold Roger being
14:18worth around $12,000, and we see the red
14:21Mew being worth around $6,000, right?
14:24You know, when you're talking about
14:25these rare and expensive cards, there's
14:27going to be fluctuations in prices,
14:29right? So, there's some minor variation
14:30here, but I would say in general that I
14:32think these are fairly priced. I think
14:34that these two fit very well within our
14:36model uh and suggest that a ratio of
14:3910:1 in favor of Pokémon population
14:43brings price parity. And suggests that
14:45there's approximately 10 times as much
14:46demand for these Pokémon cards as there
14:48are for the One Piece cards, which I
14:50personally think is really, really
14:51interesting. Okay, so what are our big
14:53takeaways from this? So, the first is
14:55that I think Pokémon has a broader
14:57collector base and a wider range of
14:59demand, right? So, let's start with the
15:01easiest part up front. The model assumed
15:02that there's approximately 10 times as
15:04much demand for Pokémon cards as there
15:07is for One Piece. I think we saw across
15:10this extremely limited data set that
15:11like that seems to be pretty reasonable
15:15uh based on what we're seeing from the
15:16prices, right? That Pokémon cards that
15:19have around 10 times the population tend
15:21to have similar prices to One Piece
15:23cards uh that are 1/10 of their
15:25population.
15:26But the other thing to keep in mind is
15:27that the makeup of these different
15:29collector bases are pretty different.
15:32And so like if you were to compare the
15:34different tiers of collectors across
15:36Pokémon and One Piece, like I think at
15:38the very top you would have the most
15:40hardcore collectors, right? And like I
15:42think there's probably more hardcore
15:44Pokémon collectors, but I think as a
15:46ratio of total collectors within One
15:48Piece, it's probably a higher ratio
15:51within One Piece, right? So there's
15:52going to be more parity in terms of
15:55number of collectors and demand at the
15:57top end for super high One Piece cards
15:59as there are to Pokémon. Again, not
16:02nearly as much, but it's much closer
16:04than at the bottom. And the further away
16:06you get from those hardcore collectors
16:08into the more casual collectors is where
16:10you start to see the biggest difference
16:12between Pokémon and One Piece. Of
16:13course, One Piece is nostalgic for a lot
16:15of people, but there are tons of people
16:18who grew up with Pokémon, collecting
16:20Pokémon cards, who like maybe don't want
16:22to get into this as a lifestyle or take
16:24it particularly seriously, but they like
16:27see one card and they're like, "Oh, that
16:28Magikarp sick. I had to have it, right?"
16:31Like that Magikarp was actually the
16:32first Pokémon card that I bought as an
16:34adult. I just saw it and thought it was
16:36so cool. I really, really wanted it,
16:38right? I didn't like then go out and buy
16:39like a whole bunch of other Pokémon
16:41cards. I really just wanted that one
16:43card because it brought back that
16:45nostalgia and I just thought that it was
16:47a super, super sick card, right? So I
16:49think Pokémon has a lot more collectors
16:51like that, which means that cards that
16:53are super high population have the
16:56ability to get absorbed by the market in
16:58a much stronger way than similar One
17:01Piece cards are, right? So again, I
17:03think this is an argument in favor of
17:05rarity mattering more to One Piece than
17:08it does matter to Pokémon. And so this
17:12brings us to our next point, which is
17:13that the demand curve is exponential. So
17:15rarity may matter more in One Piece than
17:17it does in Pokémon because if the most
17:20voracious collectors in One Piece make
17:21up a larger percentage of the total
17:23market than they do in Pokémon, that
17:25means cards that are really, really rare
17:29are going to likely see a proportionally
17:32higher price than cards that are cool
17:35but are less rare, right? Another thing
17:38to keep in mind here, too, is that like
17:40for top-tier collectors in Pokémon,
17:43there's so much to collect, right? And
17:46there's so many older, vintage, rare
17:49cards that things like the mega hyper
17:51rare, like even though they're rare in
17:53the context of modern Pokémon cards,
17:55like the top-tier collectors don't need
17:57to care about that, right? Because
17:58there's still much more rare and
18:00exciting things for them to chase.
18:01Whereas in One Piece, being relatively
18:03new, the rarest modern One Piece cards
18:05are the rarest that One Piece cards get,
18:07right? And so if you're one of those
18:09collectors, you're going to be competing
18:11for those. And so in a sense, I think
18:13that like the mega hyper rares and the
18:14mangas are not really an
18:15apples-to-apples comparison. I think
18:17it's justified why the mangas would be
18:19much more expensive than the mega hyper
18:21rares. Although that said, I'm still a
18:23little bit surprised at how cheap the
18:24mega hyper rares are. I do wonder if
18:26like 5 years from now we're going to
18:28look back on this and be like, "Man, why
18:29were those so cheap?" My main takeaway
18:31here though is that based on what we
18:33see, prices seem fairly balanced,
18:35actually. When I came into this
18:36analysis, I had absolutely no idea what
18:39I thought the result was going to be,
18:41right? [laughter] I didn't know if
18:42Pokémon was going to be like way
18:44underpriced compared to One Piece, if
18:45One Piece was going to be way
18:46underpriced compared to Pokémon, or if
18:48this data was going to be completely
18:49nonsensical. So, I do think it's
18:51interesting that the cards that seem to
18:53have the most natural comparison in
18:55terms of demand do seem to show this
18:58type of balanced relationship. And like
19:01if anything, I think this is really just
19:03a testament to how good markets are at
19:05finding prices for things because it
19:07suggests that the market price for most
19:09things is actually pretty fair, which is
19:11something that we have seen, you know,
19:13generally, absent market manipulation,
19:16uh every time that we've looked at these
19:17types of questions. And then the final
19:18important thing to note is that like the
19:21One Piece print runs seem to keep
19:23growing, whereas at least for the last
19:25few years, Pokémon's print runs have
19:27basically remained static or have even
19:29gone down in some cases. Now, to be
19:32clear, Pokémon has talked about bringing
19:34online new factories to be able to
19:37permanently increase their print
19:38capacity in the next few years. So, I
19:41don't necessarily think that like static
19:43Pokémon print runs are here to stay. I
19:45think they will continue to increase
19:47their ability to print as long as the
19:48game continues to have really high
19:50demand.
19:51You know, in general, I think we've seen
19:53Bandai being kind of hesitant to
19:55increase their total print runs
19:57of things. We haven't been sure how much
19:59capacity they've had to do that, but
20:01like the numbers do seem to suggest that
20:03their print runs are increasing. So, are
20:05they going to hit a ceiling in the same
20:06way that Pokémon did? It's really,
20:08really hard to say, but like as we're
20:10comparing newer One Piece cards, I think
20:13it's important to keep in mind that
20:15there can be a pretty wide difference in
20:17the print runs compared to the really,
20:18really old stuff. And if you aren't
20:20particularly familiar with One Piece, if
20:21you're watching this because you mostly
20:22care about Pokémon,
20:24those print run increases are primarily
20:27concentrated in the anniversary sets,
20:28right? So, your OP-05, your OP-09, your
20:31OP-13, and your OP-17s are going to have
20:34way, way, way larger print runs than all
20:36of your other sets, but also print runs
20:38across all of the sets have been slowly
20:40increasing, but not nearly as much of a
20:42degree as they increase from a regular
20:45set to an anniversary set. So, that's
20:47all I have for today. I hope you found
20:48this interesting. As I said, please take
20:50all of this with a massive grain of
20:52salt, right? This is intended to be an
20:53extremely rough calculation, not like
20:55any type of precise estimate of what is
20:57actually out there. If you found this
20:59interesting, if you have any additional
21:00data, you know, hit me up in the
21:01comments. Tell me where you agree and
21:02disagree. I love chatting with you all.
21:04It's my favorite part of doing this. You
21:06know, as always, if you're looking to
21:07pick up any of these cards, whether it's
21:08One Piece or Pokémon, we have our
21:10TCGplayer affiliate link and our eBay
21:11storefront. You know, if you decide to
21:13buy through us, we'll get a small
21:15commission, which helps us out a ton. Uh
21:17but obviously, no pressure there. So, as
21:19always, I appreciate your time and I
21:21will see you in the next one.

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