Pokémon Sleeves - Pokémon Center Hiroshima (64 pcs, Japanese)

64 official Japanese Pokémon sleeves from the Pokémon Center Hiroshima: a design tied to that one location and therefore hard to get outside Japan.

Specifications

• Quantity: 64 sleeves
• Origin: Pokémon Center Hiroshima, Japan
• Officially licensed, store-exclusive release

Why 64 and not 65

Western sleeve packs contain 65, Japanese ones 64 — a difference that simply comes down to habit in the two markets. A deck holds 60 cards either way, so you'll have a few spares left over regardless. Keep in mind that Japanese sleeves are sized for Japanese cards, which are a fraction smaller than Western ones.

About the Pokémon Center Hiroshima

The Pokémon Center Hiroshima is located in the Sogo department store in the city centre. For Japanese people, Hiroshima is first and foremost the city rebuilt after 1945, centred around the Peace Memorial Park — and also the city of okonomiyaki, the savory pancake stacked up in layers on the griddle there. Every Pokémon Center has its own design that references the city it's located in.

What a store-exclusive design means

For its branches, the Pokémon Center releases designs that are sold only there — often not even online. So you had to have been there yourself, or know someone who was. That makes this kind of sleeve sought after among collectors in a way that has little to do with the game: it's a souvenir that just happens to be useful too.

What sleeves are for

Sleeves protect your cards from fingerprints, moisture and damaged edges, and they make a deck shuffle more smoothly. At tournaments they're effectively mandatory: every card back in your deck must look identical, so no one can tell which card you're holding from the back.

Other store-exclusive designs include the one from the Pokémon Center Osaka DX and the six festival Pikachu from Tohoku.