How to Open a Japanese Pokémon Booster Box

Opening a sealed box is the best part of collecting. Most of the damage that happens to a good pull happens in the first minute after it leaves the pack, usually from a card left loose on the table while the next pack is torn open. A few minutes of setting up beforehand keeps every card in the condition it was printed in.

Set up before you open anything

Work on a clean, dry and flat surface with nothing to spill nearby. Wash and dry your hands first, since oil and moisture from fingers mark the surface of foil cards. Have your sleeves and toploaders open and within reach so a big pull can go straight into protection without being put down. A soft playmat makes a good surface, as it stops cards sliding and protects the corners.

Check the box before the wrap comes off

Mega Symphonia Japanese Pokémon booster box — Mega Symphonia is our best selling box.

Take a good look at the box while it is still sealed. The shrink wrap should be tight with clean factory folds, the box should be square with no crushed corners and nothing should rattle loose inside. Our guide on how to spot a resealed box goes through the signs in detail. If you plan to share the opening online, start recording before the wrap comes off so the sealed box is on camera.

The tear strip on Japanese boxes

Japanese booster boxes made since late September 2022 open along a perforated strip. Pokémon changed the packaging so an opened box can't be closed up again and passed off as sealed, which means the box looks opened the moment the strip is torn. If you run a finger slowly along the perforation instead of ripping it in one go, the box usually stays neat enough to keep on display.

Opening each pack

Hold the pack upright with the cards pushed down to the bottom, then tear across the top just under the sealed edge so the tear stays well clear of the cards. If you prefer scissors, cut along the very top of the pack where there is no chance of touching a card. Slide the cards out gently instead of pulling them, then look through each pack before moving on to the next one.

There is no right order to open the packs in. Every pack in a box is random, so opening from the left, the right or the middle makes no difference to what you find. Our pull rates guide explains what a box tends to hold over all thirty packs.

Sleeve the hits straight away

Any card worth keeping should go into a sleeve the moment it comes out of the pack. Our Standard Sleeves are 65 by 91 millimetres, which fits a Pokémon card with a little room. For the best protection, put the card in an Inner Sleeves sleeve first, then into a standard sleeve. Your best pulls belong in a Top Loaders 35pt toploader once they are sleeved. If you are thinking of grading a card, PSA asks for cards to be sent in semi rigid holders. The full routine is in our guide to storing cards and sealed boxes.

Keep the rest tidy

Sort the commons and uncommons into a card box once you are done, so they don't get bent at the bottom of a drawer. Plenty of collectors keep the empty box too, since Japanese box art looks great on a shelf. Our sleeves, toploaders and cases ship in the same parcel as a box order for the same flat postage.