Pokémon Amada Stickers

Who made them, and when

Amada Printing Co. held the Japanese Pokémon sticker licence from 1996 and had foil packs on shelves the same year the games launched, so these stickers predate the trading card game in most Japanese shops. Japanese packaging calls the numbered runs 最強シール烈伝, Saikyō Shīru Retsuden, roughly strongest sticker legend; English-speaking collectors just say Amada seals, Amada stickers or Amada cards. The catalogue here runs 31 entries from 1996 to 2006: Hyper Sticker Collection and Attack Set, Super DX, the World Hobby Fair promos, the ADV era, two 7-Eleven Special Packs, and the sticker cases and Perfect Album binders sold alongside them. In 2005 Amada handed the line to its subsidiary Ensky, and the Ensky catalogue picks up where this one stops.

What the object physically is

An Amada sticker is a peel-and-stick seal on a backing liner, not a card. The stickers in Hyper Sticker Collection 1 are 50 mm square, and the artwork is Ken Sugimori's Red and Green game art rather than anime stills. They sold two at a time in foil packs for about twenty yen over a 駄菓子屋 counter, and one at a time out of kuji lottery dispensers for a coin. Both routes ran the same checklist. Finishes are what separate the premium lines: Super DX 1998 splits its 88 entries across Transparent, Holo Bronze, Holo Rainbow and Gold-name stickers, and Hyper Sticker Collection 1 divides its 203 into 150 plain, 35 prism and 18 gold.

How the numbering works

The Retsuden lines carry one master number that keeps climbing across Parts instead of resetting to 001 in each new Part, so a printed number plus the artwork is usually enough to place a loose sticker. The two 7-Eleven Special Packs use a separate S prefix and run continuously across products rather than restarting: Special Pack 2 is S-01 through S-40 plus one additional laser design, and Special Pack 3 picks up at S-42 and runs to S-82, where S-42 through S-71 supplies the 30 metallic designs and S-72 through S-82 supplies the 11 laser designs. Both packages print the same total of 41 designs, and that printed total is what the arithmetic above has to satisfy. Early sets also print battle statistics on the sticker face, an attack and defence figure, a level and a type marker, because kids duelled with them in the schoolyard. Those stat blocks fade out by the late ADV and DP years.

The lines, in order

Hyper Sticker Collection is the main numbered series, four parts across 1996, 1997 and 2000. Attack Set shows Pokémon using moves, in 1998 and again in 2001. Super DX is the premium foil line, in 1998, a Gold edition in 1999 and a further set in 2000. The World Hobby Fair promos are event-only runs from 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2003. The ADV era covers nine numbered Parts from 2003 to 2005, the last of which prints under the Ensky mark, plus three ADV DX Waza foil sets. The two 7-Eleven Special Packs land in 2005 and 2006. Running beside all of it is the accessory line, blister-packed sticker cases and spiral-bound Perfect Album binders, 1996 to 2000. The Perfect Albums matter to a completionist: Perfect Album 1 shipped an exclusive holographic Mew at slot #000 that was never in a pack or a kuji dispenser.

How to identify what you are holding

• Read the brand on the wrapper first. Amada prints AMADA in red. From 2005 the same lines print a green-foil enSky mark instead, and ADV and DP era runs straddle that change, so the same printed number can turn up under either brand depending on the print year.
• Then match the printed number and the artwork to the set page, not the number alone. Numbers continue across Parts, so a high number does not mean a late set, and a later Part does not begin at 001.
• For a Hyper Sticker Collection 1 sticker, the print run is in the feel of the liner, not in the copyright line. The first run has sun-ray streaks in the holo, softer red ink, and a faint yellow back on slick, almost plastic stock. The second run has a clean streak-free holo, sharper red ink, and a whiter matte, papery back. The copyright line is identical on both runs, so it cannot separate them.
• Do not read the yellow back as age. Yellow, cream and white liner (黄セパ, クリームセパ, 白セパ) are all catalogue stock, and white is what a printer specifies when the liner is going to be printed on. Amada printed Pokédex text on both backs, so the white run made the conventional choice and the yellow one is simply a different stock.

How much is here

Thirty one catalogue entries. The sets that publish a printed item count total 2,603 stickers between them, plus the 146-card Pokémon Nice Cards line and the promo and accessory entries that are counted by design rather than by number. Every set has its own page with a per-sticker list, and photographs are credited to the collectors who took them.

How this checklist was verified · Pokemon Ensky stickers · Pokemon menko sets