Southern Islands

What Japanese Southern Islands is

Japanese Southern Islands is a special set of 18 cards released in Japan on July 17, 1999 alongside the second Pokémon movie. It came in two promo folders of 9 cards each, Rainbow Island and Tropical Island, with decorated artwork, and as six three card box sets, each covering one region of the islands: Jungle, Beach, Sea, Sky, Riverside and Field of Flowers. Each region's picture was split across its three cards, so Mew, Pidgeot and Onix together make up the Sky panel and Exeggutor, Slowking and Wartortle the Beach panel.

The cards carry no rarity symbols and no set numbers, so they are tracked here by National Pokédex number, with Mew as 151, Wartortle as 8 and Jigglypuff as 39. They use the old Base Set to Team Rocket card design, which makes the Generation II Pokémon in the set, Togepi, Ledyba, Marill and Slowking, the only cards of their generation printed in that frame, with Slowking the only evolved Pokémon outside Generation I to carry a square Evolution box.

What makes Japanese Southern Islands different

• The Mew Mew 151 is the most valuable card in the set in PSA 10 by a very wide margin, the centerpiece of the Sky panel and one of the most recognised Mew cards of the era.
• Split panel artwork Each of the six regions is one illustration divided across three cards, so the set is collected as complete panels as much as single cards, and the original artwork appears in full on the folders.
• Old frame, new Pokémon The Japanese cards kept the Base era design while the English Southern Islands of July 31, 2001 moved to the Neo design, so the Japanese Togepi, Ledyba, Marill and Slowking are the only Generation II cards in the old frame.

How Japanese Southern Islands arrived

The set released in Japan on July 17, 1999 with the second movie, three weeks after the Japanese Gym Challenge on June 25, 1999 and ahead of the Japanese Neo Genesis on February 4, 2000. It was a much wanted collection at the time, and the English Southern Islands followed on July 31, 2001 as a decorated folder with the cards, postcards and three booster packs, keeping all of the original artwork, with its cards numbered in the manner of the Wizards Black Star Promos.

Japanese Southern Islands products

The cards were sold in two nine card folders and six three card region boxes rather than packs, so there is no booster box. The sealed table above tracks the Tropical Island boxes.

Collecting and grading Japanese Southern Islands

Mew 151 leads the set in PSA 10 by a very wide margin, with Wartortle 8, Jigglypuff 39, Lickitung 108 and Exeggutor 103 behind it among the tracked cards. The live chase list above ranks every tracked card by PSA 10 value.

The 1999 cards were kept in folders and boxes rather than sleeves, so PSA 10 copies of Mew 151 are scarce and the gap between PSA 9 and PSA 10 is very wide. Sealed folders and region boxes are tracked in the sealed table above.