The most coveted Pokémon card is the work of Asia’s top chef and showcases the new Japanese obsession

The world of the Pokémon TCG holds pleasant surprises beyond the astronomical numbers on some of its cards. Prismatic Evolutions, the Scarlet & Violet expansion set coming to the West on January 17, 2025, is already available in Japan. With the early release in their borders, we were able to get to know the ins and outs of the set, like the card we have in our hands today.

This is the most sought-after Eevee card in the new Pokémon TCG expansion

This is the ‘Special Illustration Rare Print’ of Eevee, card number 224. We can see the mythical Pokémon Terastallize, while the background is a kind of fruit cake. This is not just any cake, but the exclusive creation of Chef Natsuko Shoji. Named Asia’s Best Chef for 2022, Natsuko worked closely with Creatures to put her culinary illustration stamp on the most coveted card in the set. So much so, in fact, that it is currently unlisted on Cardmarket, meaning no one has put it up for sale.

This is the story behind the most exclusive Eevee card from Prismatic Evolutions in the Pokémon TCG

Natsuko Shoji is the owner of an exclusive restaurant called été in Tokyo. Since 2014, she has been fusing French and Japanese cooking techniques to give her dishes a special touch. Years later, in 2021, she made the leap into pastry with Fleurs d’été, where she makes cakes on demand, where the expressiveness comes not only when you taste them spoonful by spoonful, but from the moment you unwrap the package. They are cakes of striking visual beauty; in fact, the cake that bears the bakery’s name, in which she transforms the mango into a bouquet of orange roses that does not seem out of this world, has become famous.

The style of her cakes is usually square with fruit as the main protagonist. Her cakes are often called “jewel boxes” because of the sparkle they give to the pieces. It is one of the great obsessions of the Japanese in recent years, and has become such an exclusive object that to buy it, you have to pay a previous amount to reserve a place to order a letter. Only 2 cakes can be purchased per customer per month. However, its price is not for everyone: the cheapest cake costs 21,000 yen, which at the exchange rate is about $133.

The chef is a fan of the franchise. When Creatures approached her about the project, Shoji created one of her jewelry boxes by diagonally arranging strips of different fruits, each piece a hexahedron similar to the types seen in Pokémon by Terastallize. It is a luxurious piece in every sense of the word, and is now part of the franchise’s history.

Follow MeriStation USA on X (formerly known as Twitter). Your video game and entertainment website for all the news, updates, and breaking news from the world of video games, movies, series, manga, and anime. Previews, reviews, interviews, trailers, gameplay, podcasts and more! Follow us now!