What the Van Gogh Pikachu Craze is Really About

There are few things in this world I love more than Pokemon, and few painters I love more than Van Gogh. Mix both of those things together and you have a historical event of which the world was never truly ready for. Today, it still isn’t.

The whole debacle started late last year towards the end of September when the official Van Gogh Museum collaborated with Pokemon to do something to bring in a new, younger crowd. “Hey!” they thought. “Why not put a picture of the world’s most recognizable pop culture icon onto a Pokemon card where he looks like Van Gogh!”

The idea was a little too brilliant, and too ahead of its time. Mayhem ensued as disorderly guests tried a little too hard to get their hands on this limited edition card.

As a result, the promotion was discontinued. The Dutch, it seems, weren’t going to put up any longer with having riots right in the home of their nation’s most celebrated artist.

Inevitably (as it tends to happen with rare, limited edition Pokemon cards), online prices for the card soared. Everyone wanted this legendary card not only because of how cool it looks, but also because…well…it’s now a part of Pokemon history.

I myself acquired a Van Gogh Pikachu for my private collection – paid for at market price. A market price that is likely to come down thanks to Pokemon’s latest announcement – Van Gogh Pikachu is returning.

The Van Gogh Pikachu Pokemon card is coming back

If you were hoping to have a very valuable card in the form of Van Gogh Pikachu, you may be a little dissapointed to hear that there could be as many as 100,000 of these cards now in print, and they are set to continue to be dispersed via select stores in the Netherlands.

Still, is 100,000 really all that many for a trading card game known for printing cards to the tune of one billion?

It could very well be the case that the Pikachu Van Gogh card you purchased will still retain some value overtime, despite a downward trend in value on the online market.

Where and when will Van Gogh Pikachu be available?

For those of us in the States, we’ll have to rely on the secondary card market to purchase a Van Gogh Pikachu – it’s not coming to America anytime soon. However, this Saturday (February 10th), select stores in the Netherlands will be getting 20-250 Van Gogh Pikachu cards to give away to customers who meet a certain purchasing threshold (€29.99 in TCG product purchases). How many promos a store gets will be dependent on its size.

Pokemon is likely attempting to flood the market slowly with Van Gogh Pikachu cards as a way to offset the scalper element now firmly fixed in the trading card world. More interested in turning a profit than in collecting valuable cards, scalpers have become a notorious but permanent fixture in the growingly complex trading card game world.

Ultimately, however, the scalpers, the details of the Pikachu promo release, and even the market value of the Van Gogh Pikachu card hardly matter.

The importance of this moment in time runs far deeper.

The historical significance of Pikachu in a Grey Felt Hat

Without knowing it, we’ve all witnessed history in the making. Inspired by the true story of how Vincent Van Gogh himself was influenced by Japanese art himself, the collaboration that brought us Pikachu Wearing a Grey Felt Hat speaks volumes more about the world than mad dashes for rare cards, market values or the like.

The world is slowly shifting. The things of yesterday – our yesterdays – are becoming firmly rooted in the contemporary mind. Pikachu is our mascot – the pop icon of a new generation. It wears that grey felt hat not as a gimmick but as a crown. It tells us of its place in history at the very pinnacle of all the greatest intellectual properties to be created, packaged and sold since the 90s, and the lives and minds of that generation to forever be impacted by it, the way past generations were impacted by Vincent Van Gogh.

If it seems strange to juxtapose the accomplishments of Van Gogh with Pikachu – then that’s really the point. Both have forever changed the world in their own way, and that’s what this card, and the frenzy behind it, is really about: Pokemon’s lasting impact across the generations.

As we can see, it’s a place that is not going anywhere now or for a long time yet to come.