2004 Japanese Pokemon Bandai Zukan Full Set Information ~ Incl Sky Splitting Special Box

The 2004 Bandai Zukan set incl Sky Splitting Special Box (Vending). The set consists of 438 total, that includes the main set, movie art cards, adventure/puzzle cards & 24 variant cards.

This set was distributed with a retail release of 15 mini boxes. If you were to open one of each of these boxes you would have a complete main set including the movie art cards, 405 cards total. The Sky Splitting Special Box had 104 cards in it & 9 adventure/picture puzzle cards, not included in the retail release.

Photographed below you can see the retail display box and one of the 15 mini boxes. All the mini boxes were set and each numbered on the bottom left to distinquish them from each other as the main packaging was identical. As you can see we have number 1 here. There are 27 cards plus one setlist per mini box.

The vending box looks the same as the previous set, packaged in a plain white box the cards bundled together and bound with a white paper band to keep them in place.

Within the 104 cards from the vending release there were 24 variant cards from the main set. As you can see blow there were cards with the same number but different finishes.

It can be confusing which cards came from what release but after studying the setlist we have worked out all 24 variants. It is also easy to confuse some cards from the 2004 & 2005 sets due to them having the same character & number but with different artwork. We can ensure these cards are in the right place due to having opened boxes of them during the time of release.
The Variants from the Sky Splitting Vending box are as follows:

#001 Torchic Holo
#003 Blaziken Holo
#015 Swellow Rare
#026 Jigglypuff Non Holo
#037 Bulbasaur Non Holo
#077 Plusle Holo
#078 Minun Holo
#082 Treecko Holo
#102 Beautifly Rare
#127 Skitty Holo
#134 Pikachu Holo
#173 Wobbuffet Rare
#184 Squirtle Non Holo
#186 Blastoise Holo
#190 Mudkip Holo
#200 Lombre Rare
#211 Corphish Rare
#268 Charmander Non Holo
#280 Munchlax Holo
#281 Snorlax Rare
#366 Metagross Holo
#387 Rayquaza Holo
#388 Deoxys Holo
#389 Deoxys Holo

The main set consisted of Holos, Rares, Commons and Movie Art Cards. The layout of the cards in this set are similar to the previous sets. the characters cover most of the cards with their name and set number at the bottom. The set numbers for the 2004/2005 sets are much smaller than the previous sets and are surrounded by shapes relevant to the character.

The rares in the set are the same but have foil text at the bottom of the cards and the holos have an all over holo finish but no foil text at the bottom. The reverse of the cards as in the previous sets includes an image of the character on the front and information/stats.

There was 9 adventure cards in this set making up one picture puzzle only avaliable in the vending box release. As with the previous sets the adventure cards follow through all the sets and are numbered as such.

In the retail release of this set we were again introduced to a new type of card. The stunning Movie Art cards. There were 15 Movie cards, one in each of the retail boxes. They featured cover art and from the Pokemon movies/shorts released at the time of printing.

These Movie cards from the 2004 set were printed non holo, there are holo variants that were released in the 2005 set however there are two exceptions as pictured below that were not printed in the 2005 set and were replaced with other artwork.

Below we have photographed the complete set. Including the movie cards, adventure cards and setlists.

Although we do not sell much Non TCG via our website we do on our other platforms, please check out our whatnot @thecardcollector_uk and instagram @thecardcollectoruk

All of the information given is to the best of our knowledge as of 11/06/2024

Thank you for reading, if you have any suggestions or want us to show any other sets please get in contact with us.