Pokemon Trading Card Game fans in Japan are struggling as shortages are turning into a straight-up absence of supply that has left stores across the country with nothing to sell to avid collectors. A new set of expansion packs for the Scarlet and Violet cards is partially to blame for the sudden burst in sales unlike nearly anything the TCG world has ever seen before.
The world of Pokemon TCG has seen a bubble of shortages in recent years as resellers gather around card price hype and buy booster packs en masse hoping to flip the rarest pieces they get for profit. The most recent set of expansion packs, Clay Burst and Snow Hazard, contain a small number of cards with the highest potential value to date, and this fact is sending fans, collectors, and resellers alike into a frenzy over in Japan.
Stores all over Japan have found themselves completely out of stock, not just of Clay Burst and Snow Hazard booster packs with the new Treasure Of Ruin Pokemon cards, but of all their Pokemon TCG-related products. The official Japanese Pokemon TCG website has issued an apology in the wake of this. The English translation of this page reads, "We are currently out of stock of all Pokemon Card Game products. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to customers who were unable to purchase."
A shortage like this isn't unheard of in the Pokemon TCG community. The last couple of years have been plagued with scalpers and resellers making it difficult for collectors and players of the game to obtain cards via standard methods, both in Japan and in the West. The value of some of the cards, specifically the rare special-illustration Iono card, are causing Clay Burst and Snow Hazard to reach new heights in hype. But that certainly doesn't mean Pokemon TCG players are unfamiliar with this feeling.
Clay Burst and Snow Hazard have yet to reach shelves in North America, but it seems likely, considering the massive supply issues in Japan right now, that a similar issue may play out on this side of the world when the English booster packs eventually do hit stores. Fans may even see Pokemon TCG cards being stolen. The main hopes for Pokemon TCG fans on this side of the world are that The Pokemon Company adjusts for the obvious massive demand it has seen play out during its Japanese release. If stores aren't adequately stocked, fans in the US and Canada may lodge similar complaints in the near future.
Source: Pokemon TCG Japan