If you’ve ever seen a promo Pikachu dressed as Mario, wrapped in a poncho, or splashing in the surf, there’s a good chance the same illustrator drew it. Kouki Saitou is a recurring artist behind Japan’s Pikachu promo cards — 694 cards across a career that started back in the Aquapolis era.
Unlike illustrators whose reputation rests on one or two chase cards, Saitou’s footprint is broad and promo-heavy, which makes the catalog easy to underrate at a glance and genuinely difficult to collect in full. A handful of names show up over and over when Japanese Pikachu promos come up, and Saitou’s is among them.
This guide covers who Saitou is, the Pikachu promo lineage that made the name recognizable, and every Kouki Saitou card currently in our PSA 10 vault — from the seven-figure Mario Pikachu down to cards that are currently out of stock but worth knowing about.
Kouki Saitou has illustrated 694 Pokemon TCG cards since debuting in the Aquapolis era, including the promo Pikachu series. We currently hold 10 Saitou cards graded PSA 10, led by Mario Pikachu 293/XY-P, currently listed at ¥1,674,780, and poncho Pikachu 203/XY-P, currently listed at ¥363,775.
Who Is Kouki Saitou?
Kouki Saitou, born May 13, 1973, is a freelance illustrator whose Pokemon TCG career now spans 694 main-TCG cards plus 78 Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket cards; the Limitless database lists 498 Japanese-language prints including reprints. Before working on the Pokemon TCG, Saitou illustrated manga-style artwork for game tie-in projects under the name “¼ King!” — a detail Bulbapedia records as part of the pre-Pokemon portfolio. Saitou’s first Pokemon TCG card appeared during the Aquapolis era, and the artist has been a steady presence in the promo card space ever since.
Not to be confused with Naoki Saito, a different Pokemon TCG illustrator with a similarly spelled name — the two are unrelated artists with separate card catalogs.
According to Bulbapedia, Saitou’s cards are recognizable for a realist, dynamic style built on strong light-and-shadow contrast and dramatic high- or low-angle compositions. The same source notes Akira Toriyama and Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki as influences on the artist’s approach — a lineage that shows up in the sense of motion and exaggerated perspective running through Saitou’s most recognizable Pikachu promos.
That combination — a realist rendering style paired with theatrical camera angles — is part of why the promo Pikachu series reads differently from Pikachu’s standard set appearances. A costumed or staged Pikachu illustrated with dramatic lighting and an unusual vantage point stands out in a way a straightforward set portrait typically doesn’t, which is a large part of what collectors are responding to when they seek out Saitou’s promos specifically rather than any Pikachu card.
Saitou’s catalog sits alongside other Japanese illustrators we track closely, including Mitsuhiro Arita and Hideki Ishikawa, both of whom have their own guides covering their most valuable printings.
The Pikachu Promo Legacy
Pikachu promos are where Saitou’s name shows up most often, and one card anchors the entire lineup.
Mario Pikachu 293/XY-P is the card most collectors associate with Saitou’s name. It’s the first entry in a four-card promo run (293–296), and the copy we currently hold in PSA 10 is listed at ¥1,674,780 — the highest-priced Saitou card in our vault by a wide margin. It sits at the center of our dedicated Mario Pikachu card guide, which covers the full 293–296 series in more depth.
Being the lead card in a numbered series matters here. Promo runs like 293–296 are typically released and collected as a set, which means 293 carries the recognition of being both the first number in the sequence and the specific Pikachu-as-Mario artwork that gave the whole run its identity. The PSA 10 copy currently in our vault is the only one of the four we hold in graded condition.
The rest of the Pikachu promo lineage follows a similar pattern — Pikachu dressed or staged for a themed moment, issued as a standalone promo card outside a numbered main set.
Poncho Pikachu 203/XY-P is part of a two-card promo pairing (203–204), and our PSA 10 copy is currently listed at ¥363,775 — the second-highest Saitou card we carry, and a clear step below Mario Pikachu but still well ahead of the rest of the lineup. Pikachu 205/172 AR from s12a is a more recent alternate-art printing, currently listed at ¥99,086, and it shows how the same artist’s Pikachu work spans both older XY-era promos and current-generation alternate-art treatments. Sea-Play Pikachu 392/SM-P — Pikachu staged at the beach — rounds out the group at ¥96,295, sitting almost neck and neck with the s12a alternate art despite coming from a completely different era and promo family.
Two more Pikachu promos from Saitou’s catalog have moved through our vault and are currently out of stock: Manzai Pikachu 407/SM-P (update: currently sold out — restock requests via Quick Order), a comedy-duo-themed Pikachu promo last listed at ¥154,500, and Tohoku Pikachu 260/SV-P, last listed at ¥41,066. Both are covered with their last-listed prices in the vault table below, and both show that Saitou’s Pikachu promos in our vault haven’t been limited to Mario Pikachu and poncho Pikachu — the smaller, regionally or thematically named promos have moved through our PSA 10 vault as well.
Beyond Pikachu: Shining Arceus, Magikarp, and More
Pikachu promos get the attention, but Saitou’s 694-card catalog covers a much wider range of Pokemon.
Shining Arceus H 059/072 from SM3+ is one of the two non-Pikachu cards we currently hold in PSA 10, listed at ¥41,199. The other is Magikarp 129/165 from SV2a — the “151” set — listed at ¥33,468, a comparatively affordable entry point into Saitou’s work. Both cards sit well below the Pikachu promo tier, which reflects a broader pattern across the catalog: Saitou’s promo Pikachu work commands a premium that the artist’s non-promo, in-set illustrations generally don’t reach.
Saitou’s wider NOTABLE credits, per Bulbapedia and Limitless, include cards we don’t currently stock: Ho-Oh S8a 004 and Lugia S8a 005 (both from the 25th anniversary era), Zacian S4a 136 and Zamazenta S4a 138, Radiant Charizard s12a 015, and the SM-P 208–211 hakama Pikachu promo series. These give a sense of the catalog’s range — Legendary box-art staples alongside more Pikachu promo work — even though we don’t have PSA 10 copies of them in stock. The Ho-Oh and Lugia pairing in particular is notable simply for the company it keeps: both were issued around the game’s 25th anniversary, placing Saitou’s name alongside some of the most recognizable Legendary artwork of that era, even without a graded copy on our shelves to show for it.
Taken together, the non-Pikachu side of the catalog underscores that Saitou isn’t a single-subject illustrator who happened to draw a famous Pikachu. Legendaries, box-art staples, and set-based alternate arts all appear across the 694-card body of work, with Pikachu promos simply forming the most commercially visible slice of it.
The Kouki Saitou Vault: Every Card We Carry
All 10 Kouki Saitou cards that have passed through our PSA 10 vault, ranked by price. Six are currently listed — three Pikachu promos, the s12a Pikachu AR, Shining Arceus, and Magikarp — and four more are archive references. The gap between the top and bottom of the table — roughly ¥1.66 million from highest to lowest — gives a sense of how much a single promo series can dominate an illustrator’s pricing within our vault.
| # | Card | Number / Set | Status | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mario Pikachu | 293/XY-P | In Stock | ¥1,674,780 |
| 2 | Poncho Pikachu (update: currently sold out — restock requests via Quick Order) | 203/XY-P | In Stock | ¥363,775 |
| 3 | Manzai Pikachu | 407/SM-P | Out of Stock — request via Quick Order | last listed ¥154,500 |
| 4 | Pikachu 205/172 AR (update: currently sold out — restock requests via Quick Order) | s12a | In Stock | ¥99,086 |
| 5 | Sea-Play Pikachu (update: currently sold out — restock requests via Quick Order) | 392/SM-P | In Stock | ¥96,295 |
| 6 | Espeon VMAX | 189/S-P (update: currently sold out — restock requests via Quick Order) | Out of Stock — request via Quick Order | last listed ¥83,801 |
| 7 | Shining Arceus H | 059/072, SM3+ | In Stock | ¥41,199 |
| 8 | Tohoku Pikachu | 260/SV-P | Out of Stock — request via Quick Order | last listed ¥41,066 |
| 9 | Magikarp (update: currently sold out — restock requests via Quick Order) | 129/165, SV2a | In Stock | ¥33,468 |
| 10 | Meowscarada ex SAR | 096/073, SV1a | Out of Stock — request via Quick Order | last listed ¥18,993 |
Six of the ten are currently in stock. The four that show as out of stock are archive references with their last-listed prices shown — if you’re after one of them specifically, the Quick Order page is the fastest way to flag interest for when a copy comes back through the vault. Given how promo-driven Saitou’s catalog is, we don’t expect this exact list of ten to be static; new copies of these cards, and occasionally cards from the wider NOTABLE list above, surface in the Japanese secondary market and make their way into grading over time.
Beyond the Cards: Kouki Saitou’s Wider Work
The “¼ King!” name from the pre-Pokemon years covers more ground than a passing credit. Bulbapedia’s records of that period run from 1994 to 2003 and span manga-style illustration for game tie-in anthology publications on Xenogears, Thousand Arms, Super Robot Wars, Evangelion, and The King of Fighters — nearly a decade of licensed game illustration completed before the first Pokemon card.
Inside the franchise, the card catalog is only part of the credit list. Per Bulbapedia, Saitou contributed background illustration to Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Darkness (2007) and Explorers of Sky (2009), worked on Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia (2008) and Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs (2010), handled character design for the DS typing game Learn with Pokemon: Typing Adventure (2011), and contributed to the Pokemon Rumble series and Pokemon Picross.
Outside client work, Saitou develops an original fantasy world called Kortlek on a personal site, per Bulbapedia, and TSUTAYA has featured Saitou as one of the artists in its Legend Artist Collection line of original trading card supplies, complete with an official interview. Saitou also runs an X account under @Kouglof0513. Why this matters to collectors: the illustrator behind Mario Pikachu isn’t a single-format artist — the same hand has been drawing across the franchise’s spin-off games and Japan’s wider game-illustration world since the mid-1990s, which is part of why the promo catalog reads with so much range.
Where to Buy Kouki Saitou Cards from Japan
We source and grade Japanese PSA 10 singles out of Tokyo, and Kouki Saitou’s Pikachu promos are some of the most requested illustrator-specific cards we carry. The Mario Pikachu and poncho Pikachu listings below are the two currently available at the top of the vault.
For the wider PSA 10 catalog, browse our full PSA 10 collection or the PSA 10 card list to filter by set and price. Our Japanese PSA 10 price guide and PSA 10 Pikachu buying guide cover how we price and grade across the wider vault, including cards outside Saitou’s catalog. For anything currently out of stock, the Quick Order page is the fastest way to build a request.
If Kouki Saitou’s promo Pikachu lineage is what brought you here, the Mario Pikachu and poncho Pikachu listings are the two to check first, since they’re the only two currently in stock at the top end of the vault. Everything else in the table above, in stock or not, can be tracked down through the same product pages and Quick Order request flow.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Kouki Saitou?
Kouki Saitou is a freelance Pokemon TCG illustrator, born May 13, 1973, who has illustrated 694 cards since debuting during the Aquapolis era. Saitou is best known for the Mario Pikachu and poncho Pikachu promo cards.
What is the Mario Pikachu card and why is it valuable?
Mario Pikachu 293/XY-P is a promo card from a four-card series (293–296) illustrated by Kouki Saitou. Our PSA 10 copy is currently listed at ¥1,674,780, the highest-priced Saitou card in our vault.
Is Kouki Saitou the same illustrator as Naoki Saito?
No. Kouki Saitou and Naoki Saito are different Pokemon TCG illustrators with similarly spelled names but separate card catalogs.
What other Pikachu cards has Kouki Saitou illustrated?
Beyond Mario Pikachu, Saitou’s Pikachu promo work includes poncho Pikachu 203/XY-P, Pikachu 205/172 AR from s12a, Sea-Play Pikachu 392/SM-P, Manzai Pikachu 407/SM-P, and Tohoku Pikachu 260/SV-P.
Are all Kouki Saitou promo cards in stock?
No. Of the 10 Saitou cards in our vault, 6 are currently in stock and 4 are currently out of stock, including Manzai Pikachu and Tohoku Pikachu. Out-of-stock cards can be requested through our Quick Order page.
Has Kouki Saitou illustrated any Legendary Pokemon cards?
Yes. Saitou’s catalog includes Ho-Oh S8a 004, Lugia S8a 005, Zacian S4a 136, and Zamazenta S4a 138, though we don’t currently hold graded PSA 10 copies of these Legendary cards in our vault.
What else has Kouki Saitou worked on?
Before Pokemon, Saitou illustrated game tie-in anthology artwork from 1994 to 2003 under the name “¼ King!”, on titles including Xenogears, Super Robot Wars, Evangelion, and The King of Fighters. Within the franchise, Bulbapedia records credits on the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers games, both Pokemon Ranger titles, Learn with Pokemon: Typing Adventure, the Pokemon Rumble series, and Pokemon Picross. Saitou also develops an original fantasy world called Kortlek on a personal site.
500 Points Free on Sign-Up
CREATE FREE ACCOUNT1 pt = ¥1 at checkout · Points expire 30 days after they are earned · Import duties, taxes and customs charges are not included in the price and are collected on delivery, except for destinations we ship duty-paid.
Picked for this article
📩 Get member-only sale alerts & coupons
Sale alerts, coupons and restock notices by email — straight from Tokyo.
