Ribombee Japanese Cards Guide: Lillie’s Art Rare and Every Verified Print

Every Verified Ribombee Print in Japanese

Four Japanese prints of Ribombee have been confirmed for this guide, spanning a non-character base card and a later character pairing with Lillie:

Only the Battle Partners Art Rare is a card we currently list, so it’s the only print in this guide with a live price attached. The others are included for identification purposes — useful if you’re trying to work out which set a copy in your binder came from.

Note the type shift: Ribombee’s earliest JP print (Collection Sun) carries a Fairy typing, while the two Scarlet & Violet-era prints (Cyber Judge and Battle Partners) are typed Psychic. That’s a rules-era change, not a printing error, and it’s the fastest way to sort an older copy from a newer one at a glance.

The Same Card, Different Rarity: SV9 042/100

Battle Partners also prints “Lillie’s Ribombee” as a standard Uncommon at card number 042/100 — a within-count print, not a bonus number. Same character pairing, same set, but the plain frame and in-range card number mean it doesn’t carry the Art Rare treatment.

If you’ve pulled a Battle Partners pack and are trying to tell your two Ribombee cards apart, the number is the whole story: 042/100 sits inside the set’s normal run, while 105/100 is the bonus-numbered Art Rare covered above.

The 2024 Reprint: Cyber Judge

Eight years after its debut, Ribombee returned as a non-character base print in Cyber Judge (SV5M) — the Japanese equivalent of the English Temporal Forces set, part of the wider Scarlet & Violet era — released 26 January 2024. Card 034/071 is an Uncommon, 70 HP, Psychic-type, illustrated by Tika Matsuno.

This is a standard, unpaired Ribombee print with no connection to Lillie or any other trainer character — a straightforward inclusion in the set’s Pokemon lineup rather than a chase card. It’s the most recent non-character print before Ribombee was picked up for the Lillie pairing a year later in Battle Partners.

Why Character-Paired Cards Like Lillie’s Ribombee Trade Differently

Japanese sets increasingly pair a trainer character with a specific Pokemon — Lillie’s Ribombee, Lillie’s Abra, and similar combinations across other trainers — and print that pairing at both a standard rarity and a bonus-numbered alternate-art rarity within the same set. The Art Rare version isn’t a separate release; it’s the same character concept given the alternate-art treatment and a card number that sits outside the set’s stated total.

That structure is why two “Lillie’s Ribombee” cards from the identical set and release date can look completely different and sit at different collecting tiers — the artwork, card number, and bonus-slot placement do the separating, not the character or Pokemon themselves. Readers interested in how this pairing format plays out with other Scarlet & Violet trainers can see a similar structure in our Iono cards guide.

자주 묻는 질문