OP-17 Pandaman cards: how rare is 1 in 41 packs?
The short answer
The "rare panda card" is one of six Pandaman parallels (パンダマン パラレル) in the One Piece booster The World's Strongest Warriors (世界最強の戦士, OP-17). The "1 in 41 packs" line comes from tcgtalk's count of about 6 to 8 Pandaman cards per English case of 288 packs. That is a community count, not a Bandai figure. Japanese boxes hold half as many cards, and Japanese counts put any Pandaman at roughly 1 in 72 to 79 packs. No number of packs guarantees one.
This post is for a collector who has heard about the panda card and wonders whether to open OP-17 packs for it, or just buy the six singles.
What the Pandaman card is
Pandaman is a background gag in the One Piece manga: Eiichiro Oda has hidden him in crowd scenes since the East Blue saga. For the fourth-anniversary set, Bandai drew him into six ordinary cards, one per colour. Each card keeps its name, number and game text. Only the art changes: Pandaman stands where the named character should be (Boxed.gg, 1 Sep 2026).
Bandai's Japanese card list files each one as the _p1 version of a common or uncommon. These are the six, with Yuyu-tei's (遊々亭) asking price on 12 Oct 2026, the latest CardMochi read:
| Card | Japanese name | Colour | Rarity | Yuyu-tei ask |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kingdew OP17-006 | キングデュー | Red | C | ¥500 |
| Building Snake OP17-025 | ビルディング・スネイク | Green | UC | ¥320 |
| Kyo OP17-045 | 凶 | Blue | UC | ¥500 |
| Scratchmen Apoo OP17-070 | スクラッチメン・アプー | Purple | C | ¥220 |
| Hajrudin OP17-088 | ハイルディン | Black | C | ¥220 |
| Charlotte Daifuku OP17-107 | シャーロット・ダイフク | Yellow | UC | ¥500 |
CardMochi data: Yuyu-tei asks for the exact _p1 version, all in stock, read 12 Oct 2026.
All six together cost ¥2,260 at those asks. Yuyu-tei's buy prices on the same day ran from ¥5 to ¥150. The panda card is a fun find, not a money card.
Where the 1 in 41 comes from
Bandai doesn't publish pull rates for the One Piece Card Game. The figure traces to tcgtalk's OP-17 guide, which pooled community openings of three English cases plus extra boxes, over 1,000 packs. It reports "~6–8 per case" for Pandaman. An English case is 12 boxes of 24 packs, so 288 packs. Seven in 288 is one in 41.
So 41 is the middle of a range. Six a case would be 1 in 48 packs; eight would be 1 in 36. Pullnomics, which reviewed the English sources on 19 Sep 2026, rates this figure "low confidence" because it rests on one guide's three cases.
Japanese packs are not English packs
CardMochi tracks Japanese cards, and a Japanese pack is a different product. It holds 6 cards for ¥240; an English pack holds 12. A Japanese box is 24 packs, ¥5,760 at MSRP (Bandai's price, per Torecamap). So a per-pack rate from English cases doesn't carry over.
Japanese counts put the panda card rarer per pack:
| Source | What they counted | Any Pandaman | Per Japanese pack |
|---|---|---|---|
| Torecamap (トレカの地図), updated 17 Oct 2026 | its own survey | 30.56% of boxes, 1 in 3.3 | about 1 in 79 |
| Wanpika Dayori (ワンピカ便り) | about 500 boxes in opening videos | 1 in 3 boxes | about 1 in 72 |
| tcgtalk (English) | 3 cases, 1,000+ packs | 6 to 8 per case | 1 in 36 to 48 (English packs) |
Per-pack figures for the Japanese rows are CardMochi's arithmetic: box rate ÷ 24 packs.
Gamepedia's Japanese guide prints "1BOXに約1枚" (about one a box), but says it is based on past sets and opening results, with no sample size. We left it out of the table.
What the odds mean in practice
No number of packs guarantees a Pandaman. Even at the English 1 in 41 average, a buyer of 41 packs has about a 36% chance of none, if each pack were an independent draw. One Piece boxes aren't fully independent: tcgtalk found boxes with none and boxes with two. Real results bunch more than the maths suggests.
A specific card is six times harder. Torecamap puts one named Pandaman at about 1 in 471 Japanese packs. At MSRP that is ¥113,040 of packs for a card Yuyu-tei asks ¥220 to ¥500 for. At Card Rush's 12 Oct box price of ¥14,800 (about ¥617 a pack), it is closer to ¥290,000.
How to recognise one
- The art. Pandaman, a man in a panda suit, stands where the card's named character should be. The name and text stay the same.
- The star. Each has the small ★ above the rarity letter that marks a parallel (Boxed.gg). A plain common has no star.
- No foil. Boxed.gg notes they have no foil or texture, so they look like commons in a fast flick. Beckett called them "very easy to miss".
- Its place in the pack. In English packs, tcgtalk says, a Pandaman takes a rare slot and usually sits near the back.
- The number. Check it against the six in the table. On Bandai's card list the picture's file name ends in _p1.
For more on telling One Piece versions apart, see our version guide.
Will they hold their value?
Nobody can promise that, and this isn't investment advice. Here is what the numbers show so far, two months after release.
Prices so far. Yuyu-tei's asks moved in both directions since the end of September. Kingdew OP17-006 went from ¥220 (27 Sep) to ¥500, and Building Snake OP17-025 from ¥160 to ¥320. Kyo OP17-045 went the other way, from ¥780 to ¥500. The other three sat at ¥220 to ¥500 on 12 Oct.
Sold prices. None to quote yet: CardMochi reads Yahoo! Auctions sales for cards worth ¥3,000 or more, and no Pandaman is there.
The English prints. On TCGplayer (16 Oct) the English versions ranged from US$0.61 to US$5.91. Kyo and Charlotte Daifuku OP17-107 were dearer in English (about US$4 to 6) than their Japanese asks.
What could push prices up:
- Real scarcity. One named Pandaman is about 1 in 470 Japanese packs. Every new set adds more chase cards competing for attention, but the number of Pandamans only grows while OP-17 is still being opened.
- A fan favourite. Pandaman has been a hidden joke since the early manga, and these are the first cards built around him.
- Set completers. Anyone finishing OP-17 needs all six, and a complete set needs about 1,100 packs on Japanese odds.
What could hold them back:
- No play value. The base cards are commons and uncommons nobody plays, so demand is collectors only.
- They look ordinary. No foil, so casual buyers miss them, which cuts both ways: fewer people notice them, and fewer people pay for them.
- Supply is still rising. OP-17 is in print. Prices of chase cards often dip while a set is still being opened, then settle once packs stop.
- Shops buy low. Yuyu-tei offered ¥5 to ¥150 to buy them on 12 Oct. A shop that expected quick resale at higher prices would pay more.
The honest read: a fun, scarce card with a small collector following, not a guaranteed riser. If you care about one, buy the single you like rather than opening packs to chase it. Add it to your wishlist and CardMochi will show its price as it changes.
What this means for you
Opening a Japanese OP-17 box for fun: a Pandaman is a likely bonus, about one box in three on Japanese counts, not a promise. Check your commons before they go in the bulk box.
Chasing one named Pandaman: buy the single. Each one asked ¥220 to ¥500 at Yuyu-tei on 12 Oct.
Completing all six: the singles cost ¥2,260 at those asks. Pulling all six from Japanese packs would take about 1,060 to 1,150 packs on average, by CardMochi's arithmetic (14.7 Pandamans to see all six, at 1 in 72 to 79 packs each).
Found one and want to sell it: a shop's buy price is the floor. Yuyu-tei offered ¥5 to ¥150 on 12 Oct. Treat it as a keeper.
To compare, search One Piece cards or open the The World’s Strongest Warriors set page for every chase card. The top cards page shows today's most valuable cards. To see how OP-17 boxes stack up against other sets, see best One Piece packs.
Method and limits
- Card prices are Yuyu-tei asking prices for the exact Pandaman (_p1) version, read by CardMochi on 12 Oct 2026; the box price is Card Rush's ask on the same day. Asks, not sales.
- Bandai publishes no pull rates. Every rate here is a community or shop estimate. We cite each and add only arithmetic (per-box rate ÷ 24 packs; chance of none = (40/41)^41).
- The English and Japanese figures count different products (12-card and 6-card packs), so the two can't be averaged.
- Some English openers reported boxes where a Pandaman seemed to replace a regular hit. Boxed.gg calls those boxes a probable error; we haven't confirmed it either way.
Sources
- tcgtalk, "OP17 Pull Rates & Case Opening": https://tcgtalk.com/guides/op17-pull-rates-case-opening
- Pullnomics, "One Piece Card Game pull rates: what is actually known", 19 Sep 2026: https://pullnomics.com/guides/one-piece-card-game-pull-rates-what-is-known
- Torecamap (トレカの地図), OP-17 当たりランキング・封入率, updated 17 Oct 2026: https://torecamap.co.jp/column/op17/
- Wanpika Dayori (ワンピカ便り), 『世界最強の戦士』の封入率: https://onepiececard-letter.com/onepiececard-op17-win/
- Gamepedia 攻略大百科, 世界最強の戦士 封入率: https://premium.gamepedia.jp/toreca/archives/26369
- Boxed.gg, "Are Pandaman Alts Counting as Hits in OP-17 Boxes?", 1 Sep 2026: https://blog.boxed.gg/one-piece-tcg-op-17-pandaman-alt-explained/
- Beckett, "Five One Piece World's Strongest Warriors (OP-17) Cards to Watch", 18 Aug 2026: https://www.beckett.com/news/five-one-piece-worlds-strongest-warriors-op-17-cards-to-watch-before-the-august-28-release/
- Bandai, OP-17 product page: https://www.onepiece-cardgame.com/products/op17.html
- CardMochi data: Yuyu-tei ask and buy prices for the six _p1 versions and Card Rush's OP-17 box ask, read 12 Oct 2026.
Researched with AI tools, checked and edited by the CardMochi team. Prices are Japanese shop asking prices on the date shown. About CardMochi · How we price