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Grading Japanese Pokémon and One Piece cards

By CardMochi · 3 October 2026 · 7 min read · prices as of 3 October 2026

The short answer

PSA, CGC and ARS each grade a Pokémon card and a One Piece card on the same scale. Only the typical flaws differ by game. PSA Japan's cheapest open tier costs ¥9,980 a card and takes about 20 weeks, so grading only pays when the PSA 10 asks at least ¥10,000 more than the raw card and you are confident it gets the 10. On 3 Oct 2026 two One Piece promos in our check cleared that bar at Card Rush, only from lightly worn raw copies; three Pokémon cards did not.

How Japanese shops grade raw cards

Japanese shops sell raw singles with a condition letter, not NM or LP. Card Rush publishes a scale for each game, and they differ. For Pokémon it runs 状態S, A, A-, B, C and D. For One Piece it runs A, A-, B and C. In both, a listing with no letter is 状態A.

状態A is not mint. Card Rush's Pokémon page says an A card may have small scratches, scuffs and small whitening on edges or surface, and is "not 美品" (not a mint copy). Its One Piece page says the same: small whitening (白カケ), small scuffs or dullness. On the One Piece page, 状態B means visible whitening, dents, nail marks or a light bend; C means creases or wear all over. Only the Pokémon scale has an S tier, kept for some high-value cards, and Card Rush warns that even S cards can show tiny scratches.

The bigger gap with pro graders is what Card Rush forgives. On Pokémon, a card stays 状態A despite off-centre print from manufacturing, foil on an SR, SAR, HR or UR out of line with the art, foil missing in a spot, or edge bumps and whitening from cutting. On One Piece, it forgives warping and off-centre printing. PSA's centering limit applies whatever the cause, and cutting damage counts against the edges. Our condition guide maps these letters to NM, LP and MP for pricing. For grading, read 状態A as "worth inspecting", nothing more.

What the pro graders look at

PSA's standard, which PSA Japan says follows PSA's US head office, wants four sharp corners, sharp focus and full original gloss for a 10, with no staining. Centering may be no worse than about 55/45 on the front and 75/25 on the back. A slight print imperfection is allowed if it doesn't spoil the card's eye appeal.

CGC splits the top in two. Its Pristine 10 needs 50/50 centering and a card flawless to the naked eye. Its Gem Mint 10 matches PSA's limits: 55/45 front, 75/25 back, corners perfect to the eye, no print spots. At Mint 9 CGC allows trading cards "only a few minor manufacturing or handling defects".

ARS (アルス), a Japanese grader founded in 2020, works differently. Its scale runs from 10 (10+ only for a perfect card) down to 1, and it grades preservation only: ARS does not deduct for centering. Torecamap suggests ARS for poorly centred cards.

Torecamap, comparing four graders, lists the same four checks for each: centering, corners, edges and surface (ARS minus centering). None of the PSA, CGC or ARS standards has separate rules for Pokémon or One Piece, and PSA Japan and ARS both list the two games among the titles they grade.

Game-specific checks

Pokémon

Look at the foil first. The flaws Card Rush forgives show where Pokémon cards go wrong: foil that sits off the art or has small gaps on textured SR, SAR, HR and UR cards, and edges roughened by cutting. Tradecard.jp, a Japanese guide site, adds that PSA marks cutting damage down under edges; a card cut badly enough to show part of the next card gets the MC (miscut) qualifier. Check the surface under a low-angle light, and the borders, before counting on a 10.

One Piece

Look at whitening and the surface of parallels. One Japanese collector who logs his PSA results reports that whitening on a One Piece card almost always rules out a 10, and that small air bubbles (気泡) in the print of comic parallels (コミパラ) rarely pass. Treat that as one collector's pattern, not a published PSA rule. A Mercari seller titles a PSA-graded comic parallel Luffy "気泡なし" (no bubbles), so buyers check. For the PRB-01 reprints of earlier comic parallels, see our post on telling a reprint from the original.

Check slabs too. In Oct 2024 SNKRDUNK published a guide to fake PSA 10 slabs of the comic parallel Nami (OP01-016) from ONE PIECE CARD THE BEST (PRB-01): no PSA hologram behind the label logo, a blurred QR code and a doubled "21" mark on the case.

When grading pays

CardMochi holds raw prices only, not graded ones, so we compared two Card Rush asks for the same card on the same day: the raw card and a PSA 10 copy.

Raw asks: CardMochi's Card Rush scan, 3 Oct 2026. PSA 10 asks: Card Rush's graded listings, read 3 Oct 2026; "out of stock" means the last listed price. Card Rush lists no 状態A copy of either Luffy promo; our lowest ask for P-033 is Suruga-ya's ¥3,590. Fee: PSA Japan Standard, tax included, before postage.

N's Plan

SV11B-173 · Special illustration rare

¥5,980

Lillie's Determination

M1L-086 · Ultra Rare

¥6,480

Mega Gengar ex

MBG-003

¥680

Monkey.D.Luffy

P-043 · P

¥2,980

Monkey.D.Luffy

P-033 · P

¥3,590

Three of the five lose money even if every card gets a 10. The two Luffy promos clear the fee, but only at a 10. Card Rush last listed PSA 9 copies at ¥5,980 (P-043) and ¥6,980 (P-033), about ¥3,000 over raw and short of the fee. The raw copies are 状態A-, and one collector calls P-043 a gamble because of its cutting. Both columns are asks, too. Raw One Piece cards in our data sold on Yahoo! Auctions for a median 0.8 times their shop ask; we have no such figure for slabs.

PSA 10 premiums also move. SNKRDUNK's ranking of its own trades from January to September 2025 put the same Mega Gengar ex at an average ¥1,318 for 状態A and ¥25,400 for a PSA 10, 19.3 times as much. Card Rush's last PSA 10 ask is now ¥3,980. A gap that big on a cheap card is a reason to look harder, not a forecast.

How to send a card from Japan or abroad

From Japan, PSA Japan is the default. Its Standard tier costs ¥9,980 a card for declared values up to ¥150,000, with an estimated 100 business days (about 20 weeks). Priority costs ¥11,980 (up to ¥250,000, 80 business days) and Express ¥29,980 (up to ¥400,000, 25 business days). The cheaper Value tiers are suspended. You can also hand cards in at PSA Lounge Tokyo in Akihabara (hosted by SNKRDUNK, run by PSA Japan), where PSA Japan pays outbound postage. Graded cards return by post to the order address, not the lounge.

ARS is cheaper at the low end: ¥3,850 a card, tax included, for a declared value up to ¥30,000, and ¥5,500 from ¥30,000 to ¥100,000. Express adds ¥2,200 a card. ARS takes payment by Japanese bank transfer only and returns cards by Japan Post for ¥900 to ¥1,400.

From abroad, the options narrow. PSA Japan accepts orders only from Japan residents, and its FAQ says PSA's US office no longer accepts submissions from outside the US. PSA Lounge Tokyo asks for a Japanese address and phone number, so a visit doesn't get around this. CGC grades trading cards in the US from $17 a card (Bulk, 25-card minimum, up to $500 declared, about 150 working days) and $20 (Economy, up to $1,000). Beckett has paused its Base and Standard tiers and takes Express only, sent to Plano, Texas; its EU online submissions are unavailable. Check the grader that serves your country first; we haven't verified every region.

What this means for you

• If you buy raw to grade: buy from photos, not letters. A 状態A can be off-centre or have cutting marks that a shop forgives and PSA doesn't.
• If you grade from Japan: on PSA Japan's Standard tier, the PSA 10 must ask about ¥10,000 more than raw, before postage, and you wait about 20 weeks.
• If your card is off-centre but clean: ARS doesn't deduct for centering and costs ¥3,850 below a ¥30,000 declared value.
• If you buy graded: check the slab, especially for comic parallels, and compare against the raw price in the collection tracker.

Method and limits

• PSA 10 figures are Card Rush asks read on 3 Oct 2026, mostly last prices of sold-out copies, plus one 2025 SNKRDUNK figure.
• Five cards picked to span both games are an illustration, not a sample. We did not test grading rates.
• Fees and services are as the graders' sites showed them on 3 Oct 2026; they change often.
• The One Piece surface points come from collectors' reports, not from PSA. See how we price.

Sources

1. CardMochi data: Card Rush raw asks for SV11B-173, M1L-086, MBG-003, P-043 and P-033 (scan of 3 Oct 2026); the onepiece-market-2026-10-03 file (Yahoo! Auctions sold medians against asks for 164 cards).
2. Card Rush, PSA 10 listings for each card, read 3 Oct 2026: cardrush-pokemon.jp, cardrush-op.jp
3. Card Rush, condition scale, Pokémon: cardrush-pokemon.jp/page/5; One Piece: cardrush-op.jp/page/8
4. PSA Japan, grading standards: psacard.com/ja-JP/gradingstandards
5. PSA Japan, services and fees: psacard.co.jp/services/tradingcardgrading
6. PSA Japan, FAQ (B-01 titles graded, D-08 and D-09 submissions from abroad, I-01 and I-06 PSA Lounge Tokyo): psacard.com/ja-JP/support/faq
7. CGC Cards, grading scale: cgccards.com; services and fees: cgccards.com
8. Beckett, grading submissions notice: beckett.com/grading/scale
9. ARS, grading standards: ars-grading.com/service/reliability; fees: ars-grading.com/price; titles: ars-grading.com/grading/title; about ARS: ars-grading.com
10. Torecamap, comparison of PSA, ARS, BGS and CGC: torecamap.co.jp
11. Tradecard.jp, cutting damage and PSA grading: tradecard.jp
12. SNKRDUNK, 状態A to PSA 10 price ranking (trades Jan to Sep 2025, updated 10 Oct 2025; also PSA Lounge Tokyo's address): snkrdunk.com
13. SNKRDUNK, spotting fake PSA 10 comic parallel Nami slabs, updated 8 Oct 2024: snkrdunk.com
14. Collector reports on One Piece PSA results (a signal, not a rule): Y@トレカ on note: note.com; Mercari listings titled 気泡なし: jp.mercari.com

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