Sixteen shoes, nine Pokémon, one launch day. The adidas Pokémon 30th anniversary collection went live on 22 September through adidas.com, Foot Locker, SNIPES and Champs Sports, and by the time India woke up the next morning StockX already had a lowest ask on every pair. Most of them are under retail. Sneaker News published the store list on the 21st, a day early, which tells you adidas wanted this to be found rather than fought over.
We covered the full lineup and the design details when it was announced in August. This is the launch-week follow-up: what actually happened when the shoes went on sale, where the second wave lands on Thursday, and the awkward fact that the only Pokémon sneakers you can walk into a shop and buy in India right now have a cat on them, not three stripes.
Where It Dropped and Where It Drops Next
Two waves. KicksUnderCost has the 22 September wave at adidas.com, Foot Locker, SNIPES and Champs, and a 24 September wave through select boutiques including Drift House. Sneaker Bar Detroit lists the same split and points US buyers to the adidas gaming hub page rather than the main shop. Modern Notoriety adds that Japan got the collection a week early on 15 September.
Europe went first and sold out first. Afew in Düsseldorf lists the Charizard Superstar Vintage at €179.99 and marks it sold out. So the boutique wave on the 24th is not a restock of the big-box stock. It is a separate, smaller allocation, and it is where the Charizard, the Pikachu Pro Model and the Megaride will be hardest to get.
Prices, per Modern Notoriety's full list: Superstars for Charmander (KI2855), Charmeleon (KI2856), white Pikachu (KI2857) and yellow Pikachu (KI2858) at $110. Mewtwo Samba OG (KI8220) $110, Handball Spezial (KI8213) $120, ZX 8000 (KI5326) $170. Adistar Control 5 for Gastly (KJ5610), Haunter (KJ5611) and Rayquaza (KI8179) at $130. Gengar Adistar XLG 2.0 (KJ5609) $150. Rayquaza ZX 500 RS (KI8189) $100. Charizard Superstar Vintage (KI2861) and Pikachu Pro Model (KI2862) at $180. Rayquaza F50 Tunit Megaride (KI5325) $200. Sneaker News also reported a Pikachu Megaride F50 on the 22nd, which none of the earlier lineup lists had.
Launch-Day Resale: The Market Has Already Voted
We pulled the StockX Pokémon brand page on the evening of 22 September. Individual product pages still show loading placeholders for last sale, so these are lowest asks, not completed trades. Asks are what sellers hope for. When the hope is below retail on day one, that is a signal.
Below retail: yellow Pikachu Superstar $87, Charmander Superstar $89, Mewtwo Samba OG $90, white Pikachu Superstar $104, Haunter Control 5 $105, Rayquaza Control 5 $113, Charizard Superstar Vintage $154, Pikachu Pro Model $174. Eight pairs where the seller is already taking a loss before StockX fees.
Above retail, barely: Rayquaza ZX 500 RS $103 against $100, Charmeleon $129 against $110, Mewtwo Spezial $130 against $120, Mewtwo ZX 8000 $178 against $170, Rayquaza Megaride $218 against $200. Gengar Adistar XLG at $175 against $150 is the strongest, and that fits: it is the pair with the most physical detail in the set and the one collectors were loudest about in August.
Honestly, this is the healthiest launch adidas has run in a year. A general release with sixteen SKUs at $110 to $200 should trade at or below retail, and it does. The people who queued for a Charizard at $180 got a Charizard at $180. Nobody got robbed. That is rarer than it should be.
India: adidas Is Absent, Puma Is Not
The adidas India site blocked our checks on 22 September, so we cannot say whether the collection is live there. What we can say is what the two biggest multi-brand sneaker stores in the country have on their shelves. A search for Pokémon on VegNonVeg returns Puma: the Mostro Espeon at ₹8,999, the Fade Nitro Umbreon at ₹9,999, the Inverse Mimikyu at ₹11,999, plus a dad cap and an oversized jersey. Superkicks returns Puma Pokémon basketball shorts and jerseys. Zero adidas Pokémon product at either store on launch day.
That is a real shift. Puma India got its Pokémon footwear onto Indian shelves at Indian prices while adidas launched a sixteen-shoe collection everywhere except here. If you want Pokémon on your feet this week in Mumbai, the answer is a Mostro with Espeon on it for under ₹9,000, and that is not a bad answer. The Mostro is the low-profile silhouette of the year anyway.
Now the import maths for anyone set on the adidas pairs. At Trading Economics' 22 September rate of ₹95.65 to the dollar, a $110 Superstar is about ₹10,500. Land it and the 35 percent basic customs duty, the 10 percent surcharge on that duty and 18 percent IGST compound to roughly 1.634 times declared value, so about ₹17,200 at your door. The $200 Rayquaza Megaride becomes roughly ₹31,300. Buy the yellow Pikachu Superstar at the StockX ask of $87 instead and it lands closer to ₹13,600, which is the cheapest route to an adidas Pokémon shoe from India and still ₹1,600 more than Puma's Mimikyu on VegNonVeg.
Sizing note for the Superstars: these are standard Superstar lasts, so go half a size down from your Nike size and expect the shell toe to feel hard for a week. The Samba OG Mewtwo fits like every other Samba, which is to say narrow. The Adistar Control 5 runs a touch long.
What We Would Actually Buy
If you are importing one pair: the Gengar Adistar XLG 2.0. It is the only shoe in the set with real scarcity behind it, the eyes in the upper are the best design idea in the collection, and at $150 it is cheaper than the two flagships. If you are importing on a budget: the Mewtwo Samba OG at the $90 StockX ask, because a Samba is a Samba and this one comes with a Master Ball dubrae. Skip the Charmander and white Pikachu Superstars entirely. They will be on adidas.com at a discount by December.
And if you are not importing: buy the Puma. Seriously. The Mostro Espeon at ₹8,999 from a shop you can return it to beats any of this at ₹17,000 shipped from a proxy.
For the Superstar and Samba silhouettes without the licensing markup, browse our Adidas range. The Pokémon Crocs Classic Clog "Pikachu" is on our drop calendar for 16 November if a Charizard was never your speed.
For the full design breakdown of all sixteen pairs, the moulded Charizard wings and the Mewtwo finger eyelets, go back to our August piece, Pokémon x adidas Is a 12-Shoe Collection, written before adidas added the last four SKUs.
