How Amada Captured Beedrill in Japan’s First Pokémon Stickers

Beedrill No.218, a 1997 Amada Pokémon Sticker from Japan

What the Sticker Is and What It Shows

This is a rectangular paper sticker manufactured by Amada Co., Ltd. in 1997, numbered 218 within the company’s Pokémon collection series. The front displays Beedrill at LV.11, accompanied by two numeric values — 66 beside a burst icon and 21 beside a shield icon — that echo the stat displays of the original Game Boy titles. Two skull marks indicate Beedrill’s Poison typing. A Pikachu silhouette marks the series number in the corner, a consistent design element across this run of Amada stickers. Every word on the sticker is in Japanese; there was no English-language version of this product. It was made for the domestic market only.

The sticker is currently stored in a clear acrylic stand with a magnetic backing, which is a display accessory added for preservation purposes. The collectible itself is the paper sticker.

Amada and the Tradition of the Anime Sticker

Amada Co., Ltd. was a Japanese toy and stationery manufacturer with a deep catalog of licensed sticker and card products spanning popular anime franchises of the 1980s and ’90s — Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, and Yu Yu Hakusho among them. For Pokémon, the company produced multiple sticker and card series between 1997 and 1999, covering standard paper stickers, prismatic kira variants, and other formats.

The anime sticker was a cultural fixture in Japan throughout this era. These small collectibles circulated through candy stores known as dagashiya, stationery shops, toy stores, and supermarket sticker racks. Some series were packaged as shokugan — sold bundled with candy or gum — though the original sales format for this particular sticker is not confirmed from the available listing information. Collecting stickers and organizing them in dedicated albums was a widespread pastime for Japanese children of that generation, and well-preserved examples from the period have become progressively harder to find.

Amada’s series numbering extended well beyond the 151 Pokémon in the original National Dex. The number 218 reflects how the company expanded their catalog across character variants, prism editions, and scene illustrations. The specific series name this sticker belongs to is not confirmed from the listing information alone.

Beedrill, Generation One, and the Collector Context

Beedrill is National Pokédex No.015, a Bug/Poison-type Pokémon that evolves through a three-stage line from Weedle (No.013) to Kakuna (No.014) to Beedrill. Its design draws on wasps and hornets: a yellow-and-black body, white wings, and prominent stingers on its forelegs. The text printed on the sticker loosely translates to “there’s an even stronger Beedrill out there” — a motivating tagline common across Amada’s series to encourage collectors to keep searching for the full run.

The Pokémon anime launched in Japan on April 1, 1997, on TV Tokyo, and this sticker belongs to that same first wave of merchandise. At the time, Pokémon had not yet expanded internationally, meaning products from 1997 carry all-Japanese text and represent an early, pre-global chapter of the franchise’s history.

Among international collectors, Amada stickers occupy a recognized category — distinct from the Pokémon Trading Card Game and representing a Japan-only format that was never exported. Beedrill is not among the franchise’s most prominent characters, but for anyone working toward a complete Generation One collection, it holds a clear place. The combination of the 1997 manufacture date, the Amada brand, and the exclusively Japanese presentation is the draw for collectors focused on early, Japan-domestic Pokémon merchandise.