Starmie’s Amada Sticker and the Year Pokemon Took Japan

Starmie – Amada Pokemon Sticker No. 324, 1997

A 1997 Licensed Sticker from an Official Pokemon Series

This sticker was produced by Amada Co., Ltd. in 1997 under an official Pokemon license. Numbered 324 — the figure displayed inside a Pikachu-tail-shaped frame — it depicts Starmie, Pokemon No. 121 in the National Pokedex, the Mysterious Pokemon. The face prints its in-game stats: Level 30, Attack 166, Defense 123, and a x2 weakness to Fire-type moves, alongside icons for its dual Water and Psychic typing. A line of text reads roughly “A stronger Starmie exists!” — suggesting the series included multiple versions of the same character at different stat levels, a format Amada used consistently across its Pokemon sticker line.

Starmie evolves from Staryu via a Water Stone and is defined by the red core at its center, said to glow in seven colors. Its dual Water/Psychic typing gave it broad coverage in battle, making it a reliable choice among competitive players from the original Game Boy games onward. The character is also closely tied to Misty, one of the main traveling companions in the anime, who relied on Starmie as one of her strongest Pokemon from the very first season.

Sticker Collecting and the 1997 Pokemon Boom

Amada was a Japanese toy and stationery manufacturer based in Aichi Prefecture that produced licensed stickers and cards for several major franchises during the 1990s. What distinguished their Pokemon line from generic character merchandise was the inclusion of battle stats on each sticker — level, attack, defense, and type weaknesses — giving every piece the feel of a miniature card. The numbered format, with level-based variations within the same character, fit into a collecting tradition that had been established in Japan long before Pokemon arrived, spanning Bikkuriman stickers and Kamen Rider card sets sold at toy shops and convenience stores across the country.

This sticker dates to 1997, when Japan’s Pokemon boom was at its peak. The Game Boy games had launched in February 1996 and spread rapidly by word of mouth; the anime began airing in April 1997. Amada’s stickers belong to that first wave of merchandise, produced during the domestic surge before the English-language games reached North America in 1998 or Europe in 1999.

What This Piece Means for Collectors Outside Japan

For international collectors, a sticker like this represents a window into the franchise that never had a Western equivalent. Manufactured for the Japanese domestic market before the global rollout began, it carries Japanese text, a stat-card format, and artwork from the original design period — before later style guides standardized how each Pokemon should look across markets. That combination places it entirely outside anything that was available to Western fans at the time.

Starmie is among the most recognized of the original 151 Pokemon in Western fandom, largely through Misty’s role in the anime’s first season — a series that reached international audiences shortly after the Japanese premiere. That familiarity gives the character immediate appeal for collectors worldwide, even if this particular sticker predates their own exposure to the franchise. Within the dedicated Amada collector community, the numbered series format means No. 324 has a specific position in a larger system — and completing that system, piece by piece, is what serious collectors pursue.