Quick answer: There are six Panda Man alternate arts in OP17 — exactly one per colour — and they land about once every 41 packs, or roughly 7 per case. They are not one per box: on the observed rate, about 55% of boxes contain none at all. Prices have fallen hard. The complete six-card set peaked at a combined $64.47 during the pre-release scarcity window and now costs $16.50 (S$20.96) at TCGplayer market price — a 74% drop in about two weeks. Buy them as singles. Opening toward the set costs roughly S$9,653 in packs.
What the Panda Man Alt Arts Actually Are
Panda Man is a long-running Eiichiro Oda background gag — a masked wrestler who has been hidden in crowd scenes since the earliest chapters of One Piece. For OP17 (The World’s Strongest Warriors), Bandai turned that gag into a card mechanic. Six ordinary cards from the set have a secret alternate printing in which Panda Man has been drawn into the scene, marked with a small star next to the card number. The Panda Man version occupies a rare slot in the pack rather than a common one.
One thing worth correcting, because it is repeated a lot in launch coverage — including in our own OP17 pull-rate guide, which we have since fixed: the Panda Man cards are not all “2,000-power vanilla commons.” Checking the six against their TCGplayer product data, three are Common and three are Uncommon; power runs from 4,000 to 8,000 and cost from 2 to 7; three of the six carry real card text, including a Trigger on Charlotte Daifuku and an [On Play] draw plus a removal-replacement effect on Kyo. What the six genuinely share is the pattern that matters: they are all low-rarity, non-hit characters, and there is exactly one per colour.
They are also fully tournament legal. A Panda Man Kyo is a Kyo OP17-045, playable anywhere the ordinary printing is. As you’ll see below, that has started to matter in an unexpected direction.
All Six Panda Man Cards
The complete list, one per colour, with the card details that identify each one:
| Card | No. | Colour | Rarity | Cost / Power | Subtypes | Artist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kingdew | OP17-006 | Red | C | 7 / 8,000 | Whitebeard Pirates | kankurou |
| Building Snake * | OP17-025 | Green | UC | 4 / 5,000 | Red-Haired Pirates | Asaki Kuroda |
| Kyo * | OP17-045 | Blue | UC | 2 / 4,000 | Rocks Pirates | Studio Vigor |
| Scratchmen Apoo | OP17-070 | Purple | C | 6 / 7,000 | Animal Kingdom Pirates / On-Air Pirates | Yasushi Yamaguchi |
| Hajrudin | OP17-088 | Black | C | 7 / 8,000 | Giant / New Giant Pirates / Elbaph | Moopic |
| Charlotte Daifuku * | OP17-107 | Yellow | UC | 3 / 4,000 | Big Mom Pirates | Hisashi Hujiwara |
* Card has rules text — these are not all vanilla bodies. Counter values are 1,000 (Building Snake) or 2,000, and Kyo has no counter at all.
What Each One Is Worth Today
TCGplayer English Near Mint market prices, captured 6 September 2026. “Market” is what copies actually clear at; “asks” is the median of live listings, which is a different and consistently higher number.
| Card | Market (USD) | SGD | Last Sale | Median Ask | 3M Low | 3M High | 3M Sold |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charlotte Daifuku Yellow | $5.05 | S$6.41 | $5.11 | $8.50 | $2.00 | $19.99 | 514 |
| Kyo Blue | $4.25 | S$5.40 | $4.43 | $5.00 | $2.60 | $12.98 | 483 |
| Kingdew Red | $3.03 | S$3.85 | $3.49 | $3.56 | $1.40 | $8.00 | 469 |
| Building Snake Green | $1.53 | S$1.94 | $1.46 | $1.79 | $0.95 | $12.99 | 325 |
| Hajrudin Black | $1.36 | S$1.73 | $1.20 | $1.59 | $0.75 | $7.99 | 302 |
| Scratchmen Apoo Purple | $1.28 | S$1.63 | $0.99 | $1.98 | $0.11 | $6.98 | 302 |
| Complete set of 6 | $16.50 | S$20.96 | — | $22.42 | — | — | 2,395 |
Two cards carry the value: Charlotte Daifuku ($5.05) and Kyo ($4.25) together are more than half the set. The bottom three — Building Snake, Hajrudin and Scratchmen Apoo — are effectively bulk with a panda on it, all under $1.60.
The 3-month high/low columns show how punishing the timing was. Scratchmen Apoo traded as high as $6.98 and as low as $0.11. Building Snake ranged $12.99 to $0.95. Charlotte Daifuku ranged $19.99 to $2.00. If you bought a Panda Man in the pre-release week, you are down 70–85%; if you bought on 29 August, you are up.
The Two-Week Collapse
Every one of the six peaked before the set was even fully released, then fell off a cliff. Here is the whole story in one chart:
| Window | Daifuku | Kyo | Kingdew | Snake | Hajrudin | Apoo | Set Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18–20 Aug | $16.63 | $14.64 | $8.66 | — | $6.85 | — | $46.78 |
| 21–23 Aug | $15.41 | $13.44 | $7.75 | $10.90 | $5.21 | $6.79 | $59.50 |
| 24–26 Aug | $10.00 | $9.52 | $5.69 | $6.74 | $3.23 | $5.29 | $40.47 |
| 27–29 Aug | $4.26 | $4.63 | $3.11 | $1.74 | $1.42 | $1.62 | $16.78 |
| 30 Aug – 1 Sep | $4.30 | $4.13 | $2.54 | $1.57 | $1.25 | $1.08 | $14.87 |
| 2–4 Sep | $4.94 | $4.26 | $2.89 | $1.48 | $1.34 | $1.25 | $16.16 |
The shape is identical across all six, which tells you this was a supply event, not six separate stories. During the 21 August pre-release almost no copies existed, so the handful that traded set prices on pure scarcity — Charlotte Daifuku at $16.63, Kyo at $14.64. The 28 August full release put cases into circulation, and in the single window from 24–26 August to 27–29 August the set dropped from $40.47 to $16.78. That is roughly 59% in three days.
The pre-release prints were never real prices. They were a handful of trades in a market with no supply, and anyone who paid them was buying a scarcity that had a known expiry date — the release date printed on the box.
Volume Peaked Exactly at the Bottom
The most instructive number here is not the price — it is the volume that came with it. Copies sold across all six Panda Man cards, per 3-day window:
| Window | Copies Sold | Set Price | What Was Happening |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18–20 Aug | 8 | $46.78 | Pre-release, almost nothing exists |
| 21–23 Aug | 101 | $59.50 | Pre-release trickle |
| 24–26 Aug | 459 | $40.47 | Release week — supply arrives |
| 27–29 Aug | 838 | $16.78 | Peak supply, price floor |
| 30 Aug – 1 Sep | 574 | $14.87 | Flood subsides |
| 2–4 Sep | 415 | $16.16 | Volume normalising, prices tick up |
Volume went from 8 copies in the 18–20 August window to 838 in 27–29 August — an 8× jump over the 21–23 August week — and the price bottom landed in exactly that window. This is the classic new-set pattern: everyone opens at once, everyone lists at once, and the buyers who were willing to pay pre-release prices have already bought.
Across three months, the six have moved 2,395 copies on TCGplayer, about 26 a day combined. That is healthy but not remarkable. Ranked against all 182 OP17 English products PriceCharting tracks by sales volume, Kyo sits 50th, Apoo 60th, Hajrudin 68th, Kingdew 94th, and Building Snake and Charlotte Daifuku only 144th and 147th. The Panda Man average of ~262 sales sits below the set average of ~356. Despite dominating the launch conversation, they are mid-pack in actual liquidity.
The Premium Dies When the Base Card Is Playable
Here is the finding that surprised us most. Comparing each Panda Man print against the ordinary printing of the same card — both from PriceCharting, so both sides carry the same lag — the Panda Man premium is not a constant. It collapses as the base card becomes something people actually play:
| Card | Panda Man | Ordinary Print | Multiple | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scratchmen Apoo | $5.00 | $0.11 | 45.45× | Base print is worthless bulk — all the value is the art |
| Building Snake | $8.66 | $0.74 | 11.70× | Base print is worthless bulk — all the value is the art |
| Charlotte Daifuku | $7.50 | $1.39 | 5.40× | Base print has mild demand |
| Kyo | $7.22 | $2.37 | 3.05× | Base print has mild demand |
| Kingdew | $3.74 | $3.25 | 1.15× | Base print is wanted for decks — premium compressed |
| Hajrudin | $3.66 | $3.98 | 0.92× | Base print out-earns the alt art |
Hajrudin’s Panda Man print trades below its own ordinary printing. That is not a data error — it is a demand story. The plain Hajrudin is a 7-cost 8,000-power Giant that Elbaf and Giant decks want four of, so it is bought by players in playsets. The Panda Man Hajrudin is bought by collectors, one at a time, and there are more of them in circulation than there are collectors chasing the panda gag. Kingdew is nearly the same case at 1.15×.
At the other end, Scratchmen Apoo’s ordinary printing is genuine bulk, so all of the Panda Man price is the artwork. Treat that 45× multiple as directional rather than precise — a ratio built on an $0.11 denominator is arithmetic, not signal. The reliable version of the finding is the ranking, not the numbers: the less playable the base card, the bigger the Panda Man premium.
The practical takeaway is one most people miss: for Hajrudin and Kingdew, the Panda Man version is currently the cheap way to sleeve the card. It is the same card, tournament legal, with better art, for the same money or less.
Pull Rates & the Cost of Completing the Set
From the 1,000+ pack OP17 sample, Panda Man lands at about 1 in 41 packs — roughly 7 per 12-box case, or 0.58 per box. Modelling a 24-pack box as a binomial at that rate:
| Panda Man in a sealed box | Probability |
|---|---|
| None at all | 55% |
| Exactly one | 33% |
| Two or more | 12% |
That is the single most useful number on this page: most boxes have no Panda Man in them. It matches exactly what openers reported — some boxes had none, some had two, and they were never seated in a fixed slot.
What it costs to open your way to the set
Six cards, each equally likely when a Panda Man appears, is a textbook coupon-collector problem. You need 6 × (1 + ½ + ⅓ + ¼ + ⅕ + ⅙) = 14.7 Panda Man pulls on average to see all six distinct cards, because the later ones keep arriving as duplicates. At 1 per 41 packs:
| Goal | Packs | Boxes | Cost at Market | Cost as Singles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One named Panda Man (e.g. Kyo) | 247 | 10.3 | $3,102 | $4.25 |
| All six | 605 | 25.2 | $7,601 | $16.50 |
Completing the Panda Man set through sealed product costs about $7,601 (S$9,653) in packs at market price — two full cases — to assemble a set you can buy outright for $16.50. That is a 461× markup for the privilege of opening. Even one specific Panda Man averages 247 packs.
Run it the other way and the picture is just as clear. A $4,470 case yields about 7 Panda Man cards, and at the current average of $2.75 each that is roughly $19.25 of Panda Man value — about 0.4% of the case price. Panda Man is a nice thing to find in a pack. It is not a reason to buy one.
Buying and Selling Right Now
Sellers are still anchored to launch prices
The gap between the median live ask and the actual market price shows who has updated their expectations and who has not:
| Card | Median Ask | Market | Ask Premium | Live Listings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charlotte Daifuku | $8.50 | $5.05 | +68% | 53 |
| Scratchmen Apoo | $1.98 | $1.28 | +55% | 186 |
| Kyo | $5.00 | $4.25 | +18% | 75 |
| Kingdew | $3.56 | $3.03 | +17% | 107 |
| Building Snake | $1.79 | $1.53 | +17% | 152 |
| Hajrudin | $1.59 | $1.36 | +17% | 132 |
Charlotte Daifuku is the outlier: sellers are asking a median of $8.50 on a card clearing at $5.05, a +68% spread, and it has the thinnest listing count of the six (53). It is also the only card of the six where that thinness might hold, so it is the one worth watching rather than dismissing. Scratchmen Apoo shows the opposite: 186 live listings against a $1.28 market price and a +55% ask spread — that is a card with far too much supply and sellers who have not marked down.
If you are buying: bid at market, not at the median ask, and be patient on Daifuku and Apoo. If you are selling: the market price is what clears; the ask column is what sits.
A warning about pricing these off PriceCharting
On a set this new, PriceCharting and TCGplayer are telling very different stories. PriceCharting currently lists Building Snake’s Panda Man at $8.66. TCGplayer’s market price is $1.53 — a 5.7× gap. PriceCharting’s figure today roughly matches where TCGplayer was on 24–26 August, which is about a ten-day lag, and its eBay-weighted sample carries shipping-inclusive sales that push raw prices up.
On a settled set that lag is irrelevant. On a set two weeks old and falling 20% a week, it is the difference between a fair price and a 5× overpay. Price new-release singles off TCGplayer market or completed sales, not off a price-guide aggregate. Our own OP17 EV guide used the PriceCharting figures available at the time and consequently values the Panda Man tier at $8.09 average; on current TCGplayer market prices the true figure is about $2.75, which cuts that tier’s contribution to box EV to roughly a third. It barely moves the overall verdict — Panda Man was only ~$0.20 of per-pack EV to begin with — but it is worth knowing which direction the error runs.
Japanese prints
The Japanese Panda Man prints exist and are tracked, but the sample is too thin to trade on: PriceCharting shows 0 to 1 recorded sales per card against 129–474 for the English versions. The listed JP figures (Kyo $7.20, Kingdew $6.20, Daifuku $4.99) are quotes, not a market. Treat any JP/EN Panda Man arbitrage claim with suspicion until the volume is there.
Has It Found a Floor?
Possibly. In the most recent window (2–4 September), 5 of the 6 ticked upward, and the set basket rose from $14.87 to $16.16 — +8.7% — while volume fell from 574 to 415 copies. Rising prices on falling volume is what a market looks like when the forced sellers are done and the remaining supply is held by people who do not need to sell.
| Card | 30 Aug – 1 Sep | 2–4 Sep | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charlotte Daifuku | $4.30 | $4.94 | +14.9% |
| Kyo | $4.13 | $4.26 | +3.1% |
| Kingdew | $2.54 | $2.89 | +13.8% |
| Building Snake | $1.57 | $1.48 | -5.7% |
| Hajrudin | $1.25 | $1.34 | +7.2% |
| Scratchmen Apoo | $1.08 | $1.25 | +15.7% |
Be careful how much weight you put on that. It is one three-day window, the moves are a few cents on cards costing a couple of dollars, and Building Snake is still falling. One bucket is not a trend. What it does suggest is that the panic phase is over and these cards are settling into their long-run band — low single digits for Daifuku and Kyo, near-bulk for the other four.
What would actually move them from here
- Playability of the base card. If Kyo becomes a Rocks staple, the Panda Man Kyo rises with it — but so does the ordinary print, which compresses the premium. Playability lifts the floor and caps the multiple at the same time.
- Set-completion demand. The six-card set is now cheap enough (S$20.96) to be an impulse buy. Cheap complete sets tend to attract steady, low-volume accumulation that slowly thins the float.
- Graded supply. Nobody is grading a $1.30 common today. If PSA 10 populations stay near zero while the gag stays popular, graded copies could decouple from raw — the usual path for a novelty card that ages into nostalgia.
- A second Panda Man set. If Bandai repeats the mechanic in OP18, OP17’s six become “the first ones,” which historically helps. If they don’t, these stay a one-off curiosity.
The honest bottom line
The Panda Man alt arts are a genuinely charming easter egg and the best thing about opening OP17 that isn’t worth money. They are also, right now, cheap: S$20.96 buys all six, down from S$81.88 two weeks ago. Buy them as singles if you want them, take the Panda Man version over the ordinary print for Hajrudin and Kingdew because it costs the same or less, and do not open a single extra pack chasing them — the maths says that costs S$9,653 to save S$20.96.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Panda Man alt arts are in OP17?
Six — exactly one per colour: Kingdew (Red), Building Snake (Green), Kyo (Blue), Scratchmen Apoo (Purple), Hajrudin (Black) and Charlotte Daifuku (Yellow).
How rare is a Panda Man card?
About 1 in 41 packs, or ~7 per case. That is 0.58 per box, which means roughly 55% of boxes contain none at all. It is not a guaranteed per-box hit.
What is the most valuable Panda Man card?
Charlotte Daifuku OP17-107, at $5.05 (S$6.41) market. Kyo OP17-045 is second at $4.25. Neither is expensive — both peaked above $14 and have fallen roughly 70%.
Should I open packs to get them?
No. Completing the set averages 605 packs (~S$9,653) versus S$20.96 to buy all six outright.
Are they tournament legal?
Yes. They are alternate arts of ordinary OP17 cards and are legal wherever the base printing is. For Hajrudin and Kingdew the Panda Man version currently costs the same or less than the ordinary print, so it is the better buy for a deck.
Will Panda Man cards go back up?
The pre-release peaks are not coming back — those were scarcity prices in a market with no supply. A slow grind up from here is plausible as the flood clears and set-completion buyers accumulate; 5 of 6 rose in the most recent window on falling volume, which is a constructive early sign but only one data point.
Sources & method. Price, listing and sales-volume data captured from TCGplayer English product pages on 6 September 2026; the price history is TCGplayer’s own 3-day-bucket Market Price History for Near Mint copies. Base-print and Japanese comparisons use PriceCharting’s daily One Piece export from the same date, chosen so both sides of each ratio carry the same source lag. Pull rates carry over from our 1,000+ pack OP17 case sample; per-box probabilities are a binomial approximation of that observed rate, not a Bandai-published figure. USD converted to SGD at 1.27×. Prices move — check live price comparison before buying.