The Pokémon Company cursed the world with the Pokémon TCG: Diamond & Pearl expansion and the Bonsly card back in 2007. In it, the Gen 4 rock-type is depicted by the illustrator Midori Harada in a, shall we say, compromising position. Here, the predecessor to Sudowoodo can be seen knocked over and crying. Don’t be fooled, though. As its move Fake Tears suggests, Bonsly is trying to manipulate their opponent’s emotions in the hopes of decreasing their attack. Memorable card, no? Electroacoustic harpist Emily Hopkins certainly thinks so. And she’s got a binder with 305 Bonsly cards to prove it.
That’s not the whole collection either. She’s got 20 reverse holographic versions of the Bonsly card, which depicts the tyke with shiny foil everywhere but the central artwork. The crown jewel, though, is the PSA 6-graded reverse holo of Bonsly. Sure, it’s not a top-graded original Charizard card. But do you have a goofy, nearly pristine Bonsly card preserved in its eternal glory? I didn’t think so.
Hopkins has spent much of 2025 stockpiling every 2007 Bonsly card she can possibly find. She first heard about the out-of-print card earlier this year, while debating the most cursed cards in the compendium with an employee at a local shop. Crying Omanyte was a contender, as was the forever alone Cubone at the theme park. But it was Crying Bonsly, aka Bonsly #71, that caught Hopkins’s attention.
Bonsly is obviously influenced by bonsai plants, which are typically planted in containers that have drainage holes at the bottom. These are meant to help the plant grow, to the extent that enthusiasts encourage each other to drill holes into their pots if they don’t already have one. Bonsai can also be placed on shallow pots without holes, known as suiban, and the retained water can help growers decorate their plants to look like natural landscapes. Bonsly is the former, hence the hole.
Despite this logical explanation, though, The Pokémon Company seems almost a little too concerned with Bonsly’s hole. Even merch like Bonsly plushes make sure to include a hollow cavern at the bottom of the tree-like Pokémon. It doesn’t matter if the depiction of Bonsly in question is crying or at ease: It’s going to show hole. The hole is an intrinsic part of Bonsly’s design. Bonsly #71 became a meme within the community both due to that drainage hole, and also because of its status. Up until last year, Bonsly #71 was the single type of Bonsly card printed in a game where many of its monsters are typically depicted in dozens of different ways. For 16 years, if you wanted a Bonsly card, you had to settle for hole Bonsly.
“When I saw Bonsly in the list of these cursed cards, I knew I had found my favorite one,” Hopkins tells Polygon over email, adding that she was surprised to have never seen it before. She’ll be the first to tell you her love of the Bonsly card is completely useless, but it didn’t matter. The appreciation turned into a full-blown obsession, as Hopkins bought every Bonsly #71 card she could possibly find. She quickly got into a habit of visiting her local card shop on a weekly basis, and became known to the employees as “Bonsly Girl.” The shop started putting any new Bonsly #71 cards it received aside just for Hopkins. Most of these cards cost between $1 and $3, she says, estimating that she’s spent somewhere around $400 just on the binder alone.
Nowadays, pristine Bonsly #71 cards can cost up to $14.99. While that’s on the higher end, run-of-the-mill Bonsly #71 cards tend to cost $4 and above. That price increase more or less coincides with when Hopkins started her collection in earnest, though there are likely several factors at play. While it’s true that the card is notorious among collectors, Hopkins’s posts on it have also garnered millions of views. As news of its existence continues to spread to a wider audience, it’s possible that the price of Bonlsy #71 cards may continue to shoot up even higher. If nothing else, collectors say that TGC prices are soaring in 2025 in general.
Hopkins cannot be stopped, though.
“The amazing thing is that some supporters and fans of the YouTube channel have mailed their Bonsly cards to me to add to my collection, and I am keeping these Bonsly safe forever,” Hopkins says. Rather than recoil in horror, viewers are impressed and inspired by her Bonsly binder.
“I’ve actually always wanted to do this,” one commenter says. “Bu[y] up all of a common card until it becomes incredibly rare.”
The only downside? Possibly, the memes.
“Oh it’s the butthole bonsly lady,” one viewer jokes.
