Soon after the release of Kyushu Limited, a set that focuses on players from the major southern island of Japan (and home to the Softbank Hawks), BBM issued Osaka Limited. The set is titled Naniwa Tamashi (Naniwa Soul); Naniwa is the place that eventually became the city of Osaka, so the name (for those in the know) implies heritage or history. I'm not sure why they used katakana instead of hiragana for the name Naniwa. The players in the set are from the Osaka area, including those who went to school there.
The base cards use a white border and feature standard BBM photography. The Osaka Limited set logo is in a lower corner. Cards 1-69 are active players, 70-72 are dual-player cards, and 73-90 are Legend cards with the same design as the base cards except for a Legend designation in the lower left corner.
The dual-player cards seem to be called "Active Classmate" and have players that played at the same high school together for all three years. Yes, high school in Japan lasts only 3 years (9th grade is part of junior high).
Unlike the Kyushu Limited set, Osaka lacks a map showing you where in Osaka the player came from. I guess that's okay - Osaka isn't as big as Kyushu. I'm not sure if the text lists anything about the player's connection to Osaka (high school, district, etc), but that would be great to include. Cards are numbered at the bottom and all cards in the set carry an [OSAKA LIMITED] mark on the copyright line.
As far as I can tell, only a gold-signature parallel was issued. I don't know how many - or which - cards were paralleled.
The backs are identical except for serial numbering /150 at the bottom.
A nine-card All Osaka First Team set is the only insert issued, and it appears that there are no parallels for the set. They feature blue lettering and foil backgrounds. Kenta Maeda is from Osaka and appears in both the regular and insert set.
The backs have blue tints and cards are numbered with an OT- prefix. Not much information is on the back, and the photo is the same as the front.
There are two autograph sets with identical layouts. Active players (49 different by my count) are numbered from 10-40 copies each and use a more concrete-color background design. The retired players (16 players) are numbered 30-100 copies each and have a more tannish color to the background.
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