The latest team set released by BBM this year is for the Hiroshima Carp. The base set has 99 cards, which includes several small team sets.
There are 73 base cards to start the set, with a fairly simple but attractive design. Card #73 is the mascot Slyly that looks a lot like the Phillie Phanatic.
The first of many subsets is Playback 2013, a 3-card set. It chronicles the postseason performance from 2013. Card 74 is about the first "stage" with #75 being a first stage victory card. Card 76, above and below, chronicles the final stage. The Carp were swept by the Giants in three games.
The backs give details on the series. It's a nice small subset. The Carp made the playoffs last year as the third-place team in the Central League, with a record of 69-72, 17 games out of first place.
The Brightest Hope is a five card subset of younger players. The cards have an interesting shade of green and the backs have a lot of details on the players' short careers.
Pitchers are the focus of Carp Starters, a three-card subset with great backs. Charts aren't seen much on cards so I'm always happy to see them, even if I can't always follow the stats. These are fairly easy to follow: statistics by month, and then by team.
The next three-card subset is Defense Masters, and again the back has some unique statistics.
I wish BBM would put this kind of effort into the backs of its insert cards!
Power Plant is another three-card subset. This one focuses more on offensive production, again with charts and graphs by month and opponent.
The last subset is a nine-card set of three-card puzzles. Each player has nine photos; Maeda is pitching, Kikuchi is fielding a ground ball, and Maru is batting.
Maeda's cards have statistics for each of his starts and a comparison with other great seasons by Carp pitchers.
The base cards have a partial parallel to 100 copies, with a star-patterned foil background.
There's one insert set in this release, the annual nine-card Soul of Carp set. The fronts have foil backgrounds and script writing, which is fairly standard for the Soul of Carp insert set. They've used the same set title for several years now.
As usual, the backs are fairly simple, essentially non-shiny copies of the front with some biographical stats.
Soul of Carp has a parallel serial-numbered to 100 copies. Those use green foil for the "Soul of Carp" text.
There are 73 regular autographed cards in the set, one for every regular card in the set including the mascot. These are assigned card numbers on BBM's website, but they usually don't actually number the actual cards. They are serial-numbered, however, with 45-90 copies.
There are five special autographed cards as well, with three single-signed cards numbered out of 15, and two dual-signed cards numbered to 10.
Rounding out the set are three memorabilia cards: a Dohbayashi jersey card, a Kikuchi jersey card, and a dual-jersey card.
A set of nine promos were issued for the set, using a blue design instead of red, the words "LIMITED EDITION" in a stamp format across the front, and card numbers that start with "PR". I'm not sure how these were issued, though usually they are given out at book stores, games, or events.
Slyly was designed by the same folks who designed the Phillie Phanatic so there's a legitimate reason for the resemblance between the two. Before I found that out, I always thought the Carp had just ripped the Phillies off.
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