Booze and Baseball: Can Chu Hi

Over the past five years, I've come across a few tie-ins between Japanese baseball teams and various forms of alcohol. Most commonly, I find beer cans and bottles carrying team logos. In the past, I've found Hiroshima Carp and Chunichi Dragons beers. Honestly, I think you can buy anything with a Hiroshima Carp logo on it.

TaKaRa makes a very common cheap alcoholic drink called chu-hi. Not to be confused with hi-chew candy, chu-hi is a fruit-flavored beverage generally found in cans, and usually is priced a decent bit cheaper than regular beer. I've seen cans for around a dollar each.

This one is lemon-flavored. Chu-hi reminds me a lot of wine coolers, both in quality and after-effects. As such, I don't drink them often. This particular flavor wasn't really sweet, with a strong sour lemon flavor. That's not my style, really.

But as you've guessed, my interest was in the other side of the can. This one sports a Rakuten Eagles logo. That puts me at three team-affiliated beverage containers so far! I guess there are nine to go.

Hungry? How about some ramen snacks!

This candy comes with eye candy too.

Every year, I seem to come across one or two products that have a tie-in with some idol group. I think Baby Star Ramen, the product you see in this post, is responsible for most of them. This bag has a tie-in with what I can only gather is a modeling agency. cent. FORCE has a website, all in Japanese, profiling several attractive women. Their descriptions list television jobs they have or used to have, usually as newscasters or weather persons. So this is quite an interesting tie-in.

Attached to the back is a pack with a single card, similar to Calbee's baseball card distribution method. According to the bag, there are 20 cards in total, and this pack has one random card.

Here's my card. There are two personalities shown, Sachi Takahashi and Sora Nishimori. Glancing at the cent Force website, It looks like Sachi is no longer with the agency. Sora is, though.

The backs have handwritten messages from the ladies. Or, printed handwritten messages.

Finally, the snacks. If you've never had dried ramen, it's an interesting treat. It's generally soy sauce-flavored, so it's a lightly sweetened and salty crunchy snack, similar to chips with a unique flavor. If you visit Japan or even swing by a Japanese supermarket, you should be able to find ramen snacks pretty cheaply - this tie-in product cost me about $1, I think, but small snack-sized bags can be found here for around 25-30 yen each.

This particular product is long-gone from shelves, but now I'm thinking that it would be neat to have a full set.

More Gum, More Cards

Yesterday's cards with the big team logos on them were more of a side purchase than an original intended search. I was really looking for these:

 These may look like 2002 Topps, but they're really Kanebo Gum cards from the first 2003 series.

When I first came to Japan, I focused only on my type collection. Really, I didn't know anything else and that first year was a learning experience. I had seen these cards in my guide so I knew they existed but I was only concerned with building my one collection. It wasn't too long before I started getting sets and finding smaller sets to collect, and recently I decided to go after these Kanebo sets too.

I'm only showing six cards, but I now have almost the entire set. This first series is only 55 cards, and Zippy Zappy beat me to having the full set (he found a complete set somewhere at a great bargain).

The real challenge will be getting or completing the second series; it has 110 cards and might be in shorter supply.

Recent Mail: Gum Cards, Gum Cards, Sausage Cards, and Photo Cards

I think I used to many plurals in my title.

All of the cards below came in some recent pickups from YJA. First is this card:

 Bumping off yesterday's sticker cards, this standard-sized card is actually a bunch of tiny stickers. Each of the little squares and rectangles is a separate sticker. These were issued in Lotte Gum packs in 2006, similar to the 2016 gum cards I have yet to post on. I now have a full set, though one of those cards is missing a sticker, so I will eventually replace it.

Lotte's gum cards are preceded by Kanebo. They have a few sets under their belt, but in 2002 they partnered with MLB to bring various products to Japan using Major League logos. This card has, well, MLB team logos:

 The fronts have the team logo and division, while the back has some team history, stadium information, popular players, and images of their jersey and caps.

 There are thirty cards in a full set, but not all thirty teams are represented.

I have found the above images from an (overpriced) eBay auction showing the front of the box as well as some of the cards. The thirty cards cover 27 teams (no Indians, Braves, or Pirates), as well as the NL, AL, and All-Star Game logos. Each box came with one pin and one card, though I don't know if it was a matching set. I usually see the pins but not the cards; I have several of the pins in my collection already and with this information I can eventually put together a full set of both the pins and the cards.

Next, the sausage. American card collectors could look to pizza, while here in Japan we could go for sausage. I never saw these cards in the store, but Home Run Sausage cards were issued in a couple series. I have below a homerun prize card redeemable for a binder and possibly something else. We'll have to see what comes.

 Oddly enough, there's no expiration. I'll be mailing this ASAP.

Finally, above is a photo card from BBM's 2008 Rookie Edition Premium. It was won from the same seller as the homerun card so I could save on shipping. I won a bunch more from that dealer, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see!

Can You Feel the Force?

There's a pun in that title. And no, it's not quite as obvious as you might think.

As Zippy Zappy and I were heading back to the train station, we stopped at a convenience store for some drinks for his ride home. I wasn't planning on buying anything, but then I saw these:

 Star Wars coffee cans with plastic lids! There's C-3PO, R2-D2, Yoda, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and a stormtrooper!

 Those plastic domes pop off the can so you can drink the coffee (I haven't tried it yet, by the way), but they also hold a secret.

Hidden inside each dome is a tiny figurine! I didn't want to take them out of their plastic wrappers, so I just pulled out Mr. Gold Robot here so you could see what it looks like. It's pretty small, about as tall as those old 7-11 Slurpee baseball discs I used to get as a kid. (Mmm. Slurpees.)

As you can see, I grabbed all six types, because I've learned that if you wait to buy any promotional item, it might be completely sold out by the very next day. There's a small paper insert with images of all six figurines;

There's not much detail to them - better than a 3D printer, but they're just molded plastic. I'm not complaining, though - unless the coffee sucks.

Until next time...

A Look at and Checklists for Kellogg's MLB Japanese Issues

From 2007-2010, Kellogg's issued small sets featuring MLB stars. These were included with the company's food products, which as far as I've seen here would mean mostly cereal. Of course, the checklists focused heavily on Japanese stars in the MLB, but it's not exclusively for former NPB players.

The sets all feature the Kellogg's logo on front and back as well as the manufacturer's logo. Upper Deck issued the 2007-2009 sets, with Topps taking over in 2010 after Upper Deck lost their license.

With very small checklists, collecting full sets shouldn't be too hard, and is a project I am considering. On the other hand, singles usually aren't cheap. I should note that my checklists (including spelling) are based mostly on the SCF database. 

 The 2007 set has 10 cards, with three Japanese players:

1. Hideki Matsui
2. Kenji Johjima
3. Tadahito Iguchi
4. Ryan Howard
5. David Wright
6. David Ortiz
7. Ivan Rodriguez
8. Alex Rodriguez
9. Albert Pujols
10. Justin Verlander

 2008 again has 10 cards, and three Japanese players. Note that the SCF database is incorrect; based on a bit of research the below list should be accurate.

1. Daisuke Matsuzaka
2. Hideki Matsui
3. Takashi Saito
4. Jimmy Rollins
5. Vladimir Guerrero
6. Manny Ramirez
7. Joe Mauer
8. Josh Beckett
9. Grady Sizemore
10. Jose Reyes

I don't have any 2009s yet to check the design, or to even verify the manufacturer. The SCF database lists a checklist of six players:

1. Akinori Iwamura
2. Daisuke Matsuzaka
3. Kosuke Fukudome
4. Alfonso Soriano
5. Alex Rodriguez
6. Josh Hamilton 

The last year of issue was 2010, with Topps taking over due to Upper Deck's loss of licensing with MLB Properties.

1. Hideki Matsui
2. Akinori Iwamura
3. Hideki Okajima
4. Chase Utley
5. David Wright
6. CC Sabathia

All in all, a total of 32 cards seem to have been issued. The key cards will definitely be the Matsuis for a set builder.

Idol Cards of the Week: KARA

 I've shown cards from a full set featuring the five ladies of KARA, a highly popular Korean pop group. They also appear in a mixed set issued by Lotte.

 The set contains several cards for each group, numbered separately from the other groups. Unfortunately, only one card comes per pack and they're way too expensive to validate chasing a set. Each pack also comes with a couple pieces of gum, very similar to the gum Topps used in its packs in its most recent issues (not 1989-style gum).

The backs are common from group to group.

I'm tired! Good night! (It's nighttime in Japan right now.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Once again it's Valentine's Day and the sweets are pouring in. Here's a picture. Girls generally give gifts on Valentine's Day, and guys return the favor next month, March 14th, on White Day.