Mushi Jingi

  • May 11, 2026

Daiso is a Japanese ‘dollar store’, but don’t let that categorization fool you: it’s much, much better than USA equivalents. This is because Daiso mostly sells its own high quality products, and stocks an incredible variety of items in almost every category. Every trip to Japan includes a stop at a Daiso, and in the past we’ve bought things from laundry bags to packing tape to candy for extremely low prices.

This is the first booster pack for a game called Mushi Jingi. This is Daiso’s first trading card game and was first released in 2022. Each pack contains five cards and costs a mere ¥100 (about $0.64)!

This is an insect themed game (according to Google, the name variously translates into ‘Insect Honor’ or ‘Sacred Insects’) and my cards came in three rarities (Normal, Rare and Super Rare). I assume every pack contains at least a foil SR card, but the backs of each pack show there’s an even rare type (LR) which I assume is even flashier.

Each card has a power, type, ability and text at the bottom. The art is consistent amongst all the cards I’ve seen and is detailed but simple depictions of insects. I’ll translate a couple of cards further down in this post.

The cards are not flimsy and feel like higher-price games but the cardback is a bit dull. I’ll give it props for summarizing the damage rules, but I believe it could have been prettier.

As a game aimed at children, gameplay is apparently fast and easy, and the low price makes building a deck very inexpensive. This seems like it would be a fun game to buy a box of and test drive!

From what I read the game has been a success, and to date there have been seven total expansions. On our recent trip I bought one pack from each of the first six, and the seventh has been released since. The packs depict characters but none of the cards I opened feature any of them so I wonder if they’re used in an associated manga or anime?

Here’s one of the action cards translated, and if you read carefully you’ll see that ‘Tengyu’s Broxade Jaw’ only powers up beetles of the Cerambycidae family. This is the sort of feature I couldn’t imagine would ever make its way onto an English-language TCG, and it is because this game aims to be educational as well 🙂

Here’s one of the SR cards translated, although Google kept Kiniro and didn’t translated it to ‘gold’. This guy is from Papua New Guinea, widely known as my homeland, which means this beetle – the Papuan Golden Stag – is from my clan!

It’s a beautiful beast isn’t it? And if it weren’t for Mushi Jingi I probably would not have learned of its existence, much less that it uses its jaws to cut meat and suck out juice!

As I said I think it would be fun to buy a few boxes of this game, build decks, and give it a spin. It’s so inexpensive that I’m sure parents in Japan have been buying lots of packs for their kids, and I understand why it’s lasted four years already.

My Collection: 3DS

  • May 5, 2026

In February 2011, Nintendo released the followup to their DS console. Called the 3DS, it featured the gimmick of 3D play without glasses. This actually worked, and once again Nintendo had released an unexpected and unusual handheld console.

At the time of release, the DS was still going strong and I had a big backlog of games to play. While the 3DS was better in almost every way, in one aspect it was a step back: Nintendo chose to ‘region lock’ the handheld, which meant you could only play games purchased in the country you bought the system. For someone like me, who had for years bought GBA and DS games while visiting Japan, this was irritating, and it was a while before I purchased one.

My first unit was the Zelda one shown in the top right of the above photo. The other photos show the other four units I would eventually buy: the ‘new’ 3DS, the 3DS XL and (in the center) the ‘2DS XL’. The different versions over the years added new controls, increased the screen size, added processor power, improved the 3D effect and – ultimately – removed the 3D effect. This last iteration – the ‘New 2DS XL’ – is in my opinion the best handheld ever made.

As you can see the system includes analogue controls, a touchscreen and more buttons than any previous handheld. It has a dedicated OS based around online connectivity, and a 3DS online store made this the first handheld you could theoretically build a digital-only library on. The 3D effect varied between games, but even when well done it was tiring to use and I (and I suspect most players) usually turned it off.

Cartridges were essentially the same as for the DS, although the technology was a bit different inside. One change was the system no longer played GBA cartridges, but it was fully compatible with DS games although the increased screen resolution meant they had to be letterboxed.

Aside from Switch, the 3DS is the only console on which I haven’t sold my collection, which runs to 104 games today. This is somewhat small compared to what I had for everything else, and the region lock is a cause of this. But the quality of 3DS games was extremely high, especially for the sorts of games I enjoy, and I still have very fond memories of the system.

The previous photo was all my normal boxed games, and the above shows a selection of my ‘collectors’ versions. These became increasingly common on the system, and I have dozens of them.

Most of these were packaged with a soundtrack or tiny artbook or some other tchotchke, and very rarely cost more than the $30 or so a 3DS game cost in those days. Most of these have appreciated now, but I don’t plan on ever selling mine.

The Etrian Odyssey series continued onto the 3DS with remakes and new takes and I purchased, played – and loved – them all. I have since bought the remakes of the first trilogy for Switch (all of which were good), but one day I plan on replaying some of these later games as well.

Monster Rancher had several great installments on the 3DS, and Generations in particular was wonderful and I played it for over 700 hours! I’d probably rank it as the second best ever MH game.

The 3DS had a version of Puzzle & Dragons, although localization decisions made it much difficult than it should have been (I still haven’t ever beaten the hard mode). Fantasy Life is an incredibly good action RPG that has the distinction of being the first Nintendo handheld game with paid DLC (which I purchased). And Xenoblade Chronicles 3D – which is of course wonderful – is the only game released that required a ‘New 3DS’ to play.

Here’s two sealed games I found in my collection. Both of them I owned and played on other systems, so I doubt these will ever be opened. I checked, and neither of them are especially valuable today.

This one is pricey, and at ~$300 is easily the most valuable 3DS game in my collection. This was a Nintendo series that didn’t succeed in the USA, and not only did they print extremely small quantities of this sequel, but they were very poorly distributed. I found it in a budget bin a year or two after release, and snapped it up for about $10.

One unfortunate aspect of the console was that some cartridges no longer work due to manufacturing errors. I own two of these and when I put them in the console today they are just dead. Back in the day Nintendo offered replacements but I had beaten the games and put them away so mine hadn’t failed yet. These days they cartridges are basically junk, and some think this fate may eventually come to many other 3DS games as well. I hope not.

Aside from a Japanese game I bought last year (and can never play), my last 3DS game purchased was a Pokemon game in mid 2019. By then sales had dwindled, and within a year many stores had stopped carrying the console. The rumoured replacement eventually became the Switch, and the days of a small dedicated handheld – which began with the Game Boy 30 years prior – ended with the 3DS. It remains one of my favourite consoles amongst all those I’ve owned.

The Financial Ruin Of Early Retirement

  • May 2, 2026

Last night at the drive-in I had a great idea, which I then proposed to Bernard: in exchange for an abundance of postcards from my upcoming trip, he would pay me for each unique stamp I use to send them.

To be specific, the first stamp costs him $0.10, the next $0.20, and each subsequent costs $0.10 more. So if the first card has four unique stamps on it, he’d owe me $1 ($0.10 + $0.20 + $0.30 + $0.40). To trick him into agreeing sweeten the deal, I agreed he’d pay me nothing unless the total exceeded $10.

I laughed like a goon when he signed the contract!

The above is a plot of what he’ll owe me versus unique stamps. It would take fourteen unique stamps for the total to exceed $10 ($10.50 to be precise) and as you can see it rises quadratically. The equation, if you’re interested, is $n(n+1)/20 where n is the number of unique stamps.

Looking at this plot, the amount he’d owe me would surpass $100 at 45 unique stamps. For amateurs this would be a challenge, but he made the critical mistake of forgetting I’m far from an amateur. In fact, due to leftovers from previous trips, I already have enough unique stamps to surpass this amount.

But stopping at 45 is barely a challenge. How far could I push this?

Checking out the Australia Post website reveals several dozen current stamp issues. It’s hard to put a precise number on how many since the website is irritating to use, but I’d say it’s upwards of 40 unique stamps. Just from these alone (and including the ones I already have) I’m well over the $100 return.

But Australia Post also sells collectible ‘Stamp Packs’, one or two of which I usually buy on each trip. From the ones in-stock today there’s 123 unique stamps and I know from experience it’s not difficult to find older packs available in post offices.

So it’s not unreasonable to assume I could relatively easily find 150 unique stamps in Australia alone. Before you ask “What about the postcards?” remember who is writing this. The deal doesn’t specify anything about how the cards bear the stamps, so I’d just buy big cards and put 10+ stamps on each.

If you’re wondering about the cost of all these stamps, then yes it adds up. But a quick analysis of average prices vs returns shows I’d be making money after about the 15th stamp, and likely much earlier if I buy many small denomination ones.

And this is just Australia. Things get truly interesting because I’m also going to Japan…

Japan has a few dozen basic stamps available, all of which I bought on my last trip. Obtaining these is trivial, so getting up to over 175 stamps wouldn’t be much of a challenge (for me).

And they also have these limited sheets, and I know exactly where I could go (Tokyo Main Post Office) to purchase dozens of different ones. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to obtain at least another 100 unique stamps amongst these alone.

And then there’s the licensed limited sheets, and the stamp shop near my Osaka hotel that sells hundreds of old mint unused stamps. The sky is the limit. I could get to 500 unique stamps ‘easily’…

The above is a plot of returns vs unique stamps up to 500, at which point Bernard would owe me $12,525.00. While I believe I could exceed this amount, in the interests of good sportsmanship I’d probably end there.

Of all the crazy schemes good ideas I’ve hatched had, this may be the best. I get to buy lots of stamps, send lots of postcards, and I’ll make five figures (easily) out of it. What could go wrong?