Category: Collecting

The World Of Bootleg Chinese Waifu Cards

August 5, 2025

I bought this a couple of weeks ago:

It’s a box of ‘Goddess Story’ cards. These are Chinese unlicensed ‘waifu’ cards featuring girls from anime and video games. Some refer to these as ‘Goddess Story TCG’ but they’re strictly for collecting only: there’s no game element.

Here’s a pack:

And here’s the five cards that were inside:

From the top left, we have characters from Love Live, Oreimo, Needy Streamer Overdose, Gundam and Demon Slayer. All the characters featured on the cards are from existing properties – 24 in total are represented in this box alone – and none of them are licensed. These cards therefore exploit the (lack of) Chinese copyright laws to use the artwork without credit or payment.

The cards are extremely high quality. They’re all glossy and well made, most of them have some type of foiling and the rarer ones are embossed and have very fancy foil effects. Even the most basic cards feel better in your hands than a Magic The Gathering card, and this quality belies the bootleg nature of this product, and is one of the reasons it’s become so popular.

There’s six levels of rarity in this box, shown above. Rare cards (the lowest rarity) are not foiled, but all the others are. The four levels about CR (SR, SSR, SER & SCR) are textured with embossing effects as well. Apparently SCR cards are very rare, and I was lucky to get even one in my box (which I haven’t finished opening). Can you identify the characters/series on the above six cards?

I first heard of these during the pandemic, and saw them available on places like Etsy about two years ago, although I felt they were overpriced at about $5 a pack. When I was in Australia earlier this year a shop at Charlestown Square was selling individual packs at A$14 each (!) which was eye-opening, so when I saw on Amazon a price of only $13 – for an entire box of 30 packs – it was time to buy in. I was so impressed I quickly purchased a few more:

Only one of these boxes cost more than $20, and it was only by a few dollars. Each of these are different sets, although the bootleg nature of the product makes it difficult to determine in what order these were released (there’s no dates and the set codes are inconsistent). Furthermore the box I have opened contains some cards not listed on the checklist at the back of the box.

At this point I’m sure some of you are shaking your heads (“He bought ten boxes?!?”) but these scratch the itch of opening trading card packs, are very cheap, and the cards are shiny and pretty! I’ll be opening these packs for years 🙂

I’ve been buying these on Amazon, and the vendors usually send bonuses with the orders. To my surprise this has included promo packs and the included cards are shown above. I like that two of these are tarot cards. Imagine the difficulty of assembling an entire deck!

And then there’s the above. It turns out other Chinese companies are releasing similar products, and I’ve bought a few of them as well to evaluate. These were a little more expensive than Goddess Story and seem to promote themselves as higher quality cards with fancier treatments (including heat-sensitivity, glow-in-the-dark and gems). As you can see I haven’t opened any of these yet; I’ll save them for a special occasion!

I’ve got over 300 packs of Goddess Story cards now. Want some? Let me know 🙂

The Fortress Of Necross

July 21, 2025

Rewind back to a typical day in the life of other me in Japan in 1987. I’d been playing Famicom Dragon Quest all day long and was heading to the game center near the station to play the new game Rastan that I’d read about in the latest issue of Comptiq. On the way I stopped at the konbini to grab a snack and saw this:

It’s called ‘Fortress Of Necross‘ and if the name alone didn’t win me over the art and words ‘Role Playing’ certainly did. I immediately bought it and found a little bag of chocolates inside as well as a smaller inner box containing cards and a plastic toy.

I quickly realized this was a heavily RPG-inspired toy series, and it reminded me of many of my other interests such as the Famicom games I was playing (Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Zelda) or especially my beloved TRPGs including Fighting Fantasy and Sword World. I quickly bought more boxes and built up a collection, learned more about the lore of the evil necromancer Necross and the heroes trying to defeat him, and even played the game utilizing the cards that came with the figures.

I was absolutely hooked! These toys seemed like they were made just for me.

Of course back in 1987 I knew nothing about what was being sold 7500 kilometers away and my snack choices never came with any sort of toy. I didn’t learn of the existence of these toys until almost three decades later.

The figures are about an inch tall, and include the good-aligned hero characters (about 8 per series) and many evil guys including Necross and his generals. The figures were packed randomly, and with 40 different ones available collecting them all would have been quite a challenge! They were massively successful, and over the next decade Lotte released 8 series – 320 figures in total.

As the line continued it began to include characters not restricted to standard sword and sorcery fantasy, including robots and gods, and the last set was even based around the Cthulhu mythos:

These are beautifully designed and sculpted little figures, and had these been available to 15-year-old me I would have gone mad for them. A few years ago I decided to get a few for myself as nostalgia for the other me that never existed.

This turned out to be easier said than done since these little guys are very collectible and prices can be eye-opening. Finally, during this past trip to Japan I found a few for cheap and finally began my ‘collection’:

Let’s look at each of these in order:

First we have Wood King (from the third series) who seems like a strong guy since his stats are high and his bio says he is a Demon King. The game involved drawing enemies randomly from a bag and getting progressively stronger as you defeat them, but I think this guy would be one you wouldn’t want to draw early! Each monster also came with an item that can be used to help defeat other monsters.

The Numelian (second series) is a weak monster that is apparently a ‘friend of the octopus’. He comes with a compass that helps defeat a Tengu monster. His figure is fairly small (about 2cm) and wonderful detailed for its size.

And lastly we have the Worm (third series) which is a giant worm that helps fertilize the magical woods. It seems to be of average strength.

As this toy line continued, various special features were introduced. This included some figures also being available in transparent plastic (such as my Wood King and Worm), to colour-changing plastic and eventually figures with removable plastic ‘gems’. It seems some of these fancier versions are especially rare and collectible, and I’ve seen examples well over $100 (for a single figure) in Japanese shops.

Necross toys are an example of keshi, or miniature plastic/rubber figurines. Many lines exist, and three are shown above: Kinnukiman (‘Ultimate MUSCLE’ in the west), Villgust and Monster In My Pocket. I actually recall one of the latter at Charlestown Square newsagent sometime in the early 1990s. I believe it was a dinosaur and I liked it, but I have no memory of what I did with it.

While these sorts of toys had their heyday in the 1990s, they’re far from dead. These days they have been returning in Japanese gacha machines – I’ve got some Ultraman versions – and there are blind-boxed Godzilla ones as well. Lots of indie creators make and sell them, and there’s even been some revivals in the west. Nostalgia for the old ones seems to be picking up as well, and here’s a (1 inch high) metal anniversary version of a Kinnukiman figure that I also obtained from a gacha machine:

I very much doubt I’ll ever buy any more Necross figures, but I’m happy to now own the three I do. They’re a glimpse into the memories of the other me that paradoxically seems to become closer the further away those years become.

Now excuse me; I’m going back to my other childhood, during summer 1987 in Japan. I’m home from the game center, my pocket full of Necross toys, and it’s time to watch the latest episode of Kamen Rider Black… long, long ago in the 20th Century…

Can Collection Update (& Japan Pickups)

June 23, 2025

It’s been a couple of years since my last can ‘collection’ update, and since I obtained some on each of my last three Japan trips, now seems like a good time. I’ll try to list these additions in chronological order of when I got them.

I did a bunch of attic sorting last year and unearthed the above two. They date from 2019 and were part of series of five cans to promote the Far From Home film. I have no recollection of where or when I got these.

Some more Chinese Ultraman (in this case Tiga and Mebius) cans, purchased from a shop in NYC a few years ago. The contents were sickly sweet and instantly disposed of.

These are both mysteries. I think I got the Bumblebee one during my solo 2023 Japan trip, but perhaps I found it in NYC as well? The Qdol can features Kyo Kusanagi, a character from King Of Fighters, and was found at a local Asian grocer. They only had this character but looking online he was one from a series of six cans.

Last year Coca Cola did a worldwide series of commemorative Marvel cans featuring what I personally think was mundane art of dozens of characters. Above are six of them, five from the USA and one (Groot) I got in Japan.

The Australian cans in this series were different – taller and thinner – and didn’t feature as large a range of characters. I picked these two up in Oz last year.

Back in January I bought the Ultraman coffee can in Nagoya, and despite looking never saw them (there were six different ones) for sale anywhere else. The Ultraman can was bought at a local Asian grocer.

Jessica brought both of these cans of beer back from Japan – still full! – and they feature beautiful art by Hirohiko Araki, the mangaka of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. I don’t read the manga so I don’t know if these are original characters or from the story.

And lastly we have these four. The ENHYPEN can was purchased from a drink machine in Hakodate a couple of weeks ago, and was one of a series of eight cans that I never saw anywhere else. The second is a Hololive energy drink, and was bought at a konbini. The third is a Hokkaido souvenir coke can, which was available almost everywhere in Hakodate. The Digimon milk tea can was purchased at a local Asian grocer.

And that’s that for this update to a ‘collection’ which I don’t take seriously and just sits forgotten in the attic. Come back in a few years for the next update to find out if I get any of the new Jurassic Park Dr Pepper cans available in stores right now 🙂

Robot Claw