Robot Claw

Bikkuriman Star Wars Complete!

July 15th, 2024

Last year in Japan, this happened. This year I succeeded in finding more.

The above is the full set of the second Bikkuriman Star Wars stickers, this time themed around the prequels. I bought this as a set, rather than a box of wafers, and it wasn’t cheap at ¥4500! As with the original set, the stickers are vibrant, cute and very sparkly:

The backs of the stickers are very similar to the first set including the ‘rumours’:

I dearly wish I had more of these since they’d be wonderful to actually use! Wouldn’t you love this on a postcard:

But my success didn’t stop there, since I also found this lone sealed wafer:

This is a from the third (and final) series of Bikkuriman Star Wars, called ‘Special Edition’. Although the wafer expired 8 years ago, I purchased it (for ¥800, or about $5) just for the sticker. And which one did I get…

Nothing! The pack didn’t have a sticker on it! I’ve opened many dozens of these in the past and this is the first time this has happened. I would have been raging if it wasn’t for the fact that I had also found…

The full set of series three as well! As you can see there’s a lot of variety in this third series, including lots of stickers showing character pairs, vehicles and battles. The set also contains four embossed stickers with a gold foil effect:

As with the previous sets these are all very metallic and sparkly and I would have loved to have extras to put on postcards. In fact I was looking forward to using the one that should have been in the empty wafer!

So now I have the full set of 72 Star Wars Bikkuriman stickers. They’re all sleeved and safe in a special chocolate sticker binder 🙂

But the search is not yet over, since there’s certain other sets of stickers I would still like to complete…

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Ramen Universes Beyond: Chiikawa and Puyo Pop

July 11th, 2024

It’s time for some more licensed ramen, this time two examples I purchased recently in Japan.

We’ll start with this Chiikawa ramen, based on a popular manga series that has been licensed to hell and back. Chiikawa is super popular in Japan right now, and I saw long lines (of exclusively young women) just to enter some of the popup shops.

The ramen is soy sauce flavour, but caught my eye since it contains Chiikawa naruto (little fish cakes) which feature the characters face and are incredible finely made:

That’s not printed: the pattern extends right through the fish cake with sub-millimeter detail! I’d love to see the machine that made these. Once prepared the ramen looked like this:

And… it was almost good! The first and second bits were quite tasty, and I was about to take a third when the awful chemical aftertaste hit. That was the end of it for me, but I still liked the cute little Chiikawa faces 🙂

Next up we have this Puyo Pop ramen. Much like the Chiikawa one this is quite small – possibly intended for children – and while this is heavily branded with the characters from the game, it seems to just be a standard kitsune udon ramen and doesn’t specify a flavour. It also doesn’t promise special naruto inside.

So imagine my surprise when I opened it and found these tiny sakura flower naruto in the flavour packet! I liked the look of the noodles as well. I added the dehydrated tofu brick and hot water and this is what it looked like:

And… it’s not for me. It tasted like petrified wood, which is a shame since the noodle size and texture was great. If I had bought two of these I would have tossed the flavour packet of the other and used one from a chicken ramen!

While neither of these were to my liking, both get a high score due to the cute little naruto. Next time I’m in Japan I’ll be watching out for more like these!

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Classic Doctor Who Trading Cards

July 8th, 2024

I bought thirteen packs of Doctor Who trading cards last year and I think they’ve aged enough. Time to open them!

As you can see there were four series, released from 1994 through 1996. Unusually these were printed by an American company, but even though I knew of them and looked for them at the time I never saw them sold here. They of course only cover classic Who, since the relaunch was several years away when these were printed.

The above shows the contents of a series 1 pack. Ten cards, each nicely designed (especially for the time) and with a great deal of text on the back. I would have loved these thirty years ago!

A nice touch is that the first three series continue numbering and share design, and it’s almost impossible to tell which particular series a card comes from if you don’t look at the number. Here are cards from each of the first three sets:

Series 1 and 2 have a small (about 1 in 500) chance of autographs in the packs. Of particular interest to me was the Jon Pertwee autograph apparently possible in series 2, and there were traces of excitement in the house as I opened the packs. Alas I was not lucky, and in fact only got two chase cards between all 13 packs:

The leftmost is a glossy card that has a puzzle piece on the back, and the rightmost is a very nicely done foil card (both these came from series 3 packs). These are of average quality for chase cards of that era, and I think would have been satisfying enough to pull from packs.

The 4th series was a surprise. Not only is the design completely different and the numbering resets, but the cards are uglier, many of them are poorly aligned or even miscut and the text written on the back not as good. If I’d bought these in 1996 I would have expected consistency with the first 3 sets (based on the wrapper) and would have been disappointed with the changes.

Overall though, it was fun opening these 30 year old packs of cards, and I’m happy I only got a single double and now have about a third of the full set!

Now let’s go back even further… almost fifty years to be precise!

Back in 1976 Ty-Phoo tea (in the UK) had a promotion called The Amazing World Of Doctor Who. This comprised a booklet, wall chart and set of 12 trading cards randomly packed into boxes of tea. Here’s the full set:

I bought these (for only $5!) at the antique store we visited the other day. They’re in incredible condition for their age, and as a relic of now-ancient Who they’re fantastic. As a fourteen-year-old I would have treasured these!

The back of each card has the name of the character/monster shown, and information on how to buy the book. Based on the rates quoted, you’d have needed to drink a lot of tea to collect a full set of these, so I suppose I’m fairly lucky I own them!

They’ll happily live in a case in a box in a chest for ever 🙂

Posted in Blog, Collecting, History, Otaku, Retro, Trading Cards | Comments Closed

Fireworks and Antiques!

July 7th, 2024

We went to Rochester for a few days for July 4 and a very special 80th birthday!

That’s what we lit this year, which as usual we had purchased in Pennsylvania a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately I was stung by a wasp shortly after arriving (even now, four days later, the sting site is swollen and painful) which was a bit of a setback and required a few changes to our early July 4 plans, but luckily it didn’t impact our evening.

We purchased one of these instant fireplace logs just to see how they worked and we were extremely impressed. A single match resulted in a fire that burned for about two hours and could have easily been used for cooking. If you’ve seen these in a shop and debated buying one, I recommend it!

The fireworks were of course wonderful, and this year even more neighbors were launching their own so the sound of nearby booms and crackling was near endless.

And as usual I edited some of the highlights together (on my phone) into a brief video:

And here’s a shot of the birthday girl celebrating her 80th:

The garbage lid was a shield against potential firework mishaps, which as it turns out was almost needed when one of them fell over and launched a projectile that just missed us!

The next night the festivities continued when we went to a drive-in not far from where KLS’s parents live. It was a massive four-screen place with a mini golf course and a large food/snack shop (with eye-opening prices) that sold the biggest frozen coke I’ve ever seen! This beast was about a kilogram of frozen coke and filled a cup as big as my head. Even sharing, it took KLS and I well into the film to finish this one 🙂

While in Rochester we also visited the largest antiques mall in New York state, which has two sites and over 1000 dealers! The above is a photo taken in the larger of the two locations, showing a hall of booths each of which is full of treasures for sale. This particular site was a converted strip mall, and had dozens of halls like the above with several hundred booths in total. Kristin and I were determined to see everything, but even going at a cracking pace it took us over four hours to browse the two locations.

It was absolutely fascinating, with an incredible variety of items for sale. Of course there was lots of the usual tableware and art and decor items and the like, but there were also many unusual and specialized booths such as a seller who specialized in political badges.

I almost bought that 48-year-old King Kong glass, but you can be assured I had no interest in the weird PEZ and definitely not the sealed box of disturbing Trolls trading cards.

I browsed through those View Master slides looking for Doctor Who (without success), and I may have bought that Pac-Man bowl had it been in much better condition. The Hitler stamps though: not for me!

My big mistake was not buying this portable TRS-80 computer. A precursor to a laptop, this includes a several line LCD display and came with the programming manuals. Did it work? I don’t know. Was it worth the risk at about $56? Probably.

Even though I made the wrong decision on the computer, I did make a couple of intriguing purchases as well as hundreds of postcards. You’ll read about them one day on this blog 🙂

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60 More Hours Of Ultraman!

July 2nd, 2024

As of my last update I had watched over 360 hours of Ultraman series. Only a fool would have stopped, so let’s catch up with what I’ve seen since then…

Ultraman Z (2020, 25 episodes, 12.5 hours)

This one has a fantastic cast with likable guys, lovable girls and the brilliant inclusion of ex-villian Jugglus Juggler as the captain of the defense force. It started very strong, but kept getting better and better until the very end. I loved the many cameos (Geed, Zero and Ace), the fact Z got the Beliarok sword, and that robot versions of famous kaiju were used as Earth defense vehicles. In addition to great characters and story, the special effects are great and the final ‘Zestium Beam’ in episode 25 may be the best ever in Ultra-history! The opening theme is great as well. This is one of my all-time favourite Ultra series.

Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Absolute Conspiracy (2020, 2 hours)

This is a short web series (on YouTube) that introduces ‘The Absolutians’ led by the incredible powerful ‘Absolute Tartarus’; a sort of evil version of Ultramen with incredible visual design. The story is about Ultras investigating the universal threat of the Absolutians. In truth, this series is just an excuse for lots of over-the-top and CGI-heavy fights, and the plot is bonkers madness. Tartarus is super cool, and it was cool to see Belial and Tregear before they turned evil, but the highlight for me was the splash screens introducing every Ultra when they appeared. It was lovely to see 80 again! Overall a fun watch.

Ultraman Trigger (2021, 25 episodes, 12.5 hours)

This was a heavily hyped series, since it’s the spiritual successor of Ultraman Tiga which remains one of the highest rated Ultra series of all time. Overall I enjoyed it, but not as much as Z. The plot is heavily based around the history of Trigger himself, who has a dark side (‘Trigger Dark’) and an evil ex-girlfriend! It was all a little weird but the cast is good and the chemistry between them – especially the flamboyant intergalactic thief character – was strong. The effects in this series evolved from ‘great’ to ‘extremely good’, and I think this was the first series where some of the CGI was essentially seamless to the live action. I liked the ending, but it was somewhat unsatisfying since there’s currently no translated way to watch the sequel film. Worth watching.

Ultra Galaxy Fight: The Destined Crossroad (2022, 2 hours)

This is the sequel to the previous year’s Ultra Galaxy Fight series (and is also on YouTube) and the story continues on directly with the Absolutian threat. One notable element is the addition of a brand new ultra – named Regulos – who is held capture by the Absolutians and is a bit of a mystery. I wonder if we’ll find out who he is…? Plot aside, this is another endless series of high-powered fights between Ultras and all sorts of foes and since it includes dozens and dozens of Ultras it’s obviously red meat for a fan like me 🙂

Ultraman Decker (2022, 25 episodes, 12.5 hours)

Tsuburaya have been knocking them out of the park for a few years now, and this series from 2022 continued the high production values of Trigger and Z with a – once again – great cast with wonderful chemistry. The leader seems stilted at first but isn’t at all, the robot (Hane2) is fun but the girl (Kirino) is mesmerizingly cute and – for me – stole every scene she was in! There were a lot of nostalgic episodes in this one that gave me the feels, and more than once this story resonated with my past experiences visiting Japan. The future storyline segments involving the ‘original’ decker were especially good science fiction, and I’d love to see a series based around the human Decker from the future. I loved that I’ve got a bunch of the cards Decker uses to transform since they’re the same ones used by the Ultraman arcade game at that time (that I got addicted to in a couple of Japan trips). This is another wonderful Ultra series.

Ultraman Regulos (2019, 6 episodes, 1.5 hours)

This is a YouTube series about a mysterious Ultra who trains to become the grandmaster of ‘Cosmo Beast Style’ martial arts. It’s an unusual introduction to a new Ultra, and making him a martial artist is cool but it’s also a bit weird. This of course explains the character that was introduced in The Destined Crossroads, and it was clever that it’s also a backstory for Absolut Diavolo. Oh, and it’s bonkers as well.

Ultraman Blazar (2023, 25 episodes, 12.5 hours)

This was the first post-Shin Ultraman series and it shows. For starters Blazar’s host is an adult with a wife and child, and the series is divorced from previous lore, with all-new kaiju and no crossovers at all. The team is much more believable and human than in any previous show, and they question events in the same way the characters of Shin did. The story is full of mystery, and slow-burning under the monster-of-the-week episodes is an unfolding conspiracy unlike anything in previous Ultra-series. Blazar himself is a very unusual Ultra, and if I have any criticism of the show it’s that we don’t learn enough about him. The special effects are extremely good, especially some of Blazar’s attacks. One of my all-time favourite Ultra series, and this will be my recommendation for a starting point for older viewers.

Ultraman Regulos: First Mission (2022, 20 minutes)

A short YouTube special where Regulos (and Ultraman Ribut) team up to defeat a threat. Basically an excuse for Regulos to show us his ‘Cosmo Beast’ powers, it’s silly fun and as with the others in this series heavy on lore and Ultra history.

Ultraman Rising (2024, 2 hours)

This Netflix Ultraman animated film just came out, and it tells a story of a young baseball hero who unwillingly inherited the mantle of Ultraman. The kid-friendly story involves a baby kaiju and occasionally gets a bit too cute, but the show is loaded with references to Ultra-history and is a labor of love by those who made it. The visuals are beautiful, and special mention must be given to ILM for the special attack effects which are breathtaking. I enjoyed this one much more than I thought I would, and very much hope we get the teased sequel.

While I was watching the above main series, I also made the Bandai model kit for each Ultra! These were inexpensive, easy and fun to assemble, and all of them look great. I hope Bandai makes similar kits for older Ultramen.

That’s 420 hours of Ultraman so far! Am I done? Of course not! I’m currently watching Ultraman Max, have three other old series on DVD to watch, and the brand new series Ultraman Arc begins (on YouTube) this weekend! Guess who’ll be watching it on day one? 🙂

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