Robot Claw – Page 29 – “Life In The So-Called Space Age”

Ultraman Cards

March 9, 2025

I bought this in Japan:

It’s a box of the initial set of the new Ultraman card game! Even single packs of this was difficult to find in Tokyo, and I only saw boxes for sale in Nagoya. It wasn’t very expensive; about $30 for a sealed box of 20 packs.

At the time I hadn’t seen the English language cards for sale in the US, but in the last month or so packs of both the original set and the first expansion turned up at a local comic store. I bought every pack I saw, and opened them all.

The cards aren’t particularly attractive, and the first set in particular is heavy on images taken directly from the TV shows. It only features Ultras taken from the last couple of decades (no Showa era Ultras at all) which is ok, but I wish it was more art-based and less photographic.

The cards themselves are well manufactured, made of thick stock with a premium feel compared to other TCGs. The chase cards are beautiful, with the ones I pulled having metallic effects, rainbow foiling and embossing. But they’re spectacularly rare, and in about 40 packs (including all my Japanese ones) I only got one (of 40) ‘AP’ cards, and no SP, SSSP, UR or ExP cards!

I don’t know how to actually play the game, since I’ve failed to find any of the starter decks for sale here in the USA! Almost no retailers have them, and sellers online ask silly money. Hopefully I’ll get them one day and see if the game is fun 🙂

As I said this is a brand new TCG launched recently (with some fanfare) by Bandai. It’s a little surprising since Bandai have so many other TCGs on the market including Battle Spirits, which recently released these two Ultraman expansions:

There have been several Ultraman expansions for Battle Spirits over the years, with these two being the most recent, with the blue one in particular only being released last December. Kristin got me a box of each for my birthday.

The red expansion box came with a single card box topper promo pack (which I haven’t opened) and the set contains 69 cards in four levels of rarity. With 20 6-card packs, how much of the full set could I get?

I can’t play this game, and the cards are very wordy and entirely Japanese but they’re so pretty! This is the level of design the official Ultraman game needs in my opinion.

All the cards (even the commons) are embossed, foiled and plastic coated making them all feel like thin credit cards. And these packs are significantly less expensive that Magic packs, which asks the question why is the quality of Magic cards not at this level?

The blue expansion box included a box-topper and a promo for the new Ultraman TCG, which I found amusing. This set has 75 different cards once again in four levels of rarity.

The cards are the same high standard as the other set, and the rare cards just as spectacular:

I’ve only opened a few packs of each, and will probably finish opening the over the next few months. Even though I can’t play it, I like these cards much more than the official TCG, and I wish it were these ones that had been translated into English 🙂

Food Contest: Halftime

March 6, 2025

For the fifth consecutive year, Bernard and I are competing in a postcard contest. With the same five judges as last year the category this time is food.

This year we’re using markers only – no pencil sketches! – and I printed cards featuring lovely AI art of girls eating. While the ten subjects – most chosen by judges – are all types of food, there is no requirement to literally depict the subject: images evocative of or inspired by are acceptable ok. At least that was the theory…

Fruit

Mine is on the left, and Bernard’s on the right. Immediately we both learned how shockingly poor quality the markers were! The colour distribution is strange, they bleed a bit onto the postcard, and they change colour as they dry. I suppose I shouldn’t have simply purchased the cheapest option, but $8 for 40 markers was a deal only a fool would have ignored!

As for the art, I wish I’d done a sunset background instead of blue (which dried darker than it looked when drawing), and Bernard’s leaves I think also suffered from colour changing.

To our surprise this first category was a tie: we each scored 7.5 points (each judge divides 3 points between the two pics)! Individual judges had preferences, but in the end the scores were even. Here’s some of their comments:

“Both good but flawed. Left pic is wallpaper-like or even stained-glass window-like, except the fruit isn’t uniform. Right pic is more striking, while having size problems and missing a shadow.”
“Love the stained-glass motif but left seemed less fruit centric. Love the blue.”
“I like the stained-glass window effect of the first picture with the checkerboard style contrasting. The structure and balance of form and colour are very well done. The second picture is pleasing in its simplicity with clever use of negative space and a modernised with the black outlines and stylised shadowing.”

Pasta

Mine is left and Bernard’s right. I hated mine. The spaghetti was extremely difficult to render with the markers, and none of the colours were quite right. I added an ‘Italian’ background but the green dried lighter and it looks silly. I was positive I’d lose… but then I got Bernard’s in the mail and suddenly wasn’t so sure!

The judges preferred mine, and I won 8.1 to 6.9. The comments suggested they liked our efforts better than we did! Here’s what they said:

“I marvel at the technical artistry in the left picture. The fork full of fettuccine is so well executed I feel like I could lean in and take a bite from the plate. Right ois a visual magnet. The combination of colours and forms is so attractive it should be gracing the front of an Italian postcard or advertising your favourite Italian restaurant.”
“Left is good but it’s a bit bland and boring.”
“Both pictures were made with longing. Made by a person really longed to see a pasta.”

Hamburger

Bernard is left and me right. I was keenly aware mine was a risk, but I felt Hamburglar was as iconic to ‘hamburger’ as a simple depiction. I was even going to draw him without any burgers, and in retrospect wish I had. I was very proud at the likeness, and was happy had the correct colours as well.

The judges were confused, and I got a couple of questions asking if mine was even allowed! Even after explaining this wasn’t supposed to be a simple ‘drawings of food’ contest they greatly preferred Bernard’s (unquestionably well rendered) literal depiction, and he won 10.3 to 4.7 in the contests first blowout!

“The left hamburger looks delicious. Two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickled onions on a sesame seed bun!!!!! I will remember that phrase till the day I die I think. Right is disappointing. I don’t want to eat those hamburgers!!”
“The Hamburglar pic is cute, but there’s so much more burger to the other one.”
“What’s the green stripe in left?”

Ramen

Mine is right, Bernard left. I went with a pop-arty approach, and traced around inverted glasses to get perfect circles. I half based mine on a reference photo but felt noodles were essential and added many more, as well as two naruto. I was happy with it, and personally felt Bernard’s – while well drawn – was lacking in actual ramen!

He scored a narrow victory with 7.3 to my 6.7. The judges were torn with two ties and it came down to one of them to cast the decider. Their comments:

“Both are great and could be T-shirt designs or something. If I had to pick a fault, the bowl on the right is maybe a tad too stylised.”
“While left is more traditional the modern twist of right is superb.”
“Left just had more… soul? Also broth, key ingredient to ramen. Kudos to the spiral fish cakes though on right.”
“I like the egg yolk on the left but it looks quite rushed. The meat color for the right is too pink and it looks too flat and lacks toppings, but I like the cartoon approach.”

Cereal

Mine is left, Bernard is right. I’m proud that I didn’t use any reference photo. I held a box of Raisin Bran as a model, and labored over the transparency of the bag which was a big challenge due to the markers. When I received Bernard’s I was impressed, but I felt it was a bit ‘safe’ and had a feeling by this point risks would be noticed by the judges. The fact we both used fruit loops was a coincidence.

The judges overwhelmingly preferred mine, and I won 10.45 to 4.55. Some comments:

“So much detail in left. I love the colours and perspective and the splashing of the milk. While right is nice it just pales besides the obvious effort taken in left.”
“I like the dynamic splash of the milk on the left, although right has something of a seriousness/still life quality to it. Did you guys align on fruit loops before starting?”
“Funny that the actual cereals are so similar. Left pic is very dynamic, and I have to award it more points.”

With one tie and two wins each we’re now tied at the halfway point! This is a challenging contest – food is much more difficult to draw than previous categories – and it’s absolutely anyone’s game at this point.

Come back in six weeks or so to see who wins!

Postcards From Japan

February 23, 2025

All told I sent us 36 postcards from Japan, and the reason I’ve waited on this post is that six of them have yet to arrive. I haven’t given up hope since after my last trip a handful of cards took three months to find their way here but I don’t want to wait that long so let’s review a selection of the ones that have arrived today.

Fuji postcards are very common, and it’s extremely likely I’ve sent you one or more over the years. The image of the Shinkansen speeding in front of Fuji is iconic, and I’ve bought and sent many cards depicting this over the years. The bottom left card is one of several 1950s-era Japanese postcards I obtained at a postcard show last summer, and you’ll see several more of them in this post.

Geisha are iconically Japanese, but aren’t exactly common. And yet they still print postcards of them, which I usually buy since they’re colourful and pretty! We saw a geisha in the wild many years ago in Kyoto. She boarded a bus in full makeup and dress, and it was obvious she was a curio even for the locals. The leftmost card shows a ropeway in Hokkaido, and I should have saved it for a future trip…

The graphic Nagoya postcards were found at a post office, which was a relief since I’d had difficulty finding other postcards in that city. The one on the bottom right came from the zoo we visited, and the bottom left one was found packed with a VHS tape in my attic during a recent cleanout. It’s over 30 years old, very flimsy, and I’m surprised it survived the mail 🙂

Every day I sent us two cards, and as usual the messages were usually a general description of what we did that day on one, and some specific incident or event on the second (like what we ate or bought). This may seem mundane, but after doing this for almost two decades it’s fun going back and reading these tiny diaries.

The bottom left one came from the Alice in Wonderland shop in Nagoya with the tiny door we had to squat down to enter. It’s a lovely card and I should have bought more of their unique designs. Postcards are still very popular in Japan and it’s not hard to find good ones, which is why I was puzzled at the apparent lack in Nagoya.

These were purchased from a tiny store in Asakusa that sold mostly photos of celebrities from decades ago. This is a weird type of Japanese shop that doesn’t have a real western equivalent (maybe I’ll blog about one some time) but I was happy and surprised to see they had a small but incredible variety of (dated) pop culture cards as well!

I sent us two lenticular cards, and the Christmas one in the middle is one of them. Sent on Christmas Day, this described the fun we had shopping the otaku shopping district (Osu) in Nagoya. On the right is our new years card. I sent 14 new years cards on January 1, in four designs. Most depicted cute snakes, but as you can see ours didn’t 🙂

As I understand, you’re not technically allowed to mail shaped postcards in Japan. And yet they print them, and I’ve sent many over the years and they all arrive. Gotochi cards (special souvenir postcards sold at post offices) are shaped as well, and I’ve now sent myself two over the years and neither have arrived. I wonder what’s special about gotochi cards that prevent them from being mailed internationally? (The above card isn’t a gotochi, but was purchased from a popup shop showcasing work by the artist.)

Here’s the other lenticular I sent us. It’s massive: easily one of it not the largest card I’ve ever mailed. It’s more than twice as large as a normal postcard, and I put a bunch of extra postage on it just in case. I was very surprised it arrived, and it’s given me the idea of mailing an even bigger – as big as an A4 page! – Japanese lenticular card that I bought years ago.

As for the six that haven’t arrived, I don’t remember what they depicted or what I wrote on them. I number my cards so I can extrapolate when and where I sent them (Nagoya and Tokyo) but can’t speculate why they never arrived when others mailed the same day in the same mailbox did.

And as for the stamps, here are all the unique ones on the cards I mailed us:

Some good stamps here, but I discovered something interesting at the very tail end of the trip so I think the stamps I send from Japan next time will be a lot more interesting…

All these cards are now put into the big binder titled ‘Japan’, which is so full I think I need to start another. And if you’re wondering, yes I left space for the missing six 🙂