The World Of Bootleg Chinese Waifu Cards

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 Heat Of The Sun Which Is Stored In The Pavement Feels So Fine

I’ve walked about 75,000 steps these past three days, almost all of them in 90F+ heat. I think I’m past my limit, and will greatly enjoy this leisurely train ride home in my private roomette.

Today I went to the United Nations, because of course I wanted to send some more postcards using UN stamps. Watch your mailbox: there’s a good chance you’re getting one. The stamp shop was busy – which I’d never seen before – but they didn’t have many new stamps since last year and some of the better ones were only sold as sheets which were too many for me. But it was cool in the visitors center and I made the most of that.

Last night on the news they said the weather was 14F/6C above average, and rain will come in tomorrow and drop the temperature 30 degrees in two days. The heat arrived when I did, and it seems will depart with me as well. I hope we have different destinations!

Heat aside, it was a fun trip as usual. I enjoyed the tower a lot and had great success in my can hunting. One day in a year or so I’ll show the ones I found on the blog 🙂

Oh and I bought a Switch 2 as well…

I’m On The Top Of The World Lookin’ Down On Creation

Ok, ok I’ll admit it: I didn’t come here just to hunt dinosaur cans! You may recall that I came last year to go up the last observation tower in the city that I hadn’t visited and was foiled by cloud. I’m back for another try!

A quick trip on the subway and I was back at One World Observatory, the tallest building in the USA. The skies were clear so I knew I’d enjoy some nice views today!

It was insanely hot today and even walking around outside for a few minutes was uncomfortable. The air conditioning in the foyer was sublime and even if the tower (which cost $43) disappointed at least I would be underwhelmed in comfort!

Thankfully the views were wonderful. There are three levels to the observatory and the best one (floor 100) is 380 meters above the ground. Even from this height you could see details on the ground below and a great view for many miles. The above photo shows the view to the southwest: can you see the Statue of Liberty?

That’s looking directly down. The thin tower on the left is residential and appears incredibly tall from the ground, but you tower over it from One World Observatory. Almost all of the other buildings that make up the majority of the city are at least six stories tall, but look tiny from that high.

That’s looking north back toward midtown, with the Hudson River on the left and East River on the top right. If you look very closely you can see the Empire State Building (next to my hotel).

One World was expensive to visit and isn’t in midtown where the other four observation platforms are, but I enjoyed it a lot and would say it’s worth the visit if you’re ever in the city. To be honest I liked the high views so much it makes me want to visit Skytree again…

As I said the heat was extreme today – almost unendurable! The big difference to yesterday was the terrible humidity, and I spent much of the day drenched in sweat. I drunk the entire bottle in one hearty slug, and I needed to do this so many times today I’m surprised I didn’t drown!

In the afternoon I did some more shopping, and then went to see the Times Square lights which seem to multiply every year. Even after dark it’s still uncomfortably warm outside, and the AC of my hotel room when I returned was blissful!

Tomorrow I’ll head home, but not before another activity I like to do every time I visit the city. Can you guess what it is?