When the 2017 BBM True Heart wrestling cards came out, I ordered three boxes right away. While I got some good autographs from those boxes, I missed out pulling signatures from most of my favorite wrestlers. So I headed off to Buyee, a purchasing service that allows me to get things from Yahoo! Auctions in Japan. With the cards being a recent release, there were plenty of listings, and I picked up just about everyone I wanted from the set. I'll probably still wind up ordering a couple more boxes during the year in hopes of pulling a cheki (instant photo/Polaroid) autograph, but now I've got the base set and most of the autographs I really care about. BBM made it easier on me by doing away with the short-printed autographs they tested out last year. I did think those were pretty fun, though, so it's a mixed bag. I don't have to chase them down, but I felt like they added value to the product.
Command Bolshoi (top) is the primary Japanese wrestler I collect, so her autograph was near the top of my list of signatures to chase. I've been building a run of Makoto (bottom) autographs, too. She usually signs her cards with a lot of flair, and her Twitter account is where I got my first look at the 2017 cards.
Dump Matsumoto (top) has been wrestling since around 1980, and even spent some time in the WWE back when it was called the WWF. She's a pretty big name in wrestling, so I was happy to land her card. DASH Chisako (middle) is a wrestler I like, so her signature card was on my list of cards to chase. She's wrestled in America recently as part of the Chikara King of Trios events. I don't know much about Chesca (bottom), but her Wonder Woman-inspired costume meant I had to chase down her autograph. The internet tells me that she was trained by Makoto and is the first Filipina wrestler in a Japanese promotion. She also really likes selfies.
Cassandra Miyagi (top) is also a Chikara King of Trios participant. I am not really a fan of her gimmick, but she's definitely got a striking look. Her autographs get pretty wild, and usually seem to feature something similar to the design on this one. Another wrestler I enjoy collecting is Rabbit Miu (bottom), but she retired last year and gets a Hall of Fame autograph instead of a regular autograph. It has the same print run as a regular autograph, but wrestlers who have retired in the last year usually get a Hall of Fame subset card and a Hall of Fame designation on their autograph cards. It's too bad that she is retiring after just a few years, but that's how it goes.
The final autograph that I really wanted to get was Ray. She is a high-flying wrestler who has stepped away from the ring due to an inoperable tumor in her head. Her autograph run in the 2017 set was about half of what the other wrestlers signed. A fellow True Heart fan who lives in Japan and knows many of the wrestlers personally said he was surprised that she signed at all, given how her health has been lately. While I was building this order up in my Buyee cart, I also came across a Ray autograph from 2009, so I went ahead and got it.
There are probably still a couple more autographs I'd like to get from this year's set, but this order took care of the bulk of my wish list. I'm glad that I was able to get so many of these checked off of my wish list all at once. The various fees that Buyee charges mean that this was not a cheap venture, but it was probably cheaper than busting boxes or hoping that all of these cards would eventually pop up on eBay. You can't beat the selection that comes from shopping for Japanese products in a Japanese marketplace.
BBM True Heart is one of my favorite releases each year. It is produced in Japan, and features wrestlers from most of the Japanese women's wrestling promotions. It usually releases early in the calendar year, in January or February. I get pretty excited for it as previews start to show up, and even more when pre-orders open on my favorite retail sites. This year I pre-ordered 3 boxes. Collation is usually not great, but three boxes traditionally has netted me a full base set. BBM opened three boxes on their Facebook page, and the boxes this year seem to drop 6 or 7 autographs for hits. My math suggests that there were between 1800-2000 boxes packed out for the 2017 BBM True Heart product.
Each box contains 20 packs, with 7 cards per pack. The box lid has had the same basic format for the last few years, with a group of images of the more popular wrestlers. The line of text in the upper right seems to talk about the set containing newcomers/rookies. The line in the middle talks about popular tag teams. The stuff at the bottom, just above 'BBM,' appears to discuss the rest of the checklist, which contains veterans, popular wrestlers, and the most complete lineup ever. The vertical lines of text along the right side seem to talk about the inclusion of autographed cards. I am translating this all with an app on my phone, so I may be missing some of it. The box flap traditionally features that cat wrestler in the white mascot uniform, but this year another cat-themed wrestler appears alongside. Her name is Kuroneko, and she recently made an appearance on the This Card is Cool blog. The MSRP on a box is 8,000 JPY, which at current rates is about $72. You can usually find them a bit cheaper at release, but you also have to account for overseas shipping if you are not based in Japan.
The bottom of the box has the checklist. This year's set has 135 cards in it, broken up into a few subsets. Last year there were base autographs, special ink inscription autographs limited to 5 copies apiece, and cheki (Polaroid-style) autographed photos. This year the special ink autographs were dropped, and the print runs on the base autographs were normalized, so almost everyone with an autograph signed 95 base autographs. There is a little more variation with the instant photos, with wrestlers signing between 3 and 9 photos. There are 115 different signers in the set, and 54 photo subjects. If you want to view the checklist, you can look at it here.
The box lid also has two of these little perforated hanger tags on the underside. They've got a little hole at the top so that a shop owner can hang them on a peg.
The pack itself mimics the design of the box, and has the usual pack stuff on the back, some legalese and a truncated breakdown of the checklist.
Top Row: Aja Kong - アジャコング, Kyoko Inoue - 井上京子, Manami Katsu - 勝 愛実
Bottom Row: Kyusei Ninja Ranmaru - 救世忍者乱丸, Maho Kurone - 黒音まほ, Command Bolshoi - コマンド・ボリショイ
The base cards have had the same basic design formula for the last few years. You get one or two shots of the wrestler in their ring gear, posed against a colorful background.
The card backs also feature a familiar formula, with a single action photo of the wrestler, a paragraph about them, and a block of information like birthdate, debut date, height, weight, and stuff of that nature.
Top Row: Reika Saiki - 才木玲佳, Meiko Satomura - 里村明衣子, Third Generation Misaki Guriko - 三代目・三崎グリ子
Bottom Row: Sawako Shimono - 下野佐和子, DASH Chisako - DASH・チサコ, Dump Matsumoto - ダンプ松本
Cards 1-129 in the set all feature individual active wrestlers. That only leaves room for a couple of small subsets at the end of the checklist. Reika Saiki has got some interesting stuff out there, like this video game-inspired arm wrestling video.
She's got some arms on her, that's for sure. She is also a member of an idol group called Deadlift Lolita. The other member of the group is the cross-dressing male wrestler Ladybeard. They have a Facebook page, a web page, and a music video. I usually find some pretty interesting stuff when researching these posts, and this certainly didn't disappoint.
I'm still trying to recover from those videos. Wow. They overshadowed some other notable wrestlers from that set of scans, though, like Meiko Satomura, DASH Chisako, and Dump Matsumoto. There are always a couple of wrestlers I regret scanning for these posts, because I can't quite translate their names. I think the wrestler in the upper right is another alter-ego of Misaki Ohata, or maybe someone trained by her? I'm not sure.
There are some horizontal cards in the set, so I had to scan a few of them for this post. Cassandra Miyagi has wrestled in the United States. She was part of the trio that won Chikara's King of Trios event in 2016, which also included Meiko Satomura and DASH Chisako.
Nonoko (bottom left) is the woman who is arm wrestling Reika Saiki in the video embedded above. Pretty much every online profile she has mentions her cup size, and the back of her card mentions it, too. She has a YouTube video that is a spoof of the PPAP (Pen Pineapple Apple Pen) song that was big a few months ago. I'm not going to link to it here, though. A lot of these wrestlers have other work outside of wrestling. Some are musicians or DJs, some probably have more conventional jobs, some are bodybuilders, and a lot of them do modeling or acting in some form or fashion.
Top Row: Chesca - チェスカ, Tequila Saya - テキーラ沙弥, Arisa Nakajima - 中島安里紗 Bottom Row: Hibiscus Mii - ハイビスカスみぃ, Ayako Hamada - 浜田文子, Vancouver Cat - バンクーバーキャット
There are a couple of comic-inspired costumes in this scan. You've got a Wonder Woman-inspired getup on Chesca in the upper left, and a Harley Quinn cosplay on Vancouver Cat in the lower right. You can see in the background picture of Vancouver Cat's card that she's got a Canadian maple leaf on the front of her regular ring gear. I can't pass up mentioning Ayako Hamada here, as she's done some wrestling in the U.S. over the years. I also have to laugh a little every time I see Hibiscus Mii, as she is sponsored by A&W.
Out of my three boxes I was able to complete one base set. That's kind of disappointing, but that's how it is. I wound up with two or three copies of most cards in the set, but there were a few on the checklist that I only pulled one copy of, and I pulled four copies of a few other cards. I got 117 / 135 or 118 / 135 cards from the set in each box, and pulled 16 doubles from each box. The variance comes from the fact that I got 6 autographs in two of the boxes and 7 autographs from the other. You get enough cards to complete two base sets and most of a third from three boxes, but your doubles have to line up right, and mine didn't. That leaves me with a base set and most of two more.
Akane Fujita is apparently a baseball fan. Ray is a favorite wrestler of mine. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor a while ago. As far as I know, she is in pretty poor health at the moment. The first three-card subset is subtitled 'Hall of Fame,' and features wrestlers who retired in 2016. It is made up of cards 130-132. Rabbit Miu was a personal favorite wrestler of mine. I read somewhere that she retired because she was getting married. That is a pretty common occurrence in these promotions.
The second subset fills the last three card numbers in the set, 133-135, and highlights tag teams. The card I chose to scan shows Hikaru Shida and Syuri.
Zippy Zappy recently (well, kind of recently) announced his intent to collect many cards featuring the Japanese baseball Chunichi Dragons. I couldn't help noticing that Akane Fujita is wearing some Dragons gear on the back of her card, including some blue ears that resemble those of the Dragons' koala mascot. Most wrestlers who retire get a final show centered around them, and the cards usually feature photos from that retirement event. I think that's a cool little touch. That about does it for the base set.
This first scan is the box I pulled seven autographs from. I didn't pull a lot of autographs from the wrestlers I actively collect in this batch of boxes, but I got a nice variety of autographs. Rather than bust a bunch of wax chasing specific cards, I just sought out the ones I was looking for on Yahoo! Auctions in Japan and used a buying service to get them. I got that package the other day, which is really pressing me to get this post done. I'm not 100% sure on some of these names. I can usually find pages or pictures of the wrestlers, but I can't always get the names right.
There are some names I recognize here. It is pretty cool that I got Reika Saiki's autograph. I am not sure why Marika Kobashi signed in gold ink, but her print run is 95 cards, just like nearly every other wrestler in the set. I guess that's the pen she had nearby. I like cards with props in them, like Akane Fujita's glove and ball.
I think I am running out of stuff to say. There weren't a lot of autographs in this last box that jumped out at me. I do like that Hibiscus Mii autograph, though, because of the A&W branding on her gear. If every wrestler had sponsorship logos on their gear, it might get a little old, but she's the only one I know of and that makes it kind of cool.
Those were my three boxes of 2017 BBM True Heart. I've got most of the autographs I really wanted, but I will probably still bust a few more boxes of this stuff so I can chase more base sets and maybe some of the rare autographed photos. I always like chasing this product and adding more True Heart cards from any year to my collection.
I still haven't done my review of the three boxes of 2017 BBM True Heart Japanese Women's Wrestling cards I opened, but that is a post that requires a lot of research and typing. I picked up a handful of joshi autographs from other years to fill out various personal collections recently.
First up is a couple of Dash Chisako ( DASH・チサコ ) cards from the 2016 BBM True Heart set. I didn't really intend to win two of these, but somehow I managed to bid on two copies of this card. I won't complain too hard, as I've been trying to get one of her autographs for a while now.
Up next is a cheki photo of Rabbit Miu ( ラビット美兎 ), who retired at the end of last year. I think I read that she decided to retire because she is getting married, which is a pretty common thing in these wrestling promotions. I think I had most of her base autographs from the 2012-2017 sets, but I wanted to get one of these autographed photos to close out the collection. She was one of the shortest wrestlers in the game at around 4'6" tall. These photos are pretty rare, and this one from 2012 is numbered # 7 / 7.
I also grabbed a couple of Ayako Hamada ( 浜田 文子 ) autographs. She has gained some fame wrestling for U.S. promotions, as well as her work in Japan and Mexico. This one from 2006 BBM True Heart is numbered # 03 / 93. The earlier BBM True Heart sets featured casual photos on the fronts and wrestling action photos on the backs, but a couple of years ago they moved away from the casual photos aside from the occasional subset.
I also got a 2016 autograph, with a couple of ink colors and some inscriptions. This one is numbered # 041 / 100. Her signature remained remarkably consistent from 2006 through 2016. I wonder if I could say the same about mine?
I picked up a few other autographs, with most of this quartet coming from the 2015 BBM True Heart set. The card in the upper left is Hiroyo Matsumoto ( 浜田 文子 ). I don't know a lot about her, but I thought it was funny that she signed as 'Lady Destroyer.' Today I learned that she got that nickname because she broke a wall during her debut match.
Next up is a 2016 base autograph of Makoto ( 真琴 ). I pulled her rare parallel autograph and a cheki photo of her from the set, but I still hadn't picked up Makoto's base autograph. It's nice to complete the set.
On the bottom left is a 2015 autograph of Meiko Satomura ( 里村 明衣子 ), probably one of the more respected joshi wrestlers. Along with Dash Chisako and Cassandra Miyagi, she won the 2016 Chikara King of Trios tournament over a team made up of Command Bolshoi, Hanako Nakamori, and Manami Katsu. I would love to attend a King of Trios tournament, but Pennsylvania is pretty far from me. This year's King of Trios event is even further away, being held in England.
The lower right autograph is Lin Byron ( リン・バイロン ), the unmasked alternate identity of the wrestler known as Ray. Ray / Lin Byron is still fighting a brain tumor, and the JWP promotion holds benefit events for her pretty regularly.
Here are the card backs. Most of the print runs are around 90 cards apiece, with some wrestlers signing more and some signing fewer. In the 2017 set the print runs have been standardized, with nearly every wrestler signing 95 cards. There are a couple of wrestlers with 89 or 90 autographs, and Ray only signed 55 cards.
I made my first order from Amazon Japan recently. The main thing I was after was a 2017 wrestling photo book, but I caved in and decided to order a P★League Bowling DVD, too. I figured I ought to watch some bowling if I am going to collect bowling cards.
Here's what greeted me when I opened the box. Pretty much exactly what I ordered. The surprising thing was the shipping speed. Shipping from Amazon Japan is pretty expensive, but it gets where it's going quickly. I think it was delivered within two or three days of me placing the order.
The DVD is formatted for non-U.S. markets, but I have a video player that gets around that. There are three discs in the set. Apparently the DVD sets contain tournaments that are especially made for the DVDs, rather than being reruns of televised tournaments.
Inside the case I found the discs, a lanyard, and a booklet that was sealed with a sticker.
The booklet contains pictures of each of the six teams that compete in the tournament. There are five bowlers per team. Those little graphs on the side show their relative strengths in categories like power and precision. The 30 bowlers almost match the 30 bowlers in the 2016 P★League trading card set. The captain of the Black team, Miki Nishimura, doesn't appear in the trading card set. Shoko Furuta does appear in the card set, but doesn't appear on the DVD. Other than that, the rosters for the DVD and the card sets match.
I'm not 100% sure what this page is all about. Selfies are involved, along with some stuff along the bottom that looks like bowler names in the format of the YouTube logo. It might have to do with one of the DVD segments, which I'll probably discuss later.
And here's the DVD directory. I can't read it, so I just had to click the buttons on the menus to see what started playing. The tournament starts out with something that looked like a draft, with team captains drawing slips of paper out of hats. I have to admit that I didn't watch a lot of the draft because I didn't understand what anyone was saying. As the bowlers were selected for teams, they walked across a catwalk stage and do a spin while a couple of announcers talked about them, like a fashion show of sorts. I couldn't tell what they were saying, but one of the commentators had a pervy tone to his voice that kind of creeped me out. I could have done without that portion of the DVD.
Then the tournament started. The first round was made up of matches between three teams. Each group of three played two games to see which team would advance. First place earned 3 points, second place earned 1 point, and third place got 0 points. At the end of two games, ties were broken with a sudden-death game of bowling for strikes. Once one team from each group advanced to the second round, the four remaining teams played a quick-elimination game to allow one other team to advance.
The second round was another 3-team game, with the two top scores advancing to the final. The final round was a series of games between the two teams, with each team selecting fewer and fewer players from their ranks to participate. It was all relatively entertaining. I found myself rooting for some teams and against other teams. I was surprised, as based on the trading cards I had some idea of who I might be a fan of, and watching the DVDs completely changed my mind.
One other feature the DVD set had, which might be related to the selfie page in the booklet, was a short feature on each bowler's personal life. They show their home bowling alley, and usually their pets. Most of them also wind up cooking and/or eating some food during their clip.
Was the DVD set worth the purchase price? I don't know. Once you watch the bowling tournament one time, there isn't a whole lot of drama to it. I will probably watch it a couple more times. I haven't watched all of the bowler profile videos yet. It was probably worth the pickup just to get some connection with the trading cards.
Next up was this 2017 wrestling photo book. There is another similar book that releases a little earlier in the year, but that one just features portraits. This one features 824 pictures of wrestlers. Most are from various Japanese promotions, but there are several pages of WWE wrestlers included, too.
I am not that familiar with the male Japanese wrestlers, but there are plenty of entertaining photos from their ranks. I'm pretty sure I never want to visit 'The Gate of Destiny.'
The Joker made an appearance, as did Harley Quinn and Wonder Woman. That guy in the middle must be related to the guy on the right. The resemblance is striking, but they have different names. Google tells me that they are not actually the same guy. They are twins, though, who wrestle as The Brahman Brothers. One cool thing I learned about from Twitter was that you can use the Google Translate app to scan and translate text from photos.
but don't worry if you can't! Google translate is actually hella awesome at scanning and translating text, & you can enjoy the pictures too!
So if you've got some text you need to translate and a smart phone, I would recommend this method. It worked out really well for me.
I had to take pictures of some blog favorites, like Command Bolshoi in the middle there. She and Cassandra Miyagi (far right) were featured heavily in a documentary I watched today about a wrestling tournament here in the United States, CHIKARA Pro's King of Trios event.
I may actually have to purchase the DVD of that event, if only because it features some of my favorite Japanese wrestlers in an English-language event.
Here are a few more favorites, in Ayako Hamada, Makoto, and Ray. I don't have a lot of news regarding Ray and the tumor they found in her head, but she is fairly active on Twitter and the Joshi promotions continue to promote Ray Aid events. I imagine she is going through treatment and hoping for a good prognosis.
Like I mentioned earlier, there were a few pages in the back devoted to WWE properties. I grabbed a few pictures of wrestlers I am paying attention to. I guess The Rock has moved on from wrestling, but he is one of the most famous names out there. You might as well get him in the magazine.
Also in the WWE section are a couple of Japanese transfers who are making big waves in the promotion lately, Asuka and Shinsuke Nakamura, who currently hold the Women's and Men's championship belts in the WWE's developmental NXT promotion.
These wrestling catalogs are some of my favorite non-card releases each year, and the 2017 version didn't disappoint. Overall this package from Amazon Japan was a pretty good one. Shipping can get pretty expensive when bringing stuff across the ocean, but you can't get this stuff here. Actually, sometimes you can. This catalog and the headshot only version are currently on sale from The Puro Central Shop if you want one, but don't want to deal with a foreign website.
