Star Wars Bikkuriman Episodes IV, V, VI

This is my third post about the Star Wars Bikkuriman stickers I've collected. I've already shown the Special Edition set that features the first six films and the set covering Episodes I, II, and III, so now it's time for the set covering the original films, Episodes IV, V, and VI.

Like the other sets, these stickers are about 1 inch x 1 inch in size and came packed with chocolate wafer cookies. For the Special Edition set I actually bought a box of cookies and built my own set, but getting the sets covering the original and prequel trilogies in boxed form was cost-prohibitive and I wound up grabbing them from eBay. The stickers feature shiny foil backgrounds with images of characters and scenes from the movies. The original Bikkuriman stickers featured fantasy characters and these Star Wars stickers borrow the art style from those stickers. They were produced and distributed in Japan. There are 24 stickers in each set. My favorites in this initial batch of 8 are Darth Vader, Yoda, and Leia.

I scanned the backs for the sake of completeness. Some day I'm sure this will be beneficial to someone seeking information about these sets. I can't read the backs of these, so I don't know exactly what is there outside of stuff like the sticker number, a title, legal stuff, set information, and probably a short description paragraph.

I think this set is my favorite of the group, as there really isn't a bad sticker in the bunch. I'm especially glad that Admiral Ackbar got a sticker. The Emperor's Force Lightning is a nice touch. Jabba the Hutt and Boba Fett are my other favorites from this batch.

I believe some of the stickers had variant backs announcing that the recipient was a winner. I read somewhere that you could mail in a winning sticker for a prize, but I never was able to verify the details or what the prize might have been.

The final batch of eight starts digging a little for characters, but there are some good ones here, like Lando Calrissian, Luke on a Tauntaun, and the lightsaber duel between Luke and Darth Vader.

I'm pretty happy that I was able to add these sets to my collection. I love Star Wars and I love getting stuff from Japan that isn't easy to find in the United States. I like the illustration style on these stickers. It would be neat to get some of the original Bikkuriman stickers, but I only have resources to support so many different collections. I'll probably just settle for these Star Wars stickers for the moment. Now if only I could find a good way to store them.

Star Wars Bikkuriman Stickers: Episodes I, II, III

Back in mid-January I busted open a box of Star Wars Bikkuriman: Special Edition stickers from Japan. These stickers are packed with some decently tasty chocolate wafer snacks. The Special Edition set was actually the third product released. There were two previous sets; one for the prequel trilogy and one for the original trilogy. I got a good deal on the Special Edition box, but buying boxes of the other two sets was cost-prohibitive. There was a seller on eBay, though, who had both sets listed together for about what one box of wafers would have cost me. I used my portion of our recent windfall to snap the lot up, as all the other online sellers wanted double the price for the sets.

Each series contains 24 stickers. I think they're a little over an inch square. They've got shiny foil backgrounds and illustrations featuring key characters and scenes from the movies. I'm more of an original trilogy guy than a prequel guy, so my favorites here are the droids and Yoda. The prequels had some pretty good moments, but they also had way too many of these moments:

The illustration style is based on the original Bikkuriman stickers which featured fantasy characters and were part of a game. From my understanding, though, the game was largely secondary to collecting the stickers.

That's not to say that the prequels didn't have their moments, though. My kids were fans of seeing the Jar Jar Binks sticker in this set. I've read a fan theory positing that Jar Jar is the big bad guy manipulating the Sith, but I just don't believe that. It would be a heck of a reveal, though.

I don't really know what the backs of the stickers say. I know the titles are the same as the text on the front of the stickers. I would imagine that there is some descriptive text beneath those along with all the copyright information and logos and stuff. I mostly included scans of all the backs so that some future person out there searching for information on the set can see it all in one place.

I thought sticker # 18 was a nice inclusion as it shows the issuance of Order 66 to Commander Cody, initiating the extermination of the Jedi order. We also get to see Anakin as Darth Vader and a couple of key lightsaber battles from the films. Pretty cool stuff.

I like these stickers, but they have an odd size that isn't easy to store. They are popular enough in Japan that they make special sheets for them, but I don't know if they are available here in America, especially in the small quantity I would need. They do make pages for film slides, but I don't know if they are the right size. I guess I could go and do some measuring, but the idea just came to me so I haven't done it yet.

"What are those picture thingys, Grandpa?"

The auction listing appeared to show the stickers in pages and I secretly hoped that the proper-sized pages would come along with the stickers, but they were packaged in regular 9-card pages from Ultra-Pro. I guess Japanese collectors don't want to pony up for a whole box of Bikkuriman pages, either.

Pack of the Day 117: Lotte Star Wars Bikkuriman Special Edition Stickers Box Break

I saw some Japanese Star Wars Bikkuriman stickers around the internet, including the card blogs Torren' Up Cards and This Card is Cool. Upon further research I found that there were three different series of these wafers packaged with stickers. One series covers the original Star Wars IV-V-VI trilogy, one is based on the I-II-III prequels, and one covers all six films and carries the label Special Edition.

I located boxes of the Special Edition wafers for sale on one of my favorite Japanese shopping sites (the same place I get my unopened BBM True Heart Wrestling cards) for about $20 less than the going rate for a Special Edition sticker set on eBay, even after shipping. The sets contain 24 stickers each, and a box of wafers contains 30 pieces. I'd heard that a box will get you a full set, so I made my order and waited f...o...r...e...v...e...r (several days) while the box made its way across the ocean, through customs, and onto my doorstep. I took a bunch of pictures so that you can enjoy the unboxing with me.

Here is the top of the box. It's got a nice little scene featuring a duel between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, along with a representation of the wafers. I am guessing the text in the lower right lets you know that there are 24 different stickers. Up above is the packing information and handling instructions.

This is one side of the box. It's got some more art on it, with young Anakin in his podracer and R2-D2 doing his droid thing.

The back of the box shows Han Solo and Princess Leia as well as the Millennium Falcon.

Finally, the other side of the box shows the podracer art again and C-3PO accompanying R2-D2, along with probably a lot number and an expiration date.

This is what the box looks like with the seal broken and the lid folded up into display mode.

And here it is from the front. The box front features droids again, with R2-D2 accompanied by the head of C-3PO.

There are two different pack designs. One features the same art as the box top, and the other combines the podracer and droid art from the side of the box. The back of the packs contains a lot of text. I can pick out a few things, but a lot of it is a mystery. I think the part of the text under the flap details a redemption contest, where specially-marked stickers can be mailed in for a prize. I didn't get any of the mail-in stickers. Nutrition information wraps around the side of the pack.

Opening the pack reveals the wafer sitting in a little cardboard tray. This one was a little crumbled, probably because it was in the corner of the box where any impacts would affect it directly.

Under the wafer is the sticker. The stickers in this box were just packed in with the wafers. I have heard that some Bikkuriman stickers are wrapped individually. Some of the stickers had a fair amount of wafer flakes and chocolate bits on them. I cleaned them up as best I could. 

Top Row: 1, 2, 3, 4, 9 Bottom Row: 11, 12, 13, 14, 17

The first 20 stickers are in order by episode, but the foil stickers didn't scan well and I had to separate them out from the non-foil stickers. The last four stickers feature a gold finish and come from Episode IV, V, and VI.

It's hard to pick favorites out of this batch. I like them all! The sticker with R2-D2 and C-3PO's head is a good one. I like the one with Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Luke. The vehicles are all cool stickers. That Han Solo and Leia sticker is a good one, too.

Top Row: 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 Bottom Row: 15, 16, 18, 19, 20

These silver foil stickers didn't scan well at all. They didn't photograph particularly well, either, but I did the best I could. My favorites here are probably Boba Fett with Han Solo in carbonite, the Luke / Vader duel, Vader with his shuttle, and the Death Star.

Top Row: 21, 22 Bottom Row: 23, 24

The four gold foil stickers scanned pretty well. They are all pretty good, but I like the one with Yoda on Luke's back and the one with the Emperor using his Force lightning on Darth Vader best.

I scanned the backs of the stickers for the sake of completeness, but I can't read them. All I know is that the titles in the upper center match the text on the front of the sticker, the film the image is based on is listed in the upper left, the card number is in the upper right, and the Disney and Star Wars logos are in the lower half.

This was a pretty fun box to open. I did wind up with a complete set of stickers as well as a handful of duplicates that will probably be going out in trade packages. The wafers are tasty enough, but I don't know what I'm going to do with 30 24 wafers. I guess it's a good thing my kids are snack fiends. I definitely want to collect the other two sticker sets, but in digging around it looks like it might be cheaper to buy them outright as collated sets than it will be to import them in their original packaging.