Sunday, June 24, 2012

Catching up on BBM's releases

Well, I've gotten so behind in reporting on some new BBM sets that a couple of them have already hit the stores.  In the last month or so, BBM has announced the final five team set for 2012 - the Lions, Baystars, Dragons, Fighters and Tigers.  The Lions and Baystars sets are already out - both sets contain 99 base cards and various insert and memorabilia cards.  (I really like the retro look for the Lions set - very un-BBM.)  The Tigers set will contain 117 base cards, nine "Tigers Roar" insert cards and the usual smattering of memorabilia/autograph cards.  The Fighters set has 99 cards (including a Yuki Saitoh 9 card puzzle!) along with nine "Northern Stars" insert cards and some memorabilia/autograph cards.  The Dragons set has 104 base cards, a 12 card insert set call "Dragon Heart" and (as you may have already guessed) some memorabilia/autograph cards.  The Tigers set will be released in late June, the Fighters set will be out in mid-July and the Dragons set will be in stores in late July.

BBM has also recently released this year's edition of their "Dancing Heroine" set that features the dance team/cheerleaders from a number of the teams - the Hawks (the Honeys), the Fighters (Fighter Girls), the Lions (Blue Legends), the Buffaloes (Bs Dreams), the Eagles (the Angels), the Marines (M Splash),   the Dragons, the Swallows (Passion), the Giants (Team Venus) and the Baystars (Diana).  There's 100 "regular" cards in the set along with possible autograph cards.  All the cards can be seen here.

The big news, though, is that BBM recently released information about this year's 2nd Version set.   As has become standard in the past few years, this set will feature a 36 card (3 per team) "Update" subset for the 1st Version set along with 216 regular player cards (18 per team).  There will also be 12 team checklists and the next installment in the Cross Blaze subset - 36 cards (3 per team).  In addition, there will be a subset featuring various celebrities throwing out the first pitch - currently BBM is not saying how many cards will be in that subset.  There is also an insert set called "Twin Gem" - one card for each team for a total of 12 cards.  There will be patch and autograph cards available from one rookie from each team.  The set will be released in early-August.


5 comments:

Jason Presley said...

From Bandai, Owners League 2012 02 has also hit the streets. I'm seeing lots of singles listed at Amazon.jp.

On the subject of game cards, Konami released their 2011 Baseball Heroes ShineStar Heat-Up Version (series 2) back in March and Power-Up Version (series 3) this month. I'm not really sure why in June of 2012, they're still releasing sets under the 2011 heading, but it seems to be a trend in the sports card industry this year with Leaf and Panini doing the same.

NPB Card Guy said...

I probably should pay more attention to the Konami and Owners League cards but they're so much rarer than the BBM and Calbee sets that it's hard to follow them.

Jason Presley said...

The Lions set borrowed Upper Deck's design from 2009 O-Pee-Chee baseball. I like that set, very simple and old school without all the annoying variations and parallels. Naturally, the set was a flop.

The Carp also got a very nice design this year.

NPB Card Guy said...

I like this year's Hawks set design - kind of reminds me of 1966 Topps. Again, very un-BBM.

I don't normally buy the team sets but I've been keeping an eye out on kuboTen for either the Hawks or the Lions sets.

Jason Presley said...

I agree, very retro, and not at all the flashy work BBM normaly turns out. It's sort of like a cross between 1953 Topps, 1966 Topps and 2000 Teleca.