Sports Card Magazine #109

 Sports Card Magazine #109 hit the newsstands Tuesday and I received my issue today.  This is probably the third issue in a row that is of limited value to the non-Japanese reading so I may start seriously reconsidering if I want to keep getting these (or finally start trying to learn to read Japanese).

I'll do a quick run down of the issue - the color section has an interview with newly drafted Fighters pitcher Kohei Arihara (formerly of Waseda), a two page article (plus a two page ad) for the upcoming Rookie Edition set, a two page ad for the new 2015 Sumo set, full page ads for the Master Of Insert, Softbank 10th Anniversary, Japan National (Football) team, and the True Heart women's wrestling sets and half page ads for the "Retirement" set and "The Champ" boxing set.  There's not a whole lot I recognize in the "newsprint" section of the magazine.  There's the usual checklists for the upcoming issues and checklists and price guides for the 2014 and later issues for all sports.  The magazine has a rotation for the older checklists and this issue has checklists for sumo and "other" sports (Japan Basketball League, bowling, Real Venus, etc).

Here's their lists of the "best" cards of the month:

Best Card Of This Month:  2014 Epoch V9 Giants Triple Autograph card of Sadaharu Oh, Shigeo Nagashima and Masaichi Kaneda
Best Item Of This Month:  2014 Epoch V9 Giants set (this is the first time I've seen the winner of this category not be a BBM set)
Hot Card Lists
Rookies:
1. 2014 BBM 1st Version Daichi Ohsera (#239)
2. 2014 BBM 1st Version Allen Kuri (#240)
3. 2014 BBM 1st Version Seiji Kobayashi (#185)
4. 2007 BBM 1st Version Masahiro Tanaka (#211)

5. 2014 BBM 1st Version Yuki Matsui (#019)

6. 2013 BBM 1st Version Shohei Ohtani (183)

7. 2013 BBM 1st Version Shintaro Fujinami (#130)

8. 2014 Calbee Daichi Ohsera (#59)
9. 2014 Calbee Yuki Matsui (#1)
10. 2014 BBM 1st Version Tomoya Mori (#48)

Autograph & Memorabilia:
1. 2014 Epoch V9 Giants Triple Autograph card of Sadaharu Oh, Shigeo Nagashima and Masaichi Kaneda
2. 2014 BBM Classic Shohei Ohtani Game Jersey card (pitching)
3. 2014 Epoch V9 Giants Shigeo Nagashima Autograph card
4. 2015 BBM Memories Of Uniform Shohei Ohtani Autograph card
5. 2014 BBM Classic Shohei Ohtani Game Jersey card (batting)
6. 1991 BBM Kazuhiro Kiyohara Autograph card (buyback for 2014 BBM Classic)
7. 1992 BBM Masumi Kuwata Autograph card (buyback for 2014 BBM Classic)
8. 2014 BBM The Champ II Yoko Gushiken Autograph card
9. 2014 BBM The Champ II Joichiro Tatsuyoshi Autograph card
10. 2014 BBM Real Venus Ayaka Satoh Autograph Photo card

Continuing with what they did last year, this issue includes 12 baseball cards.  All 12 are promo cards for the upcoming Rookie Edition set.  Having 12 cards works out nicely as it allows them to include a card of the top draft pick for each of the 12 teams.

SCM #301

SCM #298

Like almost all BBM issues, the promo cards distributed with Sports Card Magazines have possible parallels.  I got a silver facsimile autograph parallel for the Kazuma Okamoto card:

SCM #302