Topps Now Samurai Japan Cards - 2023 Asian Professional Baseball Championship Version

Christmas came a couple days early for me today as I received the latest batch of Topps Now Samurai Japan cards.  These cards were issued on Topps' Japanese website in commemoration of the 2023 Asian Professional Baseball Championship which was held in mid-November.  I was a little surprised the other day when I got an email telling me the cards had shipped as they are still for sale on Topps' website (and will be for another 20 hours or so).

There are 16 cards in all which feature 14 different players (Makoto Kadowaki has two cards) along with manager Hirokazu Ibata.  Samurai Japan played four games in the tournament - their preliminary round games against Taiwan (which they won 4-0), Korea (2-1 victory) and Australia (10-0 victory) and their final round game against Korea (4-3 walk-off victory in 10 innings).  The 16 Topps Now cards are split evenly among the games with cards 1-4 being for the game against Taiwan, cards 5-8 for the game against Korea, cards 9-12 are for the game against Australia and cards 13-16 are for the final against Korea.  Here's all 16 cards:

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11

#12

#13

#14

#15

#16

A couple comments:

- I'm amused that the the home runs by Maki and Mannami were perfect but Morishita's was merely "excellent"

Excellent Bill And Ted GIFfrom Excellent GIFs

- That's Australian catcher Jake Burns who's partly visible behind Yuki Nomura.

- Topps has added this new "1st Samurai" icon to many of the cards to indicate that it's the first time that particular player has suited up for Samurai Japan.  It's a bit misleading though as I know off the top of head that a couple of these guys - Sato, Hayakawa and Morishita - played on the collegiate version of the team.  And Sato played on the team that played friendlies against Australia last year (and was in last year's Topps Now Samurai Japan cards).  Maybe they mean "first time playing for Samurai Japan in a professional tournament"?

- The card backs are completely what I expect from Topps' Japanese issues - total lack of effort.  The backs simply list the date, opponent and location of the game featured on the front in both Japanese and English but - like last year - don't bother to mention the score of the game:

I'm a sucker for Samurai Japan cards so I'm very happy with these.  I'll be ordering the full team set soon.  I'll be curious if Topps does Topps Now cards for the friendlies that Samurai Japan will be playing against the European All Stars in March and for next fall's Premier 12 team.