2025 In Review - Epoch

There weren't many surprises with Epoch's card sets in 2025.  They issued 18 sets, one fewer than they had in 2024 - although two of these sets had "2024" cover dates and there's at least one 2025 set that won't be published until next month (and I suspect there'll be another "2025" set after that too).

2025 was the eighth year of Epoch attempting to compete with BBM to be the premier card company in Japan (Calbee and Topps are non-contenders) and I feel their efforts are continuing to fall flat.  Their flagship "NPB" set dropped in size again.  What had been a 432 or 444 card set up until 2024 had dropped in size to 348 last year and to 240 this year.  The "NPB Luxury" set - a high end set using a similar design but a different checklist and photos (and with all the base set cards being serially numbered) - also dropped in size from 108 in 2024 to 36 cards.

Epoch also released their "Pacific League Rookies" box set for the eighth consecutive year but there weren't any major changes to that set - it still contained all the 2024 non-ikusei draft picks for the six Pacific League teams.

Epoch once again issued "reasonably priced" team sets called "Premier Edition" for eight of the NPB teams.  Each set had between 37 and 54 cards and sometimes contained cards for OB players as well as active ones.  The teams Epoch did sets for were the Baystars, Buffaloes, Carp, Dragons, Fighters, Lions, Swallows and Tigers which were exactly the same teams they did in 2024.

Similarly, Epoch issued their ultra high-end active/OB "Stars & Legends" team sets for the same four teams that they had in 2024 - the Giants, Hawks, Marines and Tigers.  Another one of their ultra high-end sets - "Pacific League Premier Edition" - was back for the tenth straight year - it predates Epoch's initial serious challenge to BBM in 2018 by two years.

The two sets that slipped from 2024 until March of 2025 were both collaborations with the OB Club.  One was the annual ultra high-end "Holographica" set while the second was one of Epoch's few surprises in 2025 - a reasonably priced box set called "Japan National Baseball Team Career Achievements" which featured retired players who had been members of the National team over the past quarter century or so.  The announcement of the set was the first clue that Epoch had taken over the Samurai Japan license, at least temporarily.

Epoch has already announced that the 2025 edition of "Career Achievement", one of Epoch's other annual collaborations with the OB Club, won't be released until the end of January.  There hasn't been an announcement yet about the 2025 edition of "Holographica" which makes me suspect that it again won't be released until March.

Epoch's on-line, on-demand Epoch One cards were back again for their eighth season.  There were ultimately 1321 cards done in 2025 for ten of the twelve NPB teams - everyone except the Carp and Buffaloes.  Additionally, as part of Epoch's tenure as the Samurai Japan license holder, they issued Epoch One cards for the Samurai Japan teams that took on the Netherlands in March and Korea in November.  There were 34 cards issued in all - 17 for each set of games.  As it turns out, Topps also issued six Topps Now cards for the friendlies against Korea so maybe the Samurai Japan license isn't as exclusive as I thought.