2020 Calbee Samurai Japan set

Calbee issued a set for the Samurai Japan team back at the end of November.  This is the fourth time in five years that Calbee has issued such a set - skipping only 2018.  This particular instance of the set features the 2019 Premier 12 roster with the exception of Shun Yamaguchi, who spent 2020 in the US and Yoshihiro Maru for some unknown reason.  Despite the team being the Premier 12 roster there doesn't appear to be anything in the set that actually mentions the tournament by name.

There are 37 cards in the set which makes it look like it's similar in size to the 2016 and 2017 set (which were each 36 cards) and seven cards smaller than last year's set but that's a little deceiving.  There's only 27 players in the set (well, 26 players plus manager Atsunori Inaba).  The set also has a 10 card "Starting Lineup" subset which means that 10 of the 26 players have more than one card.

The set includes a bunch of big names like Seiya Suzuki, Hayato Sakamoto, Shota Imanaga, Masataka Yoshida, Hideto Asamura, Yudai Ohno, Ryosuke Kikuchi, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Kensuke Kondoh and Nobuhiro Matsuda.  It also includes Tetsuto Yamada and Yasuaki Yamasaki who are the only two players to appear in all four of Calbee's Samurai Japan sets.  At the other end of the spectrum this is the first appearance in a Samurai Japan set for Asamura, Hiroshi Kaino, Shinya Kayama, Takayuki Kishi, Kota Nakagawa, Kan Ohtake and Ukyo Shuto.

Like the previous sets, the cards have a "kira" finish and look a lot like the "Star" insert cards from Calbee's regular sets.  As usual there's a lot of "batters batting, pitchers pitching, catchers catching" poses on the cards.  As was the case in last year's set, the player names are all in Japanese.  Here's some examples of the "regular" cards:

#17 Tetsuto Yamada

#06 Hiroshi Kaino

#20 Ryosuke Kikuchi

#07 Shota Imanaga

#18 Sosuke Genda

#09 Rei Takahashi

The 10 "Starting Lineup" players are Imanaga (P), Tsubasa Aikawa (C), Asamura (1B!), Yamada (2B), Matsuda (3B), Sakamoto (SS), Shuta Tonosaki (OF), Kondoh (OF), Suzuki (OF) and Yoshida (DH).  Here's the Matsuda and Suzuki cards:

#SJ-05 Nobuhiro Matsuda

#SJ-09 Seiya Suzuki

As I've mentioned numerous times in the past, I'm a sucker for National Team sets so as usual I really like this set.  You can see all the cards over at Jambalaya (although their images for the cards are terrible).

I'm hoping if the Olympics are able to be held this year and they still have a baseball competition that Calbee will be back next fall with a Samurai Japan set featuring the Olympic team.