2024 BBM Lions Collection

Last summer, the Lions rolled out an alternate uniform that they collaborated with the Japanese fashion line "New Yorker".  For the three game series against the Marines from July 5th to July 7th, the Lions wore a uniform called something like "New Yorker Tartan".  They lost all three games to the Marines but given that they went 49-91-3 on the season, I don't think we can blame the uniforms.

In October, BBM announced they'd be releasing a box set apparently dedicated to this collaboration and I knew I'd need to get it.  It came out in late November and was another one of the sets I received last week.

Each box contains 43 cards and I'm sure you can guess what I'm going to say next.  The 43 cards include the 42 card base set along with one "special insert cards" which could be a foil signature card, an autographed card or an exchange cards for an autographed memorabilia card featuring a swatch of the actual uniforms.  Normally this is when I'd say that I got an opened set without the "special insert card" but that'd be a lie - I got an opened set that included the "special insert card".  It's a foil signature card that apparently the guy who opened the set didn't care about.  He included it with the rest of the cards for just a few dollars more.

Let's deal with the base cards first.  There are 30 "regular" player cards showing players on the Lions wearing the "New Yorker Tartan" uniforms.  This includes most of the star players you'd expect such as Takumi Kuriyama, Takeya Nakamura, Shota Tonosaki, Sosuke Genda, Natsuki Takeychi and Chihiro Sumida although surprisingly not Kona Takahashi or Kaima Taira.  Jefry Yan is the only Westerner in the set.

What's kind of odd is that there's two different kinds of "regular" player card.  Most of them -22 in fact - show the player in action during those games against the Marines.  The other eight show posed, studio shots of the players.  The design of the card fronts is different for the two different types of cards although the backs have the same design.  Here's a couple of the "action" cards:

#LC11

#LC20

Here's a couple of the "posed" cards:

#LC18

#LC05

The remaining twelve cards show players in street clothes.  Five of these are labeled "Cool Outfit" and show Kona Takahashi, Shunsuke Sato, Tatsuya Imai, Manaya Nishikawa and Ichiro Tamura wearing what I guess is supposed to be a cool outfit.  Takahashi and Tamura only appear in this subset.  My Takahashi card has a kira finish - I'm not sure but I think each set had one street clothes card with a kira finish.  It is not a numbered parallel though.  Here's the cards for Takahashi and Sato:

#LC31

#LC32

The remaining seven cards are labeled "Cute Outfit" and, as you've probably guessed, show seven members of the Lions wearing an outfit that is supposedly cute.  The players in question are Genda, Hiroshi Kaino, Shinya Hasegawa, Takuya Hiruma, Sumida, Takeuchi and Tonosaki.  This is Hiruma's only card in the set.  Here are Kaino and Tonosaki's cards:

#LC38

#LC39

Here's the foil signature card I got with the set - I originally thought it was a parallel but Shohei Suzuki's base set card was #LC27 and this card is #FSB20.  It does use the same photo as the base set card and is numbered /60:

#FSB20

I'm not really sure what to make of this set.  On the plus side, I'm a Lions fan and I always get a kick out of the alternate uniforms.  On the minus side, I really don't care about the street clothes cards.  I'm not really qualified to say whether the outfits are cool or cute.  You can take a look at all the cards over at Jambalaya and see what you think.