Tuesday, March 16, 2010

On My Third Bag of Calbee, The Chip Gods Gave To Me

...a Rami-chan and Yusei Kikuchi?





(In short: Calbee Pro Yakyu Chips are potato chips that come with 2 baseball cards per bag. The chips aren't that great, but the cards have been around for years, longer than BBM, even. I've collected them the last few years, but not actively so much as just "I'm in the convenience store, I want a snack, hey, it's baseball card chip season, might as well.")

I bought a bag of chips on my way back from the Dragons-Fighters game at Kamagaya today, and this is what I got.

Bizarrely, I may be one of the few people in the country not all that excited about this pull. On the other hand, I know that Kikuchi's BBM "Rookie Edition" card is already going for 1000 yen at the card shops, because I went to get this year's Fighters RE set and couldn't help but take a look around.

I also seem to be unable to refer to him as "Yusei".

(I still think the most bizarre thing I saw there was the Ayumi Kataoka card boxed set, which looked to be one-third baseball cards of her with the Ibaraki Golden Golds, and two-thirds cards of her looking almost like a fashion model. I can't find an official site for the cards, but here's a variety of them on Rakuten's auction site; you get the idea.)

Anyway, I think I'll shove that Kikuchi card into a card holder and forget about it for a while...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish we could somehow get these shipped to the states.

Anonymous said...

Didn't realize you were posting regularly again. These chips are one of the things I miss about living in Japan.

Kamachi said...

Every now and then you get lucky here on the west coast at Ichiban Kan (SF), Daiso (Bay Area), or Oto's (SAC). And, a lot of times you can get baseball magazines with cards in them at Kinokuniya Bookstores in LA and SF. Obviously, not as easy as hitting a Lawson's or 7-11 but a place to look if you're in the area.

Al said...

I have had three bags of chips this year and pulled nothing even remotely interesting.

I hate the Giants, but I wouldn't mind pulling Ramirez. Yusei (I'm a Lions fan) would really make my day.

Steve L. said...

is Japan the only place to get these chips...thank you...steve in florida

Deanna said...

It's the only place to get the chips, but if you just want the cards, you can often find them on ebay and otherwise -- check out http://japanesebaseballcards.blogspot.com/, he often gets his hands on Calbee cards through various sources.