Back again with our 19th trading card box review! That might sound like a crazy number to you, but remember these aren’t western 150$ hobby boxes – no these cost 1/10th that. That doesn’t make them any less interesting, the printing techniques on these are often far more advanced then anything you’ll see from Topps or Panini. Back to today’s box, this is something I just unpacked yesterday, it’s Kamen Rider X time!
The Box
I not a Kame Rider expert, I’ve only ever seen a few shows and never all the way through. I do know that it is often sited as the inspiration for many later sci-fi productions. The show is basically about a hero who is almost always in his bug/grasshopper like suit. They ride around on a special motorcycle and fight whatever evil terrorist organization is trying to take over this time. It was formulaic or sure, but it was also made in 1974 – it kind of invented these formulas.
The box is really shiny, a mirror coating that was printed on I’d bet. These are Kayou cards too, that’s great as I’ve had excellent luck with those so far. The front of the box as photographs from the show, as does all 4 sides. There also two authenticity stickers on the front which are similar to ones I saw on the MLP box. This is a 2-yuan box, so there are 30 packs in here, each with 6 cards.
The back of the box has they usual labeling and tells us that this is the 3rd set – set number JM-RDB-003. Another nice photograph and line drawing on the back of this box too. I just love the more colorful look to all this, pink, blue, yellow, green – not just grey and dark grey like we usually get in Sci-Fi. This was also used in the Power Rangers designs as their suits and enemies are always very colorful.
The Set
I picked this set again pretty much at random. I knew this was popular enough to be in multiple shops and to have multiple released sets – that’s the minimum bar for me to try out a cheap 1/2 yuan box of something. From the advertising the cards look really cool, the URs have that bright colorful rainbow metal effect that the latest Naruto cards get.
It’s a big set too, with lots of rarity levels and subsets to collect. I especially like the comic book cover style artwork on one of the SSR character cards. This being a 2-yuan box I won’t be getting any of the GR or above cards – those are only in 5-yuan boxes. I’m ok with that, if these cards wow me enough I’d certainly consider picking up a 5-yuan box in the future. That’s exactly what I did with Demon Slayer, Dragon Ball and now One Piece.
The pack art looks just as good as the box, with nice photo stills from the show and that great pink to blue backdrop. Each pack has 6 cards, 5 will be base rarity of R and not upgrade, the last is base of SR but will upgrade to UR or any of the subsets besides GR. With only 30 packs to open I’m unlikely to complete anything from this box, but I also paid only $19.99 for it. I cracked a pack so lets take a quick look at the cards.
So these cards are incredible, they have a perfect mix of the high quality I expected after the MLP cards, an art and design style that really appeals to me – and then these are just 2-yuan packs! Take this first R for example, you can can’t see how high quality the card stock, coating and even foil treatment on this is compared to like the Demon Slayer Little Dinosaur cards. This card is I think Kamen Rider Saber? It has those same atk/def/special values on the front although you can’t see them in my scan.
I received 6 cards from this pack, 5 were rare, I won’t show them all here. This one looks more flamboyant to me then the first, almost like a bird/wolverine mix or something? This is a Megid. They are pretty complicated but just think of them as the bad teams henchmen, but super powered. This one is named Ahiru Megid, and is actually themed on a duck – which is unique? I love the backgrounds on these, this one looks so school picture day in the 1980s, but it actually looks really cool in person.
Finally, this was the special card in my pack, one of those rainbow metallic UR cards from the advertisement! How awesome is it to buy a box based on an ad like that, never really expecting to get those top-end chase cards – and then pulling one form the very first pack? The card looks amazing in person, best I can do is link you to my instagram where I have a video of this beautiful card. Notice how this one doesn’t have stats on the back, more of an art/design back, that’s fine as you would never want to look at the back anyway.
Conclusions
Well, I didn’t know much about this property but I am really happy with the purchase here. These cards are just as high quality as the MLP ones, Kayou seems like a reliable brand. At only 2-yuan these are also really cheap! The photo art, with those cool background designs and the futuristic looking statistics layout all just add to the cohesive feeling of the set. I likely won’t buy more Kamen Rider cards, but at this point I’ll buy anything Kayou makes.
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