Friday, March 4, 2011

Is There Life After Yu-Chan?

I've found it a little odd that BBM's website is a little slower in listing new sets then some of the on-line stores like AmiAmi and Discount Niki. Usually I wait to see the information about a set on BBM's site before writing a post about it (unless I think they've been excessively slow in updating it), but I'm going to make an exception here.

I've mentioned before that I wondered if BBM was going to continue to do the Tokyo Big Six collegiate sets now that Yuki Saitoh was no longer with Waseda. After all, BBM has only done seven collegiate sets (Spring and Autumn Versions for Tokyo Big Six from 2008-10 and the 2008 collegiate National Team) and Saitoh has appeared in all but one of them. Deanna had talked to someone from Meiji who was lamenting the fact that a lot of the merchandising of the Tokyo Big Six - including the baseball cards - was being discontinued now that Saitoh was gone.

So I was a bit surprised the other day when checking out AmiAmi to find a listing for the 2011 BBM Tokyo Big Six Spring Version set. Apparently they are going to see if there's still a market for them. (I also found a listing for the set at Discount Niki.)

1 comment:

Deanna said...

Yeah, well, I dunno, that's what they told me back around New Year's. Maybe BBM changed their mind. Good for them if so.

For the record, the notes on Discount Niki say that "Get cards for this year's definite draft picks Yusuke Nomura and Hayata Itoh! Insert cards of famous Big 6 alumni like Kenshin Kawakami and Yoshinobu Takahashi and Atsunori Inaba! Two insert cards in each box!"

So that is very interesting -- I mean, if Saitoh hadn't been there, Yusuke Nomura would have been the most famous of the current Big 6 pitchers I think, it's true, and I'm fairly sure he and Itoh ARE in fact definite draft picks this year. I guess they'll see how the set sells. I'll certainly buy a box when it comes out, even if the timing doesn't work for me to actually get it in Japan.