Battle of the Planets Card Game

Battle of the Planets Card Game

As space is so limited around here (kind of like money) I tend to not buy a lot of Battle of the Planets stuff these days,  unless it’s a) Cheap and b) features Zoltar or his Spectra goons.


This Japanese card game checked both of those boxes, it’s got my favourite transgendered villain on the box and it only cost me $10. 

Inside features the Spectra goons to boot! I kind of want to see all the cards but seeing as I’ll never figure out how to play this came I may just let them remain sealed.



About The Author

Mantooth
AKA Brian Heiler author of "Rack Toys: Cheap, Crazed Playthings" and co-editor of "Toy-Ventures Magazine". Co-Host of the "Pod Stallions" podcast. Host of the Brick Mantooth Youtube channel, painter, designer, writer, mental health advocate, toy collector, Mego, and Mego Knock-Off enthusiast. I have large feet, ADHD and I live in Canada. Talk toys, not others.

5 Comments

  • F-ZeroOne on February 3, 2015

    Hi – I'm not an expert but I believe what you have here is a Japanese-vocabulary training card set for young children, to help teach them the Japanese language. A similar set can be seen here:

    http://blog.beforemario.com/2013/11/nintendo-iroha-karuta-part-1.html

    I'd also just like to point out that I'm not certain Zoltar *strictly* counts as transgendered; in the original "Gatchaman" (spoiler alert!) he could actually change gender at will…!

  • Plaidstallions on February 3, 2015

    Yeah, I just don't know what I'd call Zoltar otherwise.

    Thanks on the intell, I've seen other versions of these cards but just largely assumed they were a game of sorts.

  • F-ZeroOne on February 4, 2015

    Heh, Zoltar confused the hell out of me as well when I first saw the infamous episode where his flowing blonde locks are revealed – it was literally decades before I found out the answer to that one!

    I think the cards are intended as a game of sorts as well, I guess like modern-day "educational" software…?

  • Anonymous on February 5, 2015

    Japanese has three seperate alphabets.

    Kanji – which are the complex symbols that can mean entire words or concepts

    Katakana – which is a phonetic alphabet that is designated for foreign/non-Japanese words only

    And Hiragana which is a phonetic alphabet for all Japanese words.

    The larger symbols appear to be Katakana, with their Hiragana counterparts in smaller text beside it.

    So the upper left card, reads from top to bottom, GaTsuChiYaMaN, or Gatchaman. The Next word is Japanese as it's in Hiragana and reads WaReRaNo, which I'm not sure what it means. Then the third word is IKuZo.

    The second lower card reads GiYaRaKuTa, then SeMaRu, then UShiRoNi. These are all Hirigana so they're Japanese words.

  • Tim H on April 16, 2016

    Funky Japanese English loan word names (Gatchaman, Go-Lion, et al.) are funny.

    I guess you could say "Shogun Warriors" was America doing the same, but "shogun" was already a known word in English, and "warrior" explained all we needed to know.

    It would be the same if "Thunder Cats" had been "Kaminari Neko", and nobody particularly cared what that meant.

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