MasakiPromos
Discuss!
It was an interesting idea but I was never a huge fan of these cards to be honest. For being so gimmicky and elusive, the artwork for most of them is pretty underwhelming IMO. Gengar is quite nice and easily my favorite of the five, but Omastar is bland (and its inclusion is random considering it doesn’t evolve through trade in the games), Golem is pretty lulzy and Machamp is horrendous. I still hope I can get a set though, some day.
I never really thought about the Omastar…
That’s intriguing that it had to be sent away?
I guess their justification was that, to get both sets of fossils in the original games, you had to trade for the second fossil line? Maybe? Who knows. They could have just easily made Hitmonchan/lee, one of the Eeveelutions or a random starter as a Masaki promo then, too.
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Never thought about it that way, maybe that was their logic for Omastar. So weird that it ended up in this set.
Personally I love the artwork from the Masaki set, the only exception being Machamp, the art on that one would be appropriate if the one who drew it was a kid, but it wasn’t, so it’s ridiculous.
In my opinion, the Gengar is one of the most beautiful cards, I love the artwork of this card !
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Really, no love from anybody for the Machamp art? I actually think it’s brilliant, almost Mary Blair-like.
I love hand drawn, weird art like that, it would’ve gone very well with the normal vending uncommons as I do like most of the works by Tomokazu Komiya, but for these ultra rares IMO the art should’ve been done in a nicer way, let’s just be thankful Tomoaki Imakuni didn’t have a hand at this one, lol.
I love the Masaki Promos. They were very high up in my collecting priorities early on. I think the artwork is great. When young kids get the opportunity to contribute to TCG, I think the results are often very special (case-in point - I hate newer Pokemon and designs, but the Zorua/Zoroark illustrations are lovely).
The mail-away campaign was an exciting way to handle distribution. It appeals to me a lot. The vending machine series got an illustrious counterpart. I really enjoy that they are printed on regular card-stock. It makes them understated and gives a nice contrast.
Overall, they are reasonably rare, aesthetically pleasing and the set is concise. Plus I feel that they are more distinctly Japanese than other cards for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. For a collector, what’s not to like?
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Wait, you think Machamp was drawn by a kid, what about the Golem!? Hahaha
Personally, I like all the cards in the set a lot. They are all unique and mostly quirky, but together they go perfectly with each other.
I also agree that with eleutherark that somehow they seem to me to be distinctly the most Japanese cards. Either that, or I just see it that way since they were the first Japanese cards that ever caught my eye all those years ago.
One of the classiest promo sets made!
@eleutherarch’s post is pretty much to the point and sums up how I feel about these as well! Altough I would have loved if they had included a Poliwrath or Kabutops instead of the Omastar but that’s just personal preference…
Hell yes - Poliwrath is a total badass.
The Golem card looks awesome though. 
My favorite is the Gengar hehehe, I really want one >.<
I’ve seen them go for cheaper prices on yahoo auctions jp, but its still hard to find in Japan.
With the nature of the mail-away campaign, is it possible that not all of the Masaki Promos were sent out? If so, what number of cards are likely to be in circulation and were the remainders destroyed?
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Years ago, I purchased 2 sets that different Japanese collectors that received the cards without having been sent through the mail. Both sets were not attached to the inserts used in the mailings Don’t know how they got the cards, but I doubt there were many sets that didn’t go through the mail…Generally the cards that were mailed have slight indents on the upper left and lower right when you look at the front…That’s partly why there’s so few PSA 10’s…From the 2 sets I sent to PSA, I got 2 PSA 10 Omastars, 1 PSA 10 Alakazam and 1 PSA 10 Machamp…the rest were PSA 9’s except 1 PSA 8 Alakazam
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Great card! Great Job on reviving the card of the week thread.
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I have a good one planned for tomorrow 