French Round-Up

Marvel owned sticker and card manufacturer, Panini, has recently released series four and five of its popular Dragon Ball Z manga trading cards in France. The two 100 card sets feature scenes from the Dragon Ball Z animated television series based on the popular comic book by Arika Torikyama. Included in Series Four are fifty metal cards, which are slightly rarer than the other cards in the set. Packs contain four regular cards and three metal cards. Series Five contains only 25 metal cards, although every card in the set features a superb embossed effect. Series Five packs are made up of six regular cards and one metal card. Both series are being distributed through French newsagents and whilst neither set appears to have a checklist card, special collectors storage albums are available. Previous Dragon Ball Z sets produced by Panini used a non-standard card size with rounded corners, something that is not always favoured by collectors. Thankfully, the two new sets feature regular sized cards without rounded corners.

Another manufacturer producing Dragon Ball related trading cards for French collectors is Bandai, whose Carddass brand was recently mentioned in Card Zine. The company has recently brought out a set of Jumbo Dragon Ball Carddass cards, which appear similar to the over-sized Carddass Super Mario 64 sticker cards brought out last year. Carddass vending machines containing regular sized Carddass Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT cards can now be found in French newsagents shops. Bandai has even produced a mini 'money box' version of the machine which collectors can fill with Carddass cards at home. Bandai has already used vending machines as a means of distributing Mighty Morphin Power Rangers trading cards in the USA.

Continuing with the Japanese theme, Bandai's latest Carddass release features cartoon characters from the Tamagotchi cyber pet craze. Packs of Carddass Tamagotchi contain three sticker cards and one regular Carddass card, with each card focusing on an individual Tamagotchi pet. Each sticker card appears to feature about ten different clear plastic Tamagotchi mini stickers. Again, the cards can be found in French newsagents.