Until I start my new position on Monday, my work time commute has been around 5 minutes. So it takes me about a week to work my way through a podcast.
Few weeks ago I made a purchase from Japan. And it was co-incidental cause right around then Pog Fever burned it's way through Giant Bomb. Now on the most recent Bombcast, Jeff invokes Top Trumps which means I can't remain silent.
My purchase was old ass Menko cards. What's Menko? Well, it's basically just slabs of cardboard that can be played like Japanese Pogs, Japanese Top Trumps and many other games.
Much like dominos or marbles, Menko cards are really just items that can facilitate play. They can be use a variety of ways, but what was often interesting about them is the artwork. Much like pogs, they'll put anything on a menko card. I bought a stack of Famicom-era menko cards:
So how it's like pogs is straight forward, and Menko might be the proto-pog. Stack it, hit it with a card, whatever flips you keep.
How it's like Top Trumps is cool. So on the back of every card you just have a crazy noise box of icons. Bottom left corner is Rock-Paper-Scissors, then you have a "Fighting Number", then you have pips from a 6 sided die, and baseball and moon language... So if we were on a playground and just wanted to quickly figure out who had to run to the store and buy pocky, or whatever, we'd pick a stat and draw a card. Say "Lowest third digit on the fighting number" and you and your friends would throw a card and see who loses.
I'm really just into it for the artwork. They were cheap and they'll be a good conversation piece and I can have a little bit of video game in my increasing adult styled home.
The artwork ranges from unique illustrations, like these of our favorite general contractor:
to artwork from the Famicom label...
all the way to blurry ass screenshots of City Connection*, that really look like someone took a Polaroid of a fuzzy RCA...
Like many things in life, it seems like the time of menko has come and gone. Strong through the 50's and tapering off into the 80's, I came across them while looking for a Saduhara Oh t-shirt...and... that's not important.
But, there you go... the connection between Pogs, Top Trumps and video games goes deeper than just Jeff Gerstman.
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