Why MOSPEADA Fans Still Cherish a 1984 Animage Furoku Postcard

A 1984 Animage Furoku Postcard from Genesis Climber MOSPEADA

A Bonus Item From Japan’s Anime Magazine Golden Age

This postcard was never sold separately. It came bundled as a furoku — a bonus supplement — inside an issue of Animage, the monthly anime magazine published by Tokuma Shoten. Furoku items were a fixture of Japanese magazines since the 1950s, and by the 1980s anime publications had turned them into a reliable draw: posters, stickers, mini-booklets, and postcard sets that gave readers something tangible from the shows they followed. Animage, founded in 1978, was already one of Japan’s most respected anime magazines by this point — the same publication that ran Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind as a manga serial.

This postcard dates to 1984, placing it squarely within the broadcast run of Genesis Climber MOSPEADA, which aired from October 1983 to March 1984. It is a contemporary artifact of the show’s original airing, not a later reissue.

MOSPEADA and the Character on the Card

Genesis Climber MOSPEADA was a 26-episode science fiction anime produced by Tatsunoko Production and broadcast on the Nippon TV network. Set in a near-future Earth occupied by an alien force called the Inbit, it followed resistance fighters using transforming motorcycle armor suits in a campaign to reclaim their planet — a mix of mecha action and road-trip storytelling that set it apart from other robot anime of the period.

The figure depicted on this postcard — orange helmet with goggles, green jacket, striped scarf, holding a cup in an unhurried, relaxed pose — closely resembles Yellow Belmont, one of the series’ most distinctive characters. Yellow is male but travels as a singer and entertainer with a feminine, androgynous appearance, performing in women’s clothing as part of his stage persona. The illustration captures a quiet, personal moment rather than any combat scene, suggesting it was drawn specifically for this postcard rather than pulled from a broadcast still. Two small white bear-like figures tucked into a basket also appear in the image; they do not correspond to any confirmed official MOSPEADA characters and may be an embellishment by the illustrator. A signature is visible in the lower right corner, but the artist has not been identified from the image alone.

The Connections That Reach Beyond Japan

MOSPEADA holds a place in Western anime history that few Tatsunoko productions can match. In 1985, Harmony Gold USA re-edited footage from the series alongside two other shows to create Robotech, which became a formative series for viewers across North America, Australia, and Europe. MOSPEADA’s story formed Robotech’s third chapter, The New Generation, and Yellow Belmont was renamed Yellow Dancer for that adaptation. For the Robotech generation, original Japanese merchandise from the source series carries a particular resonance — a direct link to the material they first encountered in dubbed form.

Yellow Belmont also occupies a specific position in anime history as a gender-nonconforming character in a mainstream action series from 1983, an unusually early example that continues to draw attention in discussions of LGBTQ representation in Japanese animation.

Furoku postcards like this one exist in smaller numbers than conventional retail merchandise. Printed as magazine supplements, most were discarded along with the issues they accompanied. A piece from 1984 that has remained intact is a physical remnant of the Showa-era anime boom — the period that laid the foundation for many franchises still active in global popular culture today.