Inside Musha Gundam’s New Year Kite Card From Comic BomBom

Oodako-Hikou Musha Gundam Playing Card, Comic BomBom February 1990 Bonus

Japan’s Furoku Culture and the Magazine Bonus Tradition

For decades, Japanese children’s magazines packed non-sale bonus items — furoku — directly into each monthly issue. Comic BomBom, Kodansha’s long-running manga magazine for boys (published 1981–2007), was one of the two dominant hobby magazines of the era alongside Shogakukan’s CoroCoro Comic. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, BomBom’s furoku ranged from stickers and mini-games to plastic figures and playing card sets, all tied closely to the franchises running in its pages.

This playing card — the Ace of Spades — comes from a furoku deck bundled with the February 1990 issue. The complete set was sealed inside the magazine and never sold separately through any retail channel. The full card count, whether a standard 52-card deck or another configuration, cannot be confirmed from the listing alone, but the distribution method is clear: readers had to purchase the issue at a Japanese bookstore to receive it. Items like this never entered international distribution, and surviving examples exist only because original readers held onto them.

The Musha Gundam Universe and the Kite-Flying Warrior

SD Gundam — Super Deformed Gundam — launched around 1988 under Bandai and Sunrise. The concept reimagined Gundam’s mechanical suits in a chibi, exaggerated style, expanding quickly into BB Senshi plastic model kits, trading card sets, comics, and animation. Comic BomBom was one of the main venues for SD Gundam content in Japan throughout this period.

Musha Gundam is one of SD Gundam’s most distinctive sub-lines, placing Gundam characters inside a feudal Japanese setting — samurai armor fused with the iconic Gundam helmet and shoulder silhouette. The Musha storyline ran as an original series in BomBom’s pages alongside accompanying BB Senshi kits, and by the February 1990 issue, the line was near the height of its domestic popularity.

The character illustrated on this card, Oodako-Hikou Musha Gundam, translates as “Large Kite Flying Warrior Gundam.” Kite flying — tako-age — is a traditional Japanese New Year activity, and the February 1990 issue was released around the New Year holiday period in late 1989 or early January 1990, making the seasonal theme clearly intentional. The character is shown in red-and-white armor with gold ornamentation and two swords, blending the Musha line’s samurai aesthetic with a festival-season concept. Whether Oodako-Hikou Musha Gundam appeared as a named character in BomBom’s manga pages or was created specifically for this furoku is not definitively established.

What This Card Means for Collectors Outside Japan

SD Gundam has maintained a following well beyond Japan, particularly among collectors who encountered the franchise through 1990s anime and hobby culture in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Musha Gundam specifically — samurai meets robot, feudal Japan meets science fiction — tends to stand out for international fans as a concentrated expression of Japanese popular culture. The name “Musha Gundam” is recognized in English-speaking collector communities, even among those without direct exposure to the original BomBom manga.

Furoku items occupy a particular gap in most Gundam collections outside Japan. Because they were tied to magazine purchases and never distributed internationally, they simply did not reach non-Japanese audiences — not replaced by an equivalent product, just absent. Paper collectibles from this period rarely survive 35-plus years without yellowing or creasing, and the Ace of Spades carries its own visual weight as the most iconic card in a standard deck, here printed with full-color SD Gundam artwork from an era when the franchise was at its peak.