Fujiko Fujio’s Parman and Japan’s Showa Menko Tradition

Parman No. 1 Showa-Era Menko Card

What Menko Cards Are

Menko are rectangular thick-cardboard cards mass-produced in Japan throughout the Showa era. The game is simple: players take turns slapping a card down beside the opponent’s to flip it over and claim it. As television anime spread through Japanese households during the 1960s and 1970s, character menko became their own phenomenon. Children collected them as much for the artwork as for the game, and manufacturers produced runs featuring the most popular anime and manga characters of each season.

This particular card is rectangular with a white border and features Parman No. 1 in a dynamic action pose.

Parman Before Doraemon

Parman began as a manga serialized in Shogakukan’s Weekly Shonen Sunday in 1966, written under the pen name Fujiko Fujio — the collaborative pseudonym of Fujimoto Hiroshi and Abiko Motoo. The premise: an ordinary elementary school boy named Suwa Mitsuo receives a powered suit from a Birdman and transforms into a superhero. The series plays the concept largely for comedy, centered on the gap between a normal kid’s daily life and the demands of heroism.

A monochrome anime adaptation aired on Fuji TV in 1967, produced by Tokyo Movie. A full-color remake followed on TV Asahi from 1983 to 1985, produced by Shin-ei Animation. Both place Parman firmly within Showa anime history. Critically, the series predates Doraemon, which began in 1969, making Parman one of Fujiko Fujio’s earliest major works — written before the duo became internationally recognized as the creators of Japan’s most iconic robot cat. After the partnership dissolved in 1987, the Parman rights passed primarily to Fujiko F. Fujio, Fujimoto Hiroshi’s solo pen name.

The costume depicted on this card — blue helmet, yellow goggles and ear covers, green suit, blue cape, yellow gloves and belt, red pants — matches Parman No. 1’s signature look precisely. A black object appears in the character’s hand; its specific identity is difficult to confirm from the card image alone. The shouting action pose is typical of hero character menko from this period.

Showa Playgrounds and Who Collects This Now

Menko circulated through dagashiya — the small neighborhood candy and toy shops central to postwar Japanese childhood — and were traded on school playgrounds. Because the game involved physically striking cards against hard ground, examples in legible condition are relatively uncommon today. This card carries the edge wear and aging consistent with a piece that actually circulated in play, which is the expected condition for menko of this era.

The format peaked from the 1960s into the early 1980s, then declined sharply as Bikkuriman stickers and Carddas trading cards took over as the dominant children’s collectible formats. Menko is now firmly categorized as Showa-era retro.

For international collectors, Parman holds a specific appeal: Fujiko Fujio is recognized globally as the creator of Doraemon, but Parman came first, and the anime was broadcast across Asia — in South Korea, Taiwan, and India, among others. In Western markets, paper items like menko from this period fall under the category of vintage Japanese anime ephemera, drawing interest from collectors focused on Showa pop culture broadly. Original merchandise tied to Fujiko F. Fujio properties beyond Doraemon reaches international markets in limited quantities, and Showa-era character menko remain one of the less-documented formats in that space.