Master Roshi Menko Card: A Vintage Dragon Ball Collectible from Japan's Golden Age of Anime Merchandise
What You’re Looking At: A Menko Card from Dragon Ball’s Original Run
This circular card is a menko — a traditional Japanese children’s game piece made from thick cardboard. The front features a full-body illustration of Master Roshi (Kame-Sen’nin) against a vivid green background, rendered in his classic look: dark sunglasses, orange martial arts gi, blue trousers, purple shell on his back, and a wooden staff. The card carries both the English “DRAGON BALL” and katakana lettering, along with a copyright notice naming the four official rights holders — Bird Studio (Akira Toriyama’s office), Shueisha, Fuji TV, and Toei Doga. That last name is the key to dating this piece: Toei Doga changed its name to Toei Animation in August 1998, which means this card was manufactured and licensed before that date — placing it firmly within the franchise’s original broadcast era.
The Franchise and the Character Behind the Card
Dragon Ball was created by Akira Toriyama and serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump from 1984 to 1995. The anime adaptation, produced by Toei Doga and broadcast on Fuji TV, ran in several chapters: the original Dragon Ball series from 1986 to 1989, followed by Dragon Ball Z through 1996, and Dragon Ball GT through 1997. The “DRAGON BALL” labeling on this card — without a “Z” suffix — suggests it was produced during or close to the first series’ broadcast window, though merchandise carrying the original branding continued to circulate into the Z era as well.
Master Roshi is one of the franchise’s most enduring figures. As the founder of the Turtle School style and Son Goku’s first martial arts master, he appears from the very beginning of the story and remains a recognizable presence throughout the entire series. His appeal lies partly in the contrast between his comical, eccentric appearance and his genuine power — a dynamic that has resonated with international audiences as much as Japanese ones.
Menko: A Distinctly Japanese Collectible Form
Menko have existed in Japan since roughly the Edo period, originally made from clay or lead before cardboard versions became standard in the Meiji era. By the Showa period — the 1950s through the late 1980s — printed menko featuring athletes, pro wrestlers, and anime characters had become a staple of dagashiya, the small neighborhood candy-and-toy shops that were central to Japanese childhood culture. The game itself involves throwing cards against the ground to flip an opponent’s card using the resulting air pressure or impact; the winner claims the flipped card.
Anime-character menko were produced in large quantities during the late Showa and early Heisei periods, but the format has essentially disappeared from modern toy markets. Cards from this era now function as tangible records of a specific moment in Japanese popular culture — the point where a traditional folk game intersected with the global phenomenon of 1980s and 1990s anime. For collectors outside Japan, a menko card offers something qualitatively different from a trading card: a window into a form of play that existed almost entirely within Japan’s own borders.
Price: $9.51 | View on eBay
