Whitebeard’s Ichiban Kuji Figure and the Change of Generation

Edward Newgate Whitebeard Card Stand Figure, Ichiban Kuji by Banpresto

A Format Built Around Japan’s Convenience Store Lottery

This figure was not sold in stores. It is a Banpresto Ichiban Kuji prize — a collectible produced for Japan’s convenience store lottery system, distributed through chains like Lawson, 7-Eleven, and FamilyMart. In Ichiban Kuji, a buyer purchases a numbered ticket, draws at the counter, and receives the guaranteed prize corresponding to that ticket’s tier. Unlike gacha capsule machines, there is no randomness within a tier once drawn.

The format is called a Card Stand Figure: a compact PVC figure paired with a dedicated collector card that stands upright in a transparent slot built into the figure’s base, making it both a small display piece and a card holder. This format is specific to the prize goods market and differs from the standard figure releases most collectors encounter. Which tier this item occupied within its original lottery run is not recorded in available documentation.

Edward Newgate and His Place in One Piece

One Piece, the manga by Eiichiro Oda that has run in Weekly Shonen Jump since 1997, holds the record as the best-selling manga in history — more than 500 million copies across 110-plus volumes. The anime, produced by Toei Animation since 1999, airs in over 100 countries.

Edward Newgate — Whitebeard — was one of the Four Emperors, the pirates who held dominion over the New World, and bore the in-universe title of the world’s strongest man. His look is unmistakable: an enormous frame, a white crescent mustache, a cross-shaped scar on the chest, and the earthquake-generating Gura Gura no Mi devil fruit. His Jolly Roger — a skull bearing that crescent mustache above crossed axes — is reproduced on the collector card included with this figure.

His death in the Marineford arc (manga around 2010, anime across 2010 and 2011) permanently altered the balance of power in the One Piece world. Within the franchise’s fanbase, across both Western and Asian markets, it stands as one of the most debated storylines in the series and significantly raised Whitebeard’s profile as a character.

The 2013 Campaign and What “Change of Generation” Signals

The included card carries a “BP.2013” copyright mark, placing production around that year. It also bears the subtitle Change of Generation — the name of this Ichiban Kuji series. That phrase speaks directly to where the story stood at the time: by 2013, One Piece had moved into the New World arc following a major narrative time skip, and Whitebeard’s death had already redrawn the world’s power structure. The old generation’s titan had fallen; successors were still making sense of the void he left.

The figure depicts Whitebeard in a seated pose, with a dark blue and chestnut chair and gold-and-white shoulder armor — details consistent with his portrayals in the source material. Manufactured in China and distributed exclusively through the Japanese domestic market, it was never available through international retail channels, which is typical of Ichiban Kuji prize goods from this period.