Time to finish up the reviews of the 2023 releases by covering everything that wasn't done by BBM, Calbee, Epoch or Topps...

After all these years, I still don't know for sure what to call this one outfilt but I'm going to go with "TIC" as opposed to "Hits" or "Produce 216".  They did only two card sets this year - a "mini colored paper" or "mini shikishi" team set for the Hawks and a set of traditionally size cards called "Swallows Used Ball".

I'm sure there were any number of team issued sets last year but as usual I only know about less than a handful of them.  The Eagles released their usual two team sets - "1st Version" and "2nd Version" - and the Lions again did something called "L Collection Vol. 1" in collaboration with BBM (and once again there doesn't seem to have been a Vol. 2).  One new item for the year was a set that I assume was issued for the Fighters called something like "Fighters Girl 37Card" which featured the team's cheerleaders/dance squad.

Again, I know that teams did their own sets this year but I don't know the details of any of them.  What I will tell you is that the Baystars did several sets that included a foreign player who for some reason was not included in any sets from BBM, Calbee, Epoch or Topps.  There are at least ten Baystars issued cards of this player.

As far as I can tell, Konami did not do their collectible card game set called "Baseball Collection" this year.  I believe this would be the first year since 2017 they didn't do it - I know they did it every year between 2018 and 2022.

If my count is right, there were a total of 60 NPB sets issued in 2023 (counting sets with 2022 "cover dates" that weren't published until 2023) which is five less than 2022.

NPB players appeared in US released sets as well in 2023.  Besides the multitude of WBC sets from Topps featuring members of Samurai Japan (and not just Shohei Ohtani), Tomoyuki Sugano of the Giants appeared on two cards in Panini's Prizm set over the summer.

There were five somewhat major KBO sets released in 2023.  Three of these were from SCC - a second (following the one in 2022) "KBO Legend" set featuring retired players and two sets with active players - "Rainbow Draft" and "Karbon".  In addition, an outfit called "Via" did a set called "Jamsil Rivalry" that featured retired players from the OB/Doosan Bears and LG Twins - the two teams that share Jamil Stadium in Seoul.  Lastly, Hobby Korea issued a box set called "2023 EPIC Series Baseball Legend Baek In-Cheon" which featured five facsimile autographed cards and one real autographed card of NPB and KBO legend Baek In-Cheon (who played in Japan under the name "Jinten Haku").  While I have this listed as a KBO set, I could have easily listed it as an NPB set instead since four of the five cards portray Baek in NPB uniforms (two cards with the Taiheiyo Club Lions and one each with the Toei Flyers and Lotte Orions) and only one in a KBO uniform (MBC Chungryong).

Topps was back for their third year of doing NPB cards in 2023 and, like in 2022, ended up doing four sets.  Unlike 2022 though, all four sets were 2023 issues and not sets delayed from the previous year.  I think it's kind of interesting that Topps has added a new set each year they've been doing NPB cards.  They had two sets in 2021 - "NPB" and "Chrome NPB" (although that got delayed until early 2022) - then three sets in 2022 - "NPB", "Chrome NPB" and "Bowman NPB".  This year's offerings were "NPB", "Bowman NPB", "Chrome NPB" and "206 NPB".   The big change this year compared to the previous two is that the "Chrome NPB" was not just an ugly parallel of the "NPB" set - they used different photos and had different checklists with different players.

2023 was pretty much a run-of-the-mill year for BBM and Epoch but it was anything but for Calbee.  There were three factors that contributed to an extremely disappointing year for Calbee collectors, although only two of them really effected overseas ones.

Epoch had a kind of similar 2023 as BBM - basically an average year with no real unexpected or unusual offerings.  Epoch put out 21 sets - one more than in 2022 - but that number's a little misleading as three of their sets issued in 2023 had 2022 "cover dates".

Let's cover the late 2022 sets first.  In February they issued their second set for the Japan Retired Foreign Players Association and then in March they issued two ultra high-end sets in association with the OB Club - "Career Achievement" and "Holographica".  This answered my concern from last year that Epoch and the OB Club weren't working together anymore after having done at least one set every year since 2009.

Epoch upped the number of "Premier Edition" sets from eight to ten last year.  These are "reasonably priced" team sets although they are not "comprehensive" like BBM's team sets are.  Each set had between 30 and 45 cards and some of the cards were for OB players in addition to the active players.  The teams Epoch did sets for were the Baystars, Buffaloes, Carp, Dragons, Eagles, Fighters, Hawks, Lions, Swallows and Tigers or everyone but the Giants and Marines.  On the more expensive team set side, Epoch issued only three of their ultra high-end active/OB "Stars & Legends" team sets and oddly enough two of them were for teams they didn't do "Premier Edition" sets for.  The Giants and Marines were joined by the Tigers but this was half the number of "Stars & Legends" sets Epoch did in 2022.

Epoch released their flagship "NPB" set and the "Pacific League Rookies" box set for the sixth consecutive year.  For the second straight year they issued the "NPB Luxury Collection" as a higher end version of a subset of the "NPB" set although this year it wasn't a simple parallel version.

Epoch's other two 2023 sets were both in the ultra high-end category - the "Pacific League Premier Edition" and the 2023 version of "Career Achievement" - the latter being done once again with the OB Club.  The 2023 edition of "Holographica" has again been delayed and won't be released until March.

Epoch continued to produce their on demand Epoch One cards last year and I mean that in more than one way.  They actually continued to produce the 2022 cards into mid-February of 2023, ultimately adding almost 30 more cards to the 2022 set in calendar year 2023 for a total of 1033 cards in the set.  The 2023 edition has 1017 cards so far.  It remains to be seen if they'll continued to do 2023 cards into 2024 although I fully expect them to as they haven't done any cards for the 2023 draft picks yet.  Cards were issued for all the teams except the Carp and the Buffaloes with the Baystars being the new addition for 2023 (although to be fully accurate Epoch did Epoch One cards for DeNA in 2020 and some of the 2022 cards issued in 2023 were also for the team).

2023 was a kind of unremarkable year for BBM which in a way made it kind of remarkable.  BBM issued only 27 sets which is the fewest they've done since they only did 26 in 2006 (and almost half of the 50(!) they did ten years ago in 2013).  As far as I can tell, all the cards they issued that had a "cover date" of 2023 were actually released in 2023 which is a first at least for as long as I've been paying attention (and obviously I mean for any given year, not just 2023).

Almost all of BBM's releases in 2023 were what I refer to as their "perennials" - sets they issue every year.  There are now 25 of these - the three "flagship" sets - "1st Version", "2nd Version" and "Fusion"; the team sets for all 12 NPB teams - the Baystars, Buffaloes, Carp, Dragons, Eagles, Fighters, Giants, Hawks, Lions, Marines, Swallows and Tigers; the "Rookie Edition" (draft pick) set; the high-end "Genesis" set; the ultra-high-end "Glory" set and the two "Dancing Heroine" Cheerleader sets ("Hana" and "Mai").  They also issued two baseball specific box sets - "Icons" (with a theme of "Samurai" this year) and "Rookie Edition Premium".  They also issued three multi-sport sets that primarily featured baseball players - the "Farewell" box set for retiring baseball players and other athletes, the "Infinity" set and the ultra high-end "Crown" set.  The big changes for the year was that "Glory" went from being issued in December of the previous year to November of the current year.  This is only the second year that "Crown" has been produced.

The two non-perennial sets were the "Munetaka Murakami Shinka" box set that was dedicated to all 56 of Murakami's home runs from 2022 (plus a card for him winning the Triple Crown) and the latest installment of BBM's "Team History" sets - "Lions History 1950-2023".

I have to say I was a little surprised that BBM did not do some sort of box set celebrating the Tigers winning their first Nippon Series in 38 years.  I was also a bit surprised they only did one "Team History" set as they had done at least two in each of the previous three years.  At this point, however, there's only three teams left that they haven't done one of these sets for - the Fighters, the Eagles and the Baystars - and there's a possible reason for each of them to NOT have a set doen.  The Fighters have really only ever had one OB team set from BBM and that was celebrating the 10th Anniversary of them moving to Hokkaido, the Eagles have only been around for 20 years and the Baystars just had an OB team set done in 2019 for their 70th Anniversary.  That said, it wouldn't stun me for BBM to issue a "Team History" set in 2024 for either or both of the Eagles (celebrating their 20th season) or the Baystars (celebrating their 75th).

Time to finish up the reviews of the 2022 releases by covering everything that wasn't done by BBM, Calbee or Epoch...

2022 was a year of change for Epoch.  They issued 20 sets - although one of those technically a delayed 2021 set - which was five fewer than each of the previous two years.  There were some changes in the product line that I'll get as I talk about their sets.

Calbee celebrated their 50th year of publishing baseball cards by pretty much doing what they've been doing every year since 2004.  They issued their flagship set in their usual three Series in 2022 with Series One coming out in March, Series Two in June and Series Three in September.  

BBM issued 30 sets in 2022, the same as they did in 2021.  As always I'm going by the "cover date" of the cards rather than the date of release so the "publication year" of 2022 covers cards issued in mid-December of 2021 up until the end of December of 2022.

I want to wrap up my review of the 2021 Japanese baseball card issues by going over every card release that wasn't from BBM, Calbee or Epoch.

2021 was another steady year for Epoch.  They issued 25 sets which was the same as what they'd done in 2020.  As usual their output was split between "reasonably" priced sets and "ultra high end" sets.

Calbee did their usual thing in 2021, issuing their flagship set in three separate Series.  As Sean has pointed out to me in the past, the timing of the release of each series corresponded to the beginning of a season - Series One came out right around the beginning of spring in March, Series Two came out in June at the beginning of summer and Series Three came out in September as autumn began.  

2021 was a bit of a return to normalcy for BBM's baseball releases.  They issued 30 sets in 2021, one more than they had in 2020.  As always I'm going by the "cover date" of the set rather than the date of release so those 30 sets were released between mid-December of 2020 until just before Christmas of 2021.

The bulk of the sets BBM issued last year were what I refer to as their perennial sets.  24 of the 30 sets they published were the 2021 editions of sets they do every year.  This includes the three "flagship" sets - 1st Version, 2nd Version and Fusion, the team sets for each of the 12 NPB teams (Fighters, Buffaloes, Dragons, Lions, Carp, Baystars, Giants, Swallows, Hawks, Marines, Eagles and Tigers), the high-end Genesis set, the ultra-high-end Glory set, the Rookie Edition (draft pick) set, the two Dancing Cheerleader sets (Hana and Mai), the Icons - Progess and Rookie Edition Premium box sets, the "Farewell" set for retiring baseball players (and for the first time other athletes) and the multi-sport set Masterpiece*.   There are two sets that were perennials that were not issued last year - the faux-vintage "Time Travel" set and the female athlete centered "Shining Venus" set.  Both sets had been published every year between 2017 and 2020 but not last year (and neither have been announced for 2022 either).

* BBM did their first multi-sport set in 2016 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of their parent company, Baseball Magazine Sha.  It was called "Masterpiece".  Starting in 2017, BBM did an annual multi-sport set called "Infinity".  Since 2021 was the 75th Anniversary of Baseball Magazine Sha, they decided this year's multi-sport set would again be called "Masterpiece".  I assume it will be "Infinity" again this year and won't be "Masterpiece" again until 2026.

Four of the other six sets this year were from the OB team "History" sets - the Dragons History 1936-2021, the Marines History 1950-2021, the Tigers History 1935-2021 and the Buffaloes History 1936-2021 sets.  They also issued another OB player set called "Legendary Rookies".  Lastly they issued a box set in honor of Daisuke Matsuzaka's retirement called "Monster Of Heisei".

To wrap up my review of the 2020 releases, here's a quick round up of every card set I know of that was released in Japan last year by an outfit other than BBM, Epoch or Calbee.

Actually this first set I'm going to mention could have been included with the BBM review.  BBM teamed up with the Saitama Seibu Lions to produce a 20 card set that I think was sold in one card packs at the Lions team store starting on July 21st.  

TIC (or Hits or whatever their name is) issued two of their "mini colored paper" (or "mini shikishi") team sets for the Baystars and Hawks.  They were also behind a more traditional looking card set for the Baystars called "Used Ball".

For the third year in a row Konami issued their collectible game card set called Baseball Collection.  These cards can be used in an arcade video game.  This year's set grew from 912 cards last year to 972 this year (81 cards per team).

Once again the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles made their team issued set available nationwide - this is at least the eighth straight year they've done so.

The total count of Japanese baseball card sets issued in 2020 was 64 - this is not including team issued sets other than what I've mentioned here.  This is down from 73 last year and is the lowest number since the 59 issued in 2015.  I don't know if this is pandemic related or not.

In Korea, SCC issued four sets for the KBO.  The first two were collectible game card sets called "Battle Baseball Card Game" Volumes One and Two.  These were followed by the "Premium Collection" and "Golden Premium Collection" sets.  In addition Dan Skrezyna issued the latest set in his "Foreign Attack" series - this one featured all the foreign players in the KBO in 2018.

Of the three major card manufacturers in Japan, Calbee's releases were probably the ones that were least affected by the pandemic in 2020.  As usual the company issued their flagship set in their standard three separate Series.

Series One was released in mid-March.  It had an 88 card base set containing 72 player cards, nine "The Record" cards, three cards for the 2019 post-season and four checklist cards.  In addition there were two insert sets (8 "Legend" cards for 2019 retirees and 20 "Title Holder" cards) and a limited edition 12 card box set called "Sluggers" that was only available from Calbee's Amazon Japan store (I have mistakenly thought in the past that these limited edition box sets were prizes that could be redeemed with "Lucky" cards).

Series Two came out in early July, a little later than normal.  It had a base set of 87 cards - 72 player cards, 12 "AVG Leader" cards and just three checklist cards (normally the Series Two checklist cards show early season highlights but because the start of the season was delayed three months there weren't any highlights to show.  Calbee instead did cards of the three new managers.)  The set also had a 24 card "Star" insert set and a limited edition 12 card box set called "WINS Leader".

Like Series Two, Series Three was delayed a couple of weeks, coming out in early October instead of mid-September.  It had a base set of 89 cards - 72 player cards, 12 "First Win" cards and FIVE checklist cards (making up for the missing checklist card from Series Two and ensuring that the set has its standard 12 checklist cards).  Also like Series Two, this Series had 24 "Star" insert cards.  The associated limited edition box set featured the Opening Day cleanup hitters for each team.

There were a total of 216 player cards included in all three Series which works out to 18 per team.  As usual there are a number of players who had more than one card - 33 in fact which is the highest number in the past few years.  As a result there are only 183 unique players represented in those 216 player cards.  Also as usual there are a number of stars who don't have player cards but appear in subsets such as Hayato Sakamoto (only in the "AVG Leader" subset), Tomoya Mori ("AVG Leader"), Seiya Suzuki ("AVG Leader"), Kensuke Kondoh ("AVG Leader") and Yoshinobu Yamamoto ("First Win").  Why Calbee includes multiple cards of some players while excluding others is always puzzling.

Calbee also issued a set for the Samurai Japan team in late November.  This 37 card set featured most of the Japanese players from the 2019 Premier 12, the last international baseball tournament held before the pandemic hit.

Epoch's 2020 card releases don't appear to have been affected much by COVID-19.  They issued 25 sets this past year which is two fewer than the 27 they did in both 2018 and 2019 but you'd be hard-pressed to pick a particular set that didn't get made this year because of the pandemic.  As usual Epoch's offerings were split between reasonably priced ones and ultra high end ones.

We'll start with the reasonably priced sets.  For the third year in a row Epoch released a "flagship" set called "NPB".  The only real change with this set this past year was the inclusion of 12 cards of OB players which caused the base set to grow from 432 cards to 444 cards.  In addition, Epoch issued "Rookies & Stars" sets for nine of the twelve NPB teams - the Baystars, Buffaloes, Carp, Dragons, Fighters, Hawks, Lions, Swallows and Tigers - which was one more than they had done in 2019 (they added the Hawks).  The big difference this year is that instead of being "comprehensive" team sets (i.e. including all the players on the team's 70 man roster) these team sets only had 36 cards each so only a subset of the team's players were included.  The final reasonably priced set was the Pacific League Rookies set, a box set featuring all of the 2019 draft picks (except for the ikusei picks) for the six Pacific League teams.  This is the third straight year that Epoch has issued this set.

Getting into the more expensive sets...Epoch issued eight combination active/OB player team sets under the "Stars & Legends" title.  They did them for the Baystars, Buffaloes, Carp, Dragons, Fighters, Hawks, Lions, Swallows and Tigers (or all the teams they did "Rookies & Stars" sets for).  Epoch also issued a set celebrating the Tigers' 85th Anniversary called "The Legendary Players" that I believe only included OB players.

For the fifth year in a row Epoch issued a set called "Pacific League Premier Edition" that featured active players from the six Pacific League teams.  They also issued their usual two sets in conjunction with the Japan Baseball Promotion Association (JBPA) - aka the OB Club.  This year's offerings were "Career Achievements" and "Holographica".

Epoch also issued an extremely high end set dedicated to Ichiro Suzuki called "Ichiro Suzuki - Orix BlueWave Super Luxury".  I was never able to find a price on boxes for this set but there were only 250 produced.  This is the one set that was affected by the pandemic - it was originally scheduled to be released at the beginning of May but it ended up not being published until the end of October.

In addition to their sets Epoch also issued their on-demand Epoch One cards for the third year in a row.  As was the case last year, Epoch issued these cards for only nine of the twelve NPB teams (which oddly enough are not the same nine teams they issued the "Rookies & Stars" and "Stars & Legends" sets for) although the lineup changed with the Baystars replacing the Carp while still including the Dragons, Fighters, Giants, Hawks, Lions, Marines, Swallows and Tigers.  There were a total of 676 cards issued which is the fewest number for the three years they've been doing these cards which is probably related to the shortened season.  Although I will point out that it's very odd that they didn't issue any cards for the Nippon Series at all.

It goes without saying that 2020 was a challenging year for everyone and that includes baseball card companies.  BBM rose to the challenge and managed to pretty much produced their standard slate of sets although with a delayed schedule.

BBM issued 29 sets this past "year" - as always I'm referring to sets with the "cover date" of 2020 on the cards which this time around started with a set issued in December of 2019 and ended with a set released just over a week ago.  29 is the fewest number of sets that BBM has done in a year since 2006 when they did just 26.  That's not necessarily due to the pandemic, however, as the number of baseball card sets that BBM's been doing has been slowly declining from the 50(!) they did in 2013 and 29 is only slightly less than the 32 they did in both 2018 and 2019.

BBM published all 25 of their perennial sets this year although a number of them were delayed for a month or two.  Things pretty much were on schedule for the first half of the year - the historic set Time Travel 1985 and the ultra high end set Glory came out in December as expected, followed by the "Retirement" set in January, the Rookie Edition set in February, the Icons set (called "Fireballers" this year) in March and the 1st Version set in April.  The 12 "comprehensive" team sets came out in their usual time period between March and July.  However since the start of the season got delayed for three months, the remaining products from BBM also ended up getting delayed.  The two cheerleader/dance team sets - Dancing Heroine Hana and Mai - which normally come out in June and July respectively came out in September and October instead.  The 2nd Version set was delayed two months from August to October.  There were one month delays for the high end set Genesis (September to October), the Rookie Edition Premium box set (October to November) and the Fusion set (November to late December) and a two month delay for the multi-sport set Infinity (October to December).  

The big drop off in sets from BBM were in the single team box sets category.  Instead of the five sets they did in each of the last two years, they one did one this year - a set for the Swallows called Legacy.

The remaining three sets from 2020 had a historic flavor.  There were two similar looking OB team sets - Carp History 1950-2020 and Giants History 1934-2020.  These were very attractive sets and I wonder if BBM will be doing similar sets for other teams in the future.  BBM also issued a set to commemorate their 30th Anniversary of doing baseball cards.

I'm curious about what 2021 will hold for BBM.  Their first set with a 2021 cover date (Glory) came out a few weeks ago but the only other set that's been announced so far is Rookie Edition.  Not only has their been no announcement about the annual Time Travel set, that set is usually out by now.  In addition, so far there's been no mention of the annual "Retirement" and "Shining Venus"* sets which usually come out in January.  Not sure if this means BBM won't be doing the sets or if it simply means they're slow in announcing them.

*Shining Venus is a multi-sport set featuring female athletes.  It usually includes one or two players from the Japan Women's Baseball League which makes it of interest to me but I don't list it as one of BBM's annual 25 baseball card sets.

Wrapping up my review of the 2019 releases, here's a summary of everything I know that was released in Japan last year by someone other than BBM, Calbee or Epoch.

Hits was back with three of their "mini colored paper" (or "mini shikishi") team sets.  The featured teams were the Carp, the Hawks and the Baystars.  I'm not positive but I think Hits was also behind three other team sets that were each called something like "Game Used Ball".  These were more traditional card sets with 81 card base sets.  The sets were done for the Baystars, Hawks and Swallows.

Konami was back with a second edition of their Baseball Collection set.  This is a collectible card game - the cards are apparently used in an arcade game.  There's a total of 912 cards - 76 per team. 

There were two team issued sets that were distributed in packs nationwide (as opposed to being issued to team fan clubs).  For I think the seventh straight year the Eagles issued a comprehensive team set.  The Buffaloes also did one.

The only food issue available outside of the ballparks was the fourth edition of Nippon-Ham and BBM's joint "Home Run Sausage" cards for the Fighters.  This was the smallest edition ever as it only had one 76 card series plus a set of 20 rare "We Love Hokkaido" cards. 

The total number of Japanese sets for 2019 was 73 (not including fan club sets and cards given away with meals at ballparks) which is down slightly from last year. 

There were four sets issued by SCC for the KBO in 2019 - the KBO Collection set, the KBO Collection Premium set, the KBO Collection 2 set and the KBO Collection Premium 2 set.  In addition, Dan Skrezyna issued another card from his "Vittum" label - this one was for the foreign KBO players from 2015.

Like it was for BBM and Epoch, 2019 was a pretty much regular year for Calbee.  They issued their flagship set as usual in three separate Series.

Series One came out at its usual time in March.  This set had a base set of 98 cards which broke down into 72 player cards (6 per team), 22 "Title Holder" cards and four checklist cards.  The set also had 34 insert/premium subset cards split between the "Star" (24 cards) and "Legend" (10 cards commemorating players who retired in 2018) sets.  There was also a 12 card Limited Edition box set associated with the set called "Strikeout Leader" that featured pitchers from each of the 12 teams.  The box set was available through some sort of "Lucky Card" redemption.

Series Two was released in June and had an 88 card base set split between 72 player cards (again 6 per team), 12 "Opening Day Starting Pitcher" cards and four checklist cards.  It also included the usual 24 card "Star" insert set and also had a 12 card Limited Edition box set called "Hits Leader" available via the "Lucky Card" redemption.

September saw the release of Series Three.  This also had an 88 card base set that again included 72 player cards that again were split evenly among the 12 teams.  There was also a 12 card "Exciting Scene" subset and the usual four checklist cards.  Once again there was a 24 card "Star" insert set with the set plus a 12 card Limited Edition box set called something like "Control Tower" - it featured the starting catcher for each team and was again available via a "Lucky Card" redemption.

There were a total of 216 player cards for the entire set but 24 players had more than one than one card in the set so there are only 192 players represented in the set.  As is usual for Calbee, there are a number of players who appear in the subsets but don't have regular player cards in the set.  This year that group of players includes Yudai Ohno, Tsuyoshi Wada, Randy Messenger, Daichi Ohsera, Hotaka Yamakawa, Takayuki Kishi, Shota Imanaga and Tomoyuki Sugano.  Ohsera, Yamakawa, Kishi and Sugano actually each appear in multiple subsets.

In addition to their flagship set, Calbee also issued a set for the Samurai Japan team.  This was the third time in the past four years they had issued a Samurai Japan set and at 44 cards this was the largest one ever.  The set contained cards for the players who played against Mexico last March as well as a number of the players who took on the MLB All Stars in November of 2018.  For the first time Calbee issued a Limited Edition box set as a "Lucky Card" redemption with a Samurai Japan set - this was an 8 card set that commemorated all the games that Samurai Japan played from November of 2017 until March of 2019 except for the six games played against the MLB All Stars.

2019 was more of the same for Epoch.  They issued 27 sets this past season, the same number they published in 2018.  Once again their products were split between reasonably priced sets and ultra high end sets.

We'll start with the reasonably priced sets.  For the second straight year Epoch published a 432 card "flagship" set called "NPB".  They also published comprehensive team sets called "Rookies & Stars" for eight NPB teams - repeating sets for the Baystars, Buffaloes, Carp, Dragons, Lions, Swallows, and Tigers and adding one for the Fighters.  For the second straight year they published a box set called "Pacific League Rookies" which features all the non-ikusei 2018 draft picks from the six Pacific League teams.

Notably Epoch did not issue a set for the Japan Women's Baseball League this past year.  They had previously issued sets for the league in 2016 and 2018 which makes me wonder if they are publishing them every other year.

The remaining 17 sets Epoch issued were all expensive high end and ultra high end sets which typically featured a box containing four to eight cards for over 10,000 yen.  Each box is guaranteed to contain at least one autograph card and/or one memorabilia card.