Enako

Showing off one of the better cards of 2019, a First Pitch BBM card of Enako.

To a lot of people this might just seem like any ordinary First Pitch BBM card. A first pitch of a cute girl who might be from an idol group or something.

Well close but not really.

Enako san is a cosplay model from Nagoya, Japan (NAGOYA REPRESENT!) aka the home of the Chunichi Dragons. As such her throwing the first pitch for the Dragons made a ton of sense. So much sense that I'm not sure why they didn't do it sooner, BUT this was the year where miss Enako started appearing on magazine covers after years of toiling in the otaku cosplay scene.

For the uninformed, her being a cosplay models means that she dresses up as anime characters for a living. Getting paid to dress up. Respect.
Also for people not sure how to feel, don't worry she's the same age as me.

Anyway yes, miss Enako threw out the first pitch at Nagoya Dome on August 23rd. Since then she's done a few interviews with various sports outlets asking her for soundbites on her sports fandom, asking her which player she'd want to be her personal photographer, that kind of thing.

The first pitch itself was pretty good. She used every last ounce of power she could generate from her 5' (154 cm) frame and to her credit the pitch did travel far before inevitably bouncing on the ground.

This card came to be thanks to the 2019 BBM Fusion set, a set that tries to infuse a ton of different sports and people. Enako was chief among them because her autograph was (and still is) a huge draw for this product. Never mind that the odds of pulling one are close to zero, it's all about the chase.

Honestly the only two Dragons cards worth a damn in 2019 were the Akira Neo autographs and the Enako autographs. At least if you're like me and you think way too much about money.

Also just aesthetically speaking, you know I'm fucking right.

Anyway if you want to see miss Enako's impressive cosplays, she posts a lot of them on her official Instagram account and Twitter account.

So in retrospect this definitely would've made it onto the best of 2019 list but I didn't get a copy until a Japanese contact of mine sent it (more on the other contents later) this year. Oh well.

Anyway I've since found that Mint Yokohama (my old stomping grounds lol) has an autographed version available for a mere 45,000 yen (aprox $450 USD). What's scary is that if I was still living in Yokohama I'd pay for that in an instant and not even blink. But paying for that in US dollars (even after the exchange rate'll probably reduce that price down to like $432) is a no-go for me right now because I've already made stupid card purchases, so I've started saving for it.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).