I wondered if there even was such a thing because I love trading cards and stumbled upon "Pachimon cards" which doesn't show up on a search on the board. These things are rad, retro, and they have their own suit and color like playing cards. You could put these in hard cases and play Kaiju poker lol.
These are spectacular! Definitely recognize that last one. That was made into a toy, forgot who made it, but now I know why the set was called "Card Monsters!"
From the pink tentacle blog they write "In the early 1970s, the Kewpie Corporation (maker of Kewpie brand mayonnaise) produced a deck of promotional playing cards featuring various pachimon kaiju."
These are the cards that are the basis for Ilanena's Daikaiju card monster figures. I could swear there is a thread with more pix, but I couldn't find it.
Holy toledo, that Joker card looks like it could have been inspiration for this unproduced Elegab figure http://dokurotarou.com/Media/c_warai.jpg
A lot of the pics are now gone but there are still a few: http://www.skullbrain.org/bb/index.php?threads/ilanena-watch.13930/
It helps to look them up as pachimono (or pachi for short) cards. They are a subset of menko cards, which are one of the forebears of modern collectible cards. In fact there are a few long-time boardies here who use(d) pachimono images as their avatars, such as Bansheebot.
