JR Ultraman Winter Stamp Rally in Tokyo

Tsuburaya Productions and JR (Japan Rail) have teamed up for another Ultraman stamp rally. In a way it's heart warming to see kids and adults lining up at train stations to stamp their booklets. Common wisdom in some circles may be that traditional arts and physical objects are passe in today's digital world, but such excitement over something as simple as a mono-color impression is proof positive that the "analog is dead" crowd has gotten ahead of itself.

Asagaya Station

So, let's look at this promotion. It starts with a free booklet handed out at Tokyo JR stations.

Stamp Booklet

Beautiful graphics all around for this promotion, including the stamp booklet, posters, and displays.

 More after the jump:

Map of the JR stations with stamp booths. Next to each station name is a photo of the Ultraman, kaiju, or vehicle whose stamp you can get at that station.

The booklet itself has nice color photos, and it's divided by Ultraman shows. Each show's heroes, kaiju, seijin, vehicles, etc. are grouped together.

These pages and blank squares are for characters from the original TV show.

Ultra Seven.

Ultraman Ace

Pigmon closeup. Beneath each character's name are details including its size, weight, place of birth, the episode it first appeared in, and a character profile. Pretty cool information in its own right. Who knew that Pigmon weighs just 10 kilos? I need to get on that Nutra-Kaiju program!

Ultraman with stamp

Stamp Booths

Ultraman, at Nishi Ogikubo station

Mochiron, at Higashi Nakano station. A nice touch is how, in the background of the display, we see Ultraman Taro, since that's the show the enemy appeared in.

Stamp closeup

Ink pad

 There are plenty of signs in each station telling you where the stamp table is located.

Temperor Seijin is thataway!

Ultra Swag

On the second page of the stamp booklet is a page with 10 blanks. Fill it up with any 10 stamps, and you can get a free sticker at one of the promotion's "Goal" stations.

Sticker packaging

The page has a bunch of stickers that can be individually peeled off.

After you've collected 10 stamps, you can also bring your booklet to a designated convenience store. Once you've bought a certain yen amount of stuff there, you can get one of these little badges.

Unfortunately, as this sign in front of Koenji staton shows, the badges disappear in a flash.

There are other mail away lottery prizes available, as shown on the final page of the stamp booklet.

I love promotions like this. It can be as simple (just collecting a few stamps) or as involved (going all in, filling up the booklet, and trying for mail-away prizes) as you want. Also, if you just want to get some stamps and stickers, it's totally free. Score one for Team Analog!