Just to add to this.
Pocket Monsters Blue Version - ポケットモンスターブルーバージョン
* Gold * - ゴールド (emphasising special celebrations)
Playing cards & karuta - トラカルタ (a portmanteau of tru.mp (which is what western playing cards are called in Japan) and “karuta”)
The cards are celebrating both the Japanese Pokemon Blue version (exclusively available through CoroCoro at the time to its subscribers) and the New Year (1997).
That’s why the visual theme is around Pokemon Blue, with Blastoise and the above Japanese also on the box.
But some of you may be thinking - why so late? Wasn’t the blue version released on October 15? It turns out that it’s the official launch date, but ‘the earliest a fan could hope to get their hands on Blue was actually in early December…’.
This CoroCoro Magazine issue (cover dated January 1997) was released 13th of December. The CoroCoro monthly magazine is always released on the 15th of the preceding cover dated month, unless it falls on a weekend in which instance it falls on the Friday before the 15th as it has here.
So it seems to fit together.
I like it a lot.