AZKi and Achichi Mela Open National Route Trading Cards in Their First In-Person Collab

HOLOLIVE — AZKi and Achichi Mela met in person for the first time on Wednesday, opening packs of national route trading cards together in a studio. AZKi said it was her first time meeting a junior at the studio, and Mela said it was her first in-person collab. The stream ran 72 minutes.

AZKi said the pair share a love of GeoGuessr, the map-guessing game, which is why she chose the cards, made by the mapmaker ZENRIN, for the occasion. Each card shows a Japanese national route with its start and end points, its length and a map on the back. Rarity depends on length: routes of 100 kilometers or more are common, 50 to 99 kilometers uncommon, and 49 kilometers or less rare, with super rare cards on top. AZKi had bought 10 packs of seven cards across two series, waiting for the sale to open on release day, and said ZENRIN had since gifted her a second complete box. She handed one complete set to Mela.

“National routes are more fun than you’d think.” — AZKi and Achichi Mela, midway through the unboxing

Mela arrived with a gift of her own: a heavy GeoGuessr “5K” pin badge, which she explained she had grabbed after worrying that bringing a souvenir was expected for a first off-line collab. AZKi said none was needed but called it a delight.

The packs produced plenty of map talk. The pair traced routes through mountain ranges, ferry gaps and a stretch of Route 474 that breaks off between Nagano and Shizuoka. Route 1 from Tokyo to Osaka came up, as did Route 416, which runs from Fukui to Ishikawa and shares its number with Mela’s April 16 birthday. Route 58 was another standout: its sea sections add up to 609 kilometers between Kagoshima and Okinawa. The only super rare card was the “four-in-a-row rice balls,” an intersection in Tsuruga, Fukui, where four route signs stack in a column, with the signs for Routes 8 and 27 in an unusual order. Duplicates, including Route 322 and Route 321, began to turn up late in the first series.

Chat had 76 Super Chats. Near the end, AZKi said she wanted a follow-up built around geography, perhaps with a blank map showing mountains and rivers to explain why the routes bend as they do. She said she would give Mela the sticker and acrylic keychain from the first-purchase bonus, and the two left the stream to go to dinner together.