Panini’s Mangaverse Football Brings Anime Art to the Gridiron
October 13, 2026
Don’t Miss the Debut of Panini Mangaverse Football
Panini 2026 Mangaverse Football debuts just in time for the holiday season. This new product features stunningly designed cards that put today’s top gridiron talent from the collegiate and professional levels right alongside some of the sport’s brightest legends.
True to its name, Mangaverse is full of inserts featuring artwork made by creatives that help recognize the feats, journeys and styles of these phenomenal talents while mimicking the feel of reading through Japanese-style comic books and graphic novels. Fans can find a stacked autograph roster and beautiful inserts like Way of the Warrior, Murals, Origin Story, as well as a 100-card base set.
Mangaverse features a host of players who stepped up their play when the temperature dropped and had an affinity for strutting their stuff when they knew the cameras were rolling. A few names from different eras that fit the description: Deion Sanders, Randy Moss, Julio Jones, Chad Johnson, Lawrence Taylor, Adrian Peterson and Michael “Samurai Mike” Singletary.
The Mangaverse retail configuration includes exclusive Bronze, Red and Green parallels plus an exclusive Winter Wonderland insert. Retailers Target, Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods will have a special ornament-style box.
- 40 Boxes per Case
- 1 Pack per Box
- 15 Cards per Pack
- 2 Exclusive Parallels
- 3 Inserts
- 1 Winter Wonderland Insert
There is also a Hobby configuration of Mangaverse Football that will be available on our website as well as at your local hobby shop. The Hobby configuration includes Super Short Printed Inserts: Starcade and Blank Slate.
- 6 Packs per Box
- 6 Cards per Pack
- 1 Autograph
- 3 Numbered Parallels
- 6 Inserts or Insert Parallels
There are 12 hobby boxes per case.
Daniel Pickett
AFi founder and Editor-In-Chief Daniel “Julius Marx” Pickett has been around toys his whole life. The first line he ever collected was Mego’s World’s Greatest Super Heroes line back in the 70s. He has been surrounded by collectables ever since.
In 1999 he was confounded by a lack of information and news about some of his favorite toy lines he was collecting. Since he couldn’t find the information he decided to pursue it himself thinking other people might also be interested in the same news. He started writing a weekly column on the toy industry and action figure for a toy news site and in a years time he tripled the sites daily traffic with his updates, reviews and product features.
He built relationships with every major toy manufacturer and many sculptors, painters and mold makers. He grew his hobby into a world wide expertise that the industry has embraced.
In 2004 he teamed up with his toy buddy Jason “ToyOtter” Geyer and they created their own website www.ActionFigureInsider.com.
Daniel has been quoted in both industry and mass media press outlets. Over the years Daniel and AFi have been sought out as experts in the field. Daniel was regularly featured on “Attack of the Show” on the G4 network as the primary contributor to their “Mint On Card” segment, and our front page has been linked to from USA Today’s
“Pop Candy” Blog twice. Daniel’s content has also been featured on Bloomberg News, MSNBC.com, Time.com, The Wall Street Journal, The Saturday Evening Post, CNN.com, AssociatedPress.com
Wired.com, Fark.com, Boing-Boing, Gizmodo.com, Ain’t It Cool News, the Official
Star Wars blog, Geekologie, G4, CNet and Toy Fare magazine, among many
others. He has consulted on toy lines, books, documentaries and TV shows.
But all of that really just sounds snooty and “tootin’ his own horn” – the long and short of it is that Daniel loves toys and he LOVES talking about them.
Read other articles by Daniel Pickett.
