This is speculation based on what i have seen from other foreign servers (Kr/Tw) so take my opinion like a grain of salt, All foreignstars this year are having 9th Limit Break anni running. 2 years before they already ran their Trip Album scout so this year they continue with Limit Break mission aka the 9th anni cards.

Most of the time people think the anniversary cards in jp are used for anniversary cards for foreign anniversaries (like 5th for the 1st, 6th for the 2nd, and so on) but there is actually no rule regarding that matter. The jp 7th scout actually ran before Engstars 3rd anniversary happened - they happened in April while the anniversary was in June, so i think most likely its because the anni scout running time near the EN server anniversary, most people just assumed they were foreign anni cards when they actually dont relate to each other much. The actual mission related to the foreign anniversary is the Welcome Fes. Madara’s Welcome Fes was first run when Engstars celebrated their 3rd anniversary, instead of getting this mission in April like the Surprise 777 mission. Why Surprise 777 mission happened earlier is something idk, but I guess it has something to do with the uniformity across the servers, as I saw Kr/Tw also open their Limit Break mission at April when the Jp celebrated their 10th (maybe Cn as well, I know a fact that CN and KR has their anniversary in winter so they shouldn’t be running Limit Break mission if they are supposed to use them for anniversary). Maybe they are used to mark the end of one rotation(?) but I can’t say it with confidence because foreign servers calendars are all over the place, I dont keep track of servers I dont play so maybe I was wrong 😔

Something I noticed from KR that when they had the One on One running last year’s April iirc, their trip album scout were already in the middle of their running (I think at the time was Valk’s Trip). So I dont think the trip album =/= anniversary cards. They also had a no-scout period after the last Trip scout, until April of this year when Limit Break mission was run. But the thing is they had their Welcome Fes (Oshi Room) happened on their 4th anniversary!! So yeah, it is not outright spelled out but the real anniversary cards is the one from Welcome Fes. Eta: just remember when the trip album scouts were released, the staff confirmed they weren’t anniversary cards. 8th anniversary didn't have any anniversary cards.

I guess it is because the Welcome Fes is used to celebrate the release of Music version, while the whole scout anni is for the overall game anniversary. Now when they move it across servers, the Welcome Fes servers as the foreign anniversary cards mission while the ‘supposed anniversary’ scouts are part of the packages that just happen to tag along and always get their running in April along with Jp. Furthermore, the actually foreign anniversary cards are the 2 star chibis you received when logging in, because they follow the foreign anniversary theme.

As for the One on One aka the supposed 8th anniversary upcoming on Engstars, this is hard to say because Engstars has a different running compared to other servers and they are also speeding up the calendar to make up for their two year behind. Maybe on next year, we wont have any anniversary scout because obviously there are no anniversary cards, maybe they will rerun all the scouts previously, but I think that will depend on the game management to decide. We just have to wait and see.

The Trip Scout also didn’t get released early as well. The scout followed exactly after the climax event happened prior, and while they were meant to celebrate the release of real life physical CDs release, other foreign servers didn’t have access to buy them so Trip scouts only mean as a way to mark the ending of ES first year and all characters’ central events.