Anime card games were a land without rules back on the playground. In my days of elementary and middle school, kids would often bring either their Yu-Gi-Oh! or Pokemon card collections into the arena. Now most of the time this was for trading purposes or bragging rights. You could earn big brownie points with the boys if you had the sickest deck or flashiest foil card. Huh? Why didn’t we actually play the game you ask? Because none of us kids had the slightest fucking clue how to play these complicated card games. Yu-Gi-Oh! completely escaped our understanding back in those early ages and somehow as we got older the game itself only got more complicated. Without Master Duel, I’d still be lost on what the hell is going on. And Pokemon? Ay dog I play video games, I don’t know what the hell you were supposed to do in a card game.
Of course, it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t try to get cards that are far more useless and less known thereby not impressing any of the other kids. At that age I wanted Zatch Bell cards baby. And my wish was granted. Apparently there was an official trading card game for it and it even came with mini-spellbooks like they used in the anime, except the "pages" of the book would hold your card collection. I thought that shit was the coolest book I’d ever laid eyes upon back then. Recently while cleaning out my drawers I found said Zatch Bell cards and books and it made me wonder “Just how many anime have their own trading card game that no one knows about or plays?”. Well ladies and gentlemen, the answer is surprising. Keep in mind I’m not saying the following anime are unpopular, moreso that I NEVER knew they had an attached trading card game and that part is never mentioned or played by the main fanbase.
Feast your eyes baby. God damn was I happy to have these.
Gather around boys, let’s play some Sailor Moon. Oh, not interested? That’s alright, let’s deal the cards for a round of Fullmetal Alchemist. Come on, surely you have time for some Inuyasha afterwards too. Do you need to go in a hurry? No problem, that’s why I also have some Initial D cards my man. Ah what the hell while you’re here we might as well play Bleach, Detective Conan, Dragon Ball Z, Mobile Suit Gundam, Naruto, Death Note, Code Geass, Tokyo Ghoul, Attack on Titan, Sword Art Online, Demon Slayer, and the list goes on and on. Many of those card games never made it to the west, but google any of them followed by “card game” and you’ll find some company asking you to spend your money on the hopes of pulling a nice SSR Foil Light. It’s crazy to me that SO many series had a way to engage with them that I and probably most of the fanbases neither knew nor would care about. I mean a big part of card games are the constant release of new cards to try and the ability to find an opponent to play with, and I assume that would be a TALL task for most if not all of the ones mentioned today besides Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon.
Duel me, Friday night, 9 p.m. in Death Note TCG. Loser dies of a heart attack. Be there or be square.
To me this was like the reverse eye opening experience of seeing how many anime have shitty gacha mobile apps trying to milk your money. I expected a lot of them, and after looking through the app store the answer was indeed a lot of them existed. However, I never expected this many anime to have a branded card game and yet here we are with a ton of big players discovered to be dealing at the table. While it may be cool to have a few of these cards, I’ve got enough junk lying around in my house as it is and I don’t need to spend money on a dead card game. Did you know so many big anime had card games devised for them? Do you own any cards based on an anime that’s not the big two I mentioned? Is there anyone out there ready to duel me playing by the official rules and using the official cards of the Zatch Bell TCG? Strap on your duel disk, summon Sasuke, and attack your opponent directly with the Death Note in the comments below!
