Ask John: Why are Magic Cards Popular in Anime?

Question:
Why do so many animes involve magic cards? What is the significance?

Answer:
Actually, I’ve only been able to think of two anime shows that specifically focus on “magic” cards: Card Captor Sakura and Yu-Gi-Oh. Card Captor Sakura has the Clow Cards, cards the embody magic spells. Yu-Gi-Oh features monsters contained within trading cards that come out and battle at the request of their masters. Some of the origin for these card collecting shows undoubtedly comes from the influence of Pocket Monster and it’s kin, Digimon and Monster Farmer.

I’m sure that a major reason behind these card-collecting shows is the popularity of trading cards and collectable card games in Japan. Virtually every anime & video game series you can think of, and a lot of original series get trading card sets in Japan. J-pop idol singers and pop celebrities get trading cards as well. Collectable card games are also immensely popular in Japan. Everyone knows of the Pokemon card game, but series from Gundam to Slayers to Evangelion also get CCGs. There was even a recent anime television series called Moncol Knight that parodied the phenomenon of collectable card games. Moncol is an abbreviation for Monster Card Collector Knight. You can see the popularity of trading card collecting appear in anime including Galaxy Frauline Yuna and Detective Conan, in which the main characters collect rare cards from their favorite series.

On a possibly unrelated note, I’d like to mention a different type of magic cards that occasionally pop up in anime, fortune-telling cards. Both Escaflowne and the X manga series place a heavy emphasis on tarot cards. Urd uses cards to tell fortunes in the SD Ah! My Goddess TV series. These stem from Japanese cultural beliefs in spirituality and supernatural power, and may also originate in a similar Japanese symbol that also appears in anime often, the reifus- the magic paper talismans that appear in many anime titles including Fushigi Yuugi, Silent Mobius, Ghost Sweeper Mikami, and Adventures of Kotetsu.