Japanese Anime Card Decks

Two Japanese t.v. cartoons that have recently gained nationwide popularity and are all the rage with kids but also appeal to adult viewers are Lilly Franky's "Oden-kun" and Tetsuo Yasumi's Zenmai Zamurai.

Nowadays you can find a lot of spin-off goods based on those animations in the shops. As I number myself among the fans of these two whacky anime, I have been meaning to introduce them to visitors of hirohurl.net and today I finally got around to it! I have added a page to my site offering playing card decks featuring characters from Oden-kun and Zenmai Zamurai. They will make the perfect present for game-playing afficionados of Japanese popular culture!

So what are the two cartoons all about?

Oden-Kun

Oden-kun is set in a world that exists at the bottom of a Japanese stew pot, a place where the stewed eggs, potatoes, sausages, rolled cabbage, fish-paste tubes, and other weird and wonderful Japanese culinary concoctions go about their daily lifes until a large pair of chopsticks rends the soupy firmament and plucks one of them up and onto a customer's plate in the human world of the Oden stall.

However, once consumed by a ravenous customer, the plucky little oden characters go on to fight the various diseases and disorders they encounter inside the humans...

And as soon as the Oden stall owner gets around to preparing some replacement items, and popping them into the stew pot, the characters miraculously reappear back in the village at the bottom of the stew pot.

Zemai Zamurai - The Clockwork Samurai

In his early days Zenmai Zamurai was a warrior thief and to atone for his sins he has been sent to the future world of "Karakuri Oedo" - a kind of "greater Edo" - by Daifuku no Kami, the God of Good Fortune.

To keep tabs on the little samurai Daifuku no Kami took the precaution of sticking a clockwork key in Zenmai Zamurai's head to keep track of his good deeds. Zenmai means "clockwork" in Japanese.

Zenmai Zamurai carries a sword with four dango stuck on it. When he draws his sword and strikes at his enemies they swallow the dango and are turned into happy goody-goodies.

Oden-kun and Zenmai Zamurai Cartoon Character Playing Card Decks

Get yourself a piece of the latest Japanese animation craze! Two crazy, colourful playing card decks featuring Oden-kun and Zenmai Zamurai are now available at:

http://japanese-games-shop.com/japanese-animation-decks.html.

Luxury "Ran" Mahjong Set with Bamboo Backs.

The "Ran" mahjong set that is - or rather was - available on my mahjong site at http://www.japanese-mahjong.com/mjgoods.html has gone out of production.

Apparently, the artisan who produces those sets is retiring.


However, the company that employed him is seeking someone to replace him and to produce a different version of the set, with hand-made bamboo backs complete with the traditional dove-tail joint that fixes the bamboo to the back of the tile.



Unfortunately, these sets are very few and far between and I am not sure that they will be able to find anybody with the skills needed to make the tiles.



Just before the artisan retired he made a few of the new style sets. I was able to obtain a very small number of them. Right now I have only one left!

I have no idea whether or not it is the last one that will be produced and I keep badgering my supplier to see if he can ferret out any more sets that may have been squirreled away somewhere, but so far without any luck.

The set also features a strikingly unusual calligraphic style most evident in the design of the Wind and Dragon tiles, as you can see in the photograph.

So, if you would like to own a hand-finished bamboo-backed Japanese mahjong set of unusual design, drop me a line at hirohurl@hotmail.com and I will send you more details, if it is still available, that is!