One Piece is a cultural phenomenon. It has been serialized for over 25 years and its creator owns the Guinness World Record for “The most copies published for the same comic book series by a single author”. With this overwhelming success it has spawned an anime, movies, video games and also two One Piece card games which we will discuss today. One was released in 2002 to minimal success, the other, very recently, to worldwide release in August 2022.
One Piece Card Game 2022
It makes sense to discuss the 2022 game first. Many of the 2002 cards are no longer in circulation and it makes more sense to look at something that is relevant today rather than 20 years ago. The 2022 game was announced on 7 March and released in Japan in July. The game had a worldwide release later in August.
Released by Carddass and licensed by Shueisha the this trading card game (TCG) shares similar deck building elements to other TCGs like Magic the Gathering, or Yu-Gi-Oh. You’ll start with a pre-built, ready to play starter deck and then use booster packs to give it volume over time.
The current starter decks are as follows:
- The Seven Warlords of the Sea.
- Straw Hat Crew.
- Worst Generation.
- Animal Kingdom Pirates
Types of Cards and Gameplay
There are 5 different type of cards:
- Leader Cards – This cards can attack and use effects. The life of the player and therefore victory condition is directly linked to this card. Its health points are written in the bottom right hand corner of the card. An example of a leader card would be Luffy from the Straw hat Crew deck.
- Don!! Cards – These cards pay the cost of playing a card, like an energy card in Pokémon. Additionally, they can be attached to character or leader to increase their power.
- Character Card – Using the Don!! Card from above you can play Character cards. Similar to leader cards they can attack or use effects, but they do not have life points.
- Event Card – These are a single use card. Using Don!! To active them, event cards can be played to have various effects. In certain conditions they can be played on your opponents turn. These can be incredibly powerful and can turn the tide of battle if used correctly.
- Stage Card – Only one stage card may be on the field at any time. These cards can support leaders and character by giving them power bonuses.
As of the publishing of this article there are 234 cards to collect, but as we know, the game is till very much in its infancy. As far as deck layout goes, a deck must have 1 leader card, 10 Don!! Card and 50 other cards. In addition, Up to 4 multiples of cards are allowed.
Early Thoughts
It’s very early to pass judgment on this as one would hope they would add some more mechanics over time. It does not stand out compared to other trading card games and is relatively simple. The main question is: who is this aimed at? Many of the followers of one piece have been following it since the 90s, they’re well within adult hood and a game as simple as this just does not cause excitement.
Another issue is that the deck must have cards the same colour as the leader. This is a shame as it takes away the ability to mix and match between decks. Who hasn’t wanted to see Crocodile and Zoro link up on the same team? Hopefully the publishers will remove this restraint as it will allow a lot more flexibility in the game.
On the other hand, to true fans, this won’t matter. There is certainly some enjoyment out of the collecting element of the game regardless.
One Piece Trading Card Game 2002
There is painfully little information about the One Piece Trading Card game from 2002 on the internet. For simplicity we will call it “2002”.Cards from this game have entered a level of rarity collectorship amongst fans. A booster box with 144 cards from the 2002 version sells for between $150-$200 on second hand auction websites. To put that in context, while the 2022 game does not have booster boxes yet, the same amount of cards would cost around $50.
Before 2002 One Piece characters had appeared as special features on a number of Bandai series. These were mainly in the form of Cardass Hyper Battle and Cardass Masters cards.
The 2002 launch came as a new approach, one entirely dedicated to the One Piece franchise. There was a more complex layout, offering more options; elaborate ruleset; and more illustrations. However, this experiment was very short lived, lasting until 2005 and totalling 17 booster packs in Japan. This pales in comparison to the over 150 booster packs Yu-Gi-Oh released in its run. Even worse was the games US performance lasting less than a year in 2005 with only one expansion.
Compared to the 2022 version, in 2002 there were only 2 card types, characters and techniques. You win either by defeating your opponent’s captain (again, there aren’t specific captain cards, you designate amongst your character cards who is captain). Alternatively, you win if you defeat enough of your opponent’s crew members.
I think ultimately, the failure of 2002 is down to 2 main points. First, while One Piece has always been successful – especially in Japan – the interest has grown steadily over time. The longevity of the franchise has helped drum up interest, how Oda has managed to maintain the mystery of what exactly the One Piece is after all this time is amazing. In the Graph below (starting from 2004) we can see that this was when worldwide interest in One Piece was at its lowest. 2022 is the perfect year to reboot the trading card game mechanise of the franchise.
Second, there just wasn’t enough marketing for the product. Yu-Gi-Oh is a great example as its anime was essentially an advertising mechanism for the card game. Pokémon too invested massively in marketing, but One Piece just fell short.
Conclusion
Ultimately, One Piece is not built on a trading card game. Its not where it gets is popularity from, its not where it makes its money. It does that through one of the bestselling manga’s of all time as well as a hugely successful anime. There’s nothing inherently wrong with enjoying One Piece Card Games, in fact fans of the franchise will just enjoy the ownership and collecting aspect of these type games. Mechanic-wise however, there are a lot better and innovative games out there.
