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Detective Conan Franchise to Release New Card Game on May 4

The history of collectible and trading cards is long to say the least. Over the past century and a half, those cards have evolved into the modern tabletop card games (commonly known as TCGs). While the progenitor TCG is often thought of to be Magic: The Gathering, other popular TCGs include the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game and the Pokémon Trading Card Game. Of course, there are a plethora of other TCGs played around the world. Japan is no different with card games based on popular anime franchises. Among the TCGs based on anime, there are Weiß Schwarz, the Dragon Ball Super Card Game, and the One Piece Card Game. But this May, the Detective Conan (Meitantei Conan) franchise will rejoin the fray with the new Meitantei Conan Card Game.

The official Twitter account for the Detective Conan Card Game announced the news on January 7 that the game is slated to go on sale the same day as series protagonist Shinichi Kudo's birthday, May 4. While details about the game are still light, the tweet revealed five starter decks based on the characters Conan Edogawa (Kudo's alias), Heiji Hattori, Kaito Kid, Shuichi Akai, and Touru Amuro will be available on May 4 along with the first set of six-card booster packs.

The card gam and franchise's official Twitter account also posted promotional tweets regarding the upcoming card game. The game's Twitter account revealed a handwritten letter by Detective Conan's creator Gōshō Aoyama, who wrote:

The ninth issue of Weekly Shonen Sunday included on January 24 the game's “first card” promo: Conan Edogawa. The tweet also mentions the design of Conan is based off the magazine issue the series first appeared in.

In more recent weeks, the card game's Twitter account also announced on February 15 that a promotional card would be included with a purchase of an advance ticket to the franchise's latest film, Detective Conan: Hyakuman Doru no Michishirube (The Million-Dollar Five Guiding Stars).

While details about the game are still wrapped up in a mystery–which is apropos for the Detective Conan franchise–fans of the series will have a chance to play the game as early as Saturday at a pre-release event at the Animate Ikebukuro. The card game's producer Takara Tomy has a list of the dates and locations on its website. Unfortunately, the entry period for the pre-release events has ended.

Takara Tomy has also created a YouTube channel for the card game. While there is only one video on the channel at the time of writing, there are numerous posts regarding information about the game in the “Community” section of the channel.

Surprisingly, the Detective Conan Card Game isn't the first foray into the TCG space for the Detective Conan franchise. In 1999, Hudson released a short-lived Conan card game called Mischievous Elves Meitantei Conan. Media Factory also released the Meitantei Conan Card Tanteidan card game in April 2008 with a follow-up set in December 2008. The property has also appeared in other TCGs such as Future Card Buddyfight and the aforementioned Weiß Schwarz, so the Detective Conan franchise is no stranger to a TCG adaptation.

While nothing can be said about how the game plays until people have a hold of the cards, it appears Aoyama is excited for the new Detective Conan Card Game. Time will tell if it will outlast the previous Detective Conan TCG incarnations.

Sources: Detective Conan Card Game's Twitter account (link 2, link 3, link 4) and YouTube channel, Detective Conan franchise's Twitter account, Takara Tomy, Famitsu.com