Traditional Manga Tarot
Introduction
I am not a manga fan. I have never read manga nor watched anime, but recently I started looking at some manga-themed decks. The Traditional Manga Tarot is the first one I have added to my collection. I saw it while watching Swimming Through the Void on YouTube. I connected with it instantly and bought it as soon as I had the chance. After two readings, done back-to-back, the Traditional Manga Tarot went straight into one of the carved wooden boxes that live on my desk. That’s the level of connection I feel with this deck. Even though I was drawn to it when I first saw it, I didn’t expect to react this way.
The Traditional Manga Tarot Cards
If you are just after the technical details and don’t want to read the discussion, you can click here.
Straight out of the box these cards were a pleasure to shuffle, handle, fan, and work with. So much so that I was comfortable reading with them before I’d even flicked through the whole deck. They just screamed, “Use me!” This is not my usual practice. Not really my ever practice actually. But the Traditional Manga Tarot cards had a lot to say and they said it beautifully.
Now I have shown this deck to two people – my best friend and my daughter. My friend loved what she called the Sailor Moon vibe. My daughter was, “yeah, not seeing it Mum,” about my reaction. It shows how some decks just vibe with people and not with others. I mean is there anything that everybody loves? Nothing comes to mind, deck-wise or in life in general. I think that’s great.
Anyhow, back to the cards. I’ll start with the Aces. This is one of the few decks I have that features people on the Aces. Since the Aces are like a seed that hasn’t developed into anything yet I understand why traditionally they just feature the element. It is the clearest way to indicate that they reflect the energy and potential of the suit. Nevertheless these cards evoke a sensation. When I look at the Ace of Cups and see the water from the overflowing cup washing over her and the way she blends into that water, it’s beautiful. It feels wonderful.
On the Ace of Pentacles, she’s being offered a gift and she’s so open to receiving it. She looks so joyful and grateful. Isn’t that how we should react to being presented with incredible new opportunities. It’s wonderful when Aces appear in readings and these cards show why.
The 8 of Wands is another that, unlike most decks, features a person. When I first looked at this 8 of Wands though, I wondered why she was facing away. However, when I paid a bit more attention, it made perfect sense. She’s pointing the way. That’s where you’re going. Go! Then I noticed the card I had unintentionally placed next to it. That’s a pretty good place to find yourself heading in a hurry.
I absolutely love this 10 of Pentacles but to be completely honest I have no idea why. There is just something about it that appeals to me. It’s not as pretty as other cards but it stands out and I smile when I see it. I really think I need to spend some time with it. Maybe I’ll journal about it or do a meditation to see what comes up. There’s definitely something there for me.
That’s what I love about tarot. Okay it is one of the many things I love. I have been reading cards for a long time and I understand the traditional meaning of each card. Plus, I am comfortable with the way I interact with the cards. Nevertheless there is always something more, something new, and something to seek to understand. Tarot appeals to me on every level.
All the book is telling me is, “Sharing abundance.” That’s the explanation, two words, but I’ll get onto the book later. Anyhow I look forward to spending more time with this individual card.
The 7 of Swords always interests me. Some people automatically seem to read it as lying, cheating, stealing and indeed some decks heavily promote this idea. The Anna K Tarot and the Robin Wood Tarot both come straight to mind. However, if you look at the traditional RWS version it has a yellow background. This doesn’t seem to suggest such a negative attitude. I don’t get that from this card either. Looking at his face I get a feeling of relief. Okay so yes maybe he got away with something and he is relieved. I can see that.
But I get drawn to the two swords that he is walking away from. In my mind they represent the indecision he is leaving behind. It is not traditional tarot but when I see this particular card, and indeed in many other versions, this becomes my focus. He’s leaving behind the indecision that worrying about the thoughts, words and reactions of others may have caused.
Another traditional meaning for the cards is to take a different approach, to do something a different way. I adhere to that and in this sense I can relate to the secretive aspect of the card. But, it is in a positive sense. Keeping things to yourself as you’re finding your way doesn’t allow others to negatively influence the path you’re taking. This is Fool energy without the confidence, but hey, if it allows you to try something that it is calling you or that you’re curious about then do what you need to do to get you there. In the LWB the 7 of Swords is described as, “subtle actions” which says so much.
Now onto another seven. I like the attitude in the 7 of Wands in the Traditional Manga Tarot. She’s not going to let anyone knock her off her perch. It’s true she is defending her position but she doesn’t appear as defensive as many other representations of this card. Having done things her way and achieved a level of success in doing so, she is comfortable with her decisions. It’s like this deck is getting me to put cards together to share a message. I feel like they are playing with me.
Above, two sevens sit side by side. Chris from Minnow Pond Tarot on YouTube always says that when he sees two sevens together they suggest to him fears and worries that don’t truly exist. Here they seem to be showing a solution.
The last cards I’ll talk about directly are the 8 of Cups and the 4 of Swords. I read this 8 of Cups quite differently to how I normally would. When I look at this version it appears that the person is turning back rather than walking away. The cups seem like a wall. Rather than choosing to move away from something that, whilst it may have appeared “right”, didn’t quite feel that way, this person is leaving behind things they cannot get over. It doesn’t suggest going in search of the ninth cup and wish fulfilment. For me it feels more as if the possible choices suggested by the 7 of Cups have become too much, a block, and they are turning away. It poses many questions.
With the 4 of Swords, the slight variation makes me perceive this card quite differently. Since he is not lying down, I see this very much as a pause or a rest rather than a time of contemplation. It seems more a period of recovery rather than healing. Is there a difference? I believe so. This is like the recovery period between exercise sets. It’s a time to get your breath back. Although, the hand position does suggest an element of prayer that I don’t get off the RWS version. That may seem strange considering the setting of the traditional card but his hand position there feels more contemplative rather than prayerful.
Physical aspects of the cards
Moving on to aspects of the cards themselves, they are very much RWS-based. The traditional in the title refers to both the traditional tarot meanings and symbolism (RWS version) and to the traditional manga art style. I can’t speak about whether the deck adheres to traditional manga style because I am in no way a manga aficionado. I can speak about the adherence to RWS symbolism though. In the Queen of Wands above, the setting, the black cat and the sunflower all feature. Whether the card back has any direct relationship to manga I cannot say. All I can say is that I recognise the shapes from within the cards, especially the dresses, and that I like them.
The cards measure approximately 6.5 x 12 cm and as I have already mentioned are physically great to work with. There are no name changes in the Major Arcana. Strength is VIII and Justice is XI. The suits are Pentacles, Swords, Cups and Wands with Pages, Knights, Queens and Kings making up the Court.
The Traditional Manga Tarot Guide Book
The Traditional Manga Tarot is a tuck box Lo Scarabeo deck so it only comes with a multilingual, (English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese), 63 paged book. Strangely, Amazon listed this deck as the Spanish version. But, as you can see, the card titles are all in English. I checked the ISBN and Amazon is the only seller that lists it as Spanish. Looking at the packaging, the cards themselves, and the Lo Scarabeo website, I am confident this is a legitimate copy.
Anyhow, moving on to the book itself, you might think that a book that only offers 17 card-sized pages of information wouldn’t have a lot to offer. That isn’t the case. This LWB, while quick to read, was an interesting read. Following the “Introduction” Riccardo Minetti gives a breakdown of what he considers to be the “9 steps of a reading” with a brief write up for each. If you’re interested in what these nine steps are, you’ll find them listed in the contents section of the Book Summary Table at the end of this post.
Now, earlier I shared that I just wanted to jump straight in and “play” with the Traditional Manga Tarot when I got it. However, it made sense when I read, “The Traditional Manga deck is very gentle and light, created in the spirit of passion and joy. Passion and joy may not seem necessarily essential to tarot reading, but that is the magic of art.” Riccardo Minetti then continues,
If passion and joy were imbued in the art during the creation of the cards, then the same vibration will inevitably arise in readings with the deck, as long as the reader and querent allow this to happen.
It very much appears that I allowed that to happen. I think it’s hard not to. Look at XIX The Sun, pictured above. It makes me smile. There’s a joy, a lightness, a cuteness, an innocence, and a sense of play about it. The meaning given in the book is, “Feeling safe” which is quite different to the usual but I can see that in order to feel that free and joyful you would have to feel safe. Besides, doesn’t abundance and success give us a feeling of safety and security?
Even though the book, for the most part, only offers single line card explanations I found they gave me things to think about. Do they give enough for a beginner? I’m not sure. As much as I love “feeling safe” for XIX The Sun because it gave me an opportunity to think about what abundance and success mean or more accurately why we can crave them, it won’t necessarily translate to other decks. Another example, is XVIII The Moon. The meaning is “The world in your mind” and I connect with the accuracy of this in relation to fears and so on, I don’t know how it translates across the range of meanings.
Maybe some of the meanings are lost in translation. Of that I’m not sure. I know my family members on my husband’s side for whom English is a second language, tell me that even though they speak English fluently, they still think in Spanish. Many expressions do not clearly translate. I am not sure if that is the case here. Personally I like deriving meaning from other’s approaches but I have over two decades of tarot knowledge at my disposal. I’m not sure what I would have done with some of these meanings as a beginner.
Back to XVII The Moon card though. When I was encouraging my friend to trust that the cards would speak to her, one of the cards I gave her was this Moon card. She looked at the girl holding the lobster and her interpretation was, “holding onto things you shouldn’t” and I could identify with that and she then understood the book meaning as well.
Some people get caught up with the idea of right and wrong interpretations and what reading tarot actually means. Those dogmatic comments bother me. I saw a post on Facebook whereby a man had written that he has gotten to the point of reading almost exclusively from the card images and because she wanted professional readers to do readings in which they actively refer to the guide book she didn’t believe he was reading tarot and told him so. Fortunately, he wasn’t shaken by this. If tarot helps you, encourages you, inspires you, gives you clarity in the way you are working with it – you’re doing it right. Furthermore, most guidebooks encourage you to branch out once you feel comfortable. Anyhow, rant over.
Instead I’ll defer to the words of Riccardo Minetti again:
A good reading should not just be informative. It should help the querent act, make decisions, and take practical steps to solve a problem or make progress in a situation.
If your approach or the reader you see achieves these aims then I believe you’re on the right track regardless of how you travel the path.
Please explore this wonderful medium in whatever way speaks to you. If you want to spend decades studying the ins and outs, the various approaches, the art styles, the history, they symbolism etc like I have – great. I’m a tarot nerd and I own that. If you want to do a reading and then pick up the guidebook to help you find answers – great. If you just like looking at the pictures because you like the way they make you think and/or feel – great.
As if to confirm that, this guidebook approaches the Court cards in a different way to what I am used to. I don’t know if I will incorporate the ideas but I may on occasion do so intentionally. The Court cards one line meanings assign external roles to the Pages and Knights and familial roles to the Queens and Kings. For example, the Page of Cups reads, “Living like a poet,” and the Knight of Pentacles as, “Living as a manager.” The Queen of Swords and the King of Wands are respectively, “Living as a wife” and “Living as a father.”
Now I have to admit that the Queen of Swords living as a wife messed with me a bit. So often it is suggested that she is a divorced or widowed woman although I don’t tend to focus on those meanings either unless they feel appropriate. Further, the Queen of Wands was given the role of mother. However, if anything, the cards that give me more wife and mother vibes would be the Queen of Pentacles or the Queen of Cups. Maybe partner would have been a more inclusive term too.
Anyhow, moving on, I think there is an issue with assigning roles in this way. Every queen in the deck can be a mother or choose not to. I see the queens as personalities whose approach to situations is in line with the wisdom of the suit. Others may love this approach and I say fair enough. It just isn’t for me. Although as I said before, I may incorporate it intentionally at some stage to see if I change my mind.
Conclusion
I really like this deck. It is an approachable RWS clone that can appeal to many people. If I’m anything to go by, you don’t have to be a manga fan to like it, work with it, or appreciate it. Since it follows the RWS system, if the guidebook doesn’t offer enough support, the Traditional Manga Tarot can be used alongside any of the many suitable beginner tarot books available. The Tarot Revealed and Tarot Plain and Simple come to mind, as does Holistic Tarot if you’re not going to be intimidated by the sheer size of the book. If you’re interested in tarot books, you’ll find others I have reviewed by clicking here.
Back to the Traditional Manga Tarot though. Minetti wrote in the “Afterword”:
The Traditional Manga Tarot is presented as an act of love. It is the wish of the [creators] that this deck will be able to bring you, the reader … meaningful and happy experiences.
I believe their wishes have been granted.
Summaries
The Traditional Manga Tarot Cards
| Card Size | approx. 6.5cm x 12cm |
| Card Stock | Thin, flexible, low gloss |
| Shuffle | Easy to shuffle regardless of method |
| Fan & Flip Through | Easy |
| Suits | Pentacles, Swords, Cups, Wands |
| Court | Page, Knight, Queen, King |
| Strength / Justice | Strength VIII / Justice XI |
| Miscellaneous | Tuck box Note that if buying through Amazon (ISBN-13 9788865276525) is listed as Spanish version but it isn’t |
The Traditional Manga Tarot Guide Book
| Written by | Riccardo Minetti |
| Pages | 63 pages (17 in English) |
| Appearance | LWB |
| Contents | Introduction The Reading Holding a “Sacred” Space Asking a Question The Spread The Cards Communication Integration – Bringing It All Together Creating a Strategy for Action Closing the “Sacred” Space Taking the Time to Digest the Reading Afterword |
| Spreads | One 3-card spread suggestion |
Publishing Details
Deck Creators:
Riccardo Minetti (author) and Shou Xueting (artist)
Publisher:
The pictured version was published by Lo Scarabeo in 2021
