If you’ve been following Magic: The Gathering at all over the last year, you’ll be well aware of the game’s attempts to court Japanese players. We’ve seen anime art only cards in Foundations Jumpstart, and ‘Japan Showcase’ cards in multiple Standard sets. Not to mention the many Japan-exclusive promos and events that have dropped. This week, the next step in this ongoing campaign was revealed in the form of “Wonderer Wanderer,” an anime music video promoting a new MTG event.
Considering this is Japan-only event with no exclusive promo cards, a full-on song is a pretty high-effort marketing strategy. As interesting as it is in itself, however, what’s even more interesting is the response generated from players. Across social media, many are calling for Wizards to stop with all the teasing and actually make an MTG anime already. As far-fetched as that would’ve been at one point, there’s a very real chance we see something like this soon the way things are heading.
The “Wonderer Wanderer” MTG Anime Song
“Wonderer Wanderer” dropped via the official MTG-JP YouTube channel yesterday. It’s essentially a full-on anime opening song with a Magic: The Gathering theme. Throughout, we’re shown panels straight out of a non-existent manga. Details are sparse, but it seems to show a slice-of-life series set at a Japanese High School, where students play Magic regularly. This is fairly close in concept to Destroy all Humans: They Can’t be Regenerated, the MTG manga that already exists.
Both the song and the manga panels it plays over are of a very high quality. Watching the video in isolation, one would likely assume it was a genuine MTG anime trailer. It turns out, however, that “Wonderer Wanderer” has a much less exciting purpose.
The song is actually intended to promote a new MTG event that will be running at Japanese WPN stores this Spring. Known as “The Wanderer’s Cherry Blossom Viewing,” the event will work similarly to Japan-exclusive events we’ve seen in the past. Players will receive chibi stickers of well-known Magic characters when they buy packs of sets released after 2022. Specifically, six Play Boosters or two Collector Boosters.
Some of these chibi stickers will be winning stickers, which can be exchanged for different prizes. Up for grabs are three different playmats, three different sets of card sleeves, and artwork by Fuzichoco printed onto acrylic, complete with stand. One lucky winner will also get a framed print of the main Fuzichoco art for the campaign.
These are nice rewards just for buying sealed product, but they’re hardly worth writing home about. The fact that Wizards decided to commission a full-on anime intro for the event is baffling as a result.
MTG Players Demand A Real Anime
That said, the “Wonderer Wanderer” video has got players talking about the idea of an MTG anime in general. Turns out the brief glimpse at the low-stakes, Magic-centric story was enough to get some players excited. On social media, they expressed their desire for the hypothetical anime in question to become a reality.
“You telling me we can get some slice of life action in a video but they won’t adapt the SOL manga already out there? give me my Emi!!!”
Alucart333
Others echoed this sentiment, including Significant_Win_2654 who added “WAIT do we get an anime?” That the response to what is currently a mere marketing gimmick has been so positively-received should be useful information indeed for Wizards. In fact, gauging interest in a full-on project like this may well have been the true aim of the song all along.
In an interesting twist, today saw another MTG anime tease on social media. The MTG-JP Twitter account put out information regarding an “upcoming MTG anime film.” The title roughly translates as “I Don’t Want to be a Dragongirl!” This was revealed to be an April Fool’s joke by later tweets, which credited all aspects of the production to Nicol Bolas. As with “Wonderer Wanderer,” however, many players on social media expressed interest in seeing the film for real.
“It’s actually so fucked up that every year @mtgjp’s April Fools is just “shit that would be cool if real”.”
mweepinc
Mweepinc wasn’t alone, either. Kazehi added “Hell, I’d watch it… seems like easy money… damn joke though lol.” Astriga_Vivendi chipped in with “April Fools has an odd way of actually picturing things people would enjoy.” So far the thread discussing the joke has over 130 comments, many of which are in the same vein as the above.
Clearly, there’s demand from the Magic: The Gathering playerbase for an honest-to-god anime series. While it’s best not to take Reddit comments as gospel, there is considerable precedent for this attitude going back over three years.
Sowing The Seeds
Back in February 2022, Wizards released a three-minute anime-style trailer for Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. Much like “Wonderer Wanderer,” this was set up like an anime intro for a hypothetical MTG series covering the events of the set. Kaito and the Wanderer featured prominently, clashing with Tezzeret and Jin-Gitaxias in some very flashy scenes.
This trailer came before last year’s major push for the Japanese market by Wizards. It was also created for a set explicitly based on Japanese culture, so it made a lot of sense from that perspective. Even back then, however, player sentiment was similar to what it is today. In the comments, GaijinGoombah added “Man, I’d watch the shit out of this if were a full show.” It’s possible that this reception was what pushed Wizards towards its wider Japanese strategy in the first place.
Magic’s ties to the anime/manga scene actually go back even further when you factor in Destroy All Humans: They Can’t be Regenerated. This manga series started back in 2019, with English releases beginning last year. I mentioned it already above, but this really is a huge argument in favor of an eventual MTG manga series. Heck, a straight adaptation of this series could be a great option, given how well it seems to be resonating with players. The fact that “Wonderer Wanderer” is so similar in concept supports this idea further.
Whether Wizards will stop flirting with the idea and just give us an MTG anime already remains to be seen. There’s certainly an existing appetite for it, however, and plenty of material to work with.