The Japanese learning product that I produced called Moekana was designed to make Japanese learning more fun - you liked the concept and as a result we sold much more than expected within such a short time - thank you so much! Even Japanese local folks purchased Moekana to teach their kids hiragana too!
These Japanese learning cards have started to expand with the next product called Moekana Booster Pack - 9 new cards and illustrations to expand your hiragana knowledge and power up your moekana game!
I'm continuing to work with Good Smile Company who are helping me distribute the cards - the product description from their website copy pasted below.
The Moekana learning series gets a boost!
The Moekana Booster Pack features 9 new cards and illustrations to expand your hiragana knowledge and power up your moekana game!
These Booster cards complement the Moekana hiragana learning cards (sold separately) and enable you to make dakuten and handakuten hiragana in the game.
The first edition of the Moekana Booster Pack is a collaboration with the trading card game company Bushiroad and comes with a Weiβ Schwarz card of Mirai Suenaga!
What is Moekana?
Moekana are a set of cards to help folks learn the basic Japanese syllabary: hiragana. The cards feature the characters of the TV show and website produced by Danny Choo called Culture Japan who are, Mirai Suenaga, Haruka Suenaga and Kanata Hoshikawa.
Find out more about how to learn hiragana while playing moekana at www.moekana.com.
Product Details
- Product Name: Moekana Booster Pack (もえかな ぶーすたーぱっく)
- Series: Culture Japan
- Category: Goods
- Price: 650 yen
- Release: Date 2012/06
- Specifications: 9 Japanese study cards (all packs contain the same set of cards) each 88mm x 63mm. Made in Japan.
- Released by: Culture Japan
- Distributed by: Good Smile Company
- Ages: 6 and up.
Full retail price is 650 yen but looks like retailers are discounting down to 510 yen. The pre-order just went out but for now you can pre-order on the sites below. Will update the list as catalog data starts to propagate throughout the supply chain.
Where to buy
And if you are in Japan...
Most booster packs for card games are made of plastic which one would usually rip and throw away. I wanted to have packaging which you can keep and use - maybe even as a wallet for your money or credit cards!
This is the back of the packaging with the Good Smile Company support information.
The flap is secured by one of those circular stickers that you find on figure packaging too - if you dont want to leave nail marks all over then just cut it with a knife.
The packaging is sturdy and you should be able to use it for a variety of things - maybe even your morning tea?
The Moekana Booster Pack is made up of 9 cards but the first run edition contains 10 cards...
And here are the cards all fanned out. There are 5 cards that represent modifiers used in hiragana - handakuten [半濁点[はんだくてん]], dakuten [濁点[だくてん]] and chouonpu [長音符[ちょうおんぷ]].
If you order more than 1 pack then you can make more words that contain handakuten and dakuten hiragana.
A card is included to show you which hiragana you can use with the modifiers. When playing the Moekana game, you can now make words that are modified by a dakuten, handakuten or chouonpu. For example Ka (か) becomes Ga (が), Sa (さ) becomes Za (ざ) and so on.
Once you have gotten a grip of the basic set of hiragana, you will then want to learn the dakuten and handakuten hiragana too. Just like any booster pack, you dont *have* to have these cards but if you do then they will aid your Japanese learning experience.
This is a handakuten card which can change Ha (は) to Pa (ぱ) and so on. One of my fave illustrations of Mirai in her Cheerleader outfit! Her pompoms symbolize the round handakuten.
All these illustrations are done by Ikkyuu-sensei.
This handakuten card features Retrokyu - Mirai's companion who transforms into the Retrograde Suit. You would have seen him in the Mirai Millennium OP for Culture Japan. Look forward to seeing more of him!
Anyway, his round form symbolizes the handakuten.
This dakuten card features Mirai in her Solar Marine Uniform. Her peace sign symbolizes the dakuten.
Another dakuten card featuring Robo Mirai - again the peace sign symbolizing the dakuten.
This Chouonpu card enables you to create long vowels like the one in Ramen [らーめん]. Mirai's stick lantern symbolizes the chouonpu.
There are some extra cards like this Nekomimi one. Nekomimi means "Cat ears" - a word commonly used in the otaku world and is regularly used in English as "Nekomimi" too which is why I decided to keep the translation as it is.
A very important word for the existence of mankind and the first Japanese word you should learn - Oppai.
There is a poll embedded in this article.
A card that you can give to somebody on their birthday.
The first production run of the Moekana Booster Pack comes with a Weiβ Schwarz card of Mirai Suenaga! A collaboration with the Trading Card Game company Bushiroad. The ones given out in Singapore didn't have a soul - but this one does!
Illustration is by DMYO.
The back of the card which lists all the modified hiragana has this illustration of Mirai in her tour guide gear.
As with the Moekana cards - the quality is top notch - all coated and to the exact specifications of the Bushiroad Weiβ Schwarz cards.
An example of how you would make Kotoba [言葉[ことば]] meaning "word."
When playing Moekana, you can pile the cards up like this so that you can see the romanization too.
An example of how you would use a handakuten modifier to make the word Onpu [音符[おんぷ]] meaning "Musical Note."
If you can already read all hiragana then you can stack the cards like this when making words.
An example of how to make a word using the Chouonpu. "Furi-" [ふりー] means "Free."
Each booster pack contains 9 cards which are the same in all packs - meaning that you dont need to buy a zillion packs just to collect all 9.
The 9 extra cards actually fit into the existing moekana pack together with all the other cards!
Here are some example of words made with the Moekana Booster Pack - can you read them all?
This box is for retailers and contains 20 packs. Unfortunately you cant buy it but if you *really* want it then you can try asking your retailer if they would give you the box if you order 20 packs?
The boxes are designed to make retailers life easier and enable cards to be displayed in shops. Even though the box is taller than the Moekana retail one, we've made it so that they line up at the top when folded out.
To find out more about moekana and how to play the game then get along to moekana.com!
The card sleeves come out end of this month so you may want to consolidate your shipping if you are after the sleeves too so that you can save on shipping.
The cover artwork!
Moekana sold out during pre-order period which is why some folks had to wait a bit longer before theirs arrived. If you want the Mirai Suenaga Weiβ Schwarz card then pre-order yours now!
Dont forget - this Mirai Weiβ Schwarz card is only available in the first run!
Moekana features the mascot of the Culture Japan brand - Mirai Suenaga! Find out more about Mirai-chan and the various collaboration titles that she has worked on with Good Smile Company, Bushiroad, Kadokawa, King Records and so on.
