A personal review of a Japanese-style tarot deck named “Wa Tarot”, with wonderful artwork of ink brush paintings released in 2012.
Its Designs
Overview/Features
This deck is for 22 cards of the major Arcana only. Two bonus cards are included.
Authors
Artwork by Misuzu Itateyama, published by Azusa Shoin. The box is so thin and small as a plate chocolate, that I was at a first glance worried if all cards were really contained inside.
Size
Since this deck only contains major arcana, I use this together with other 52 playing cards. So I trimmed this deck a bit to fit the size of the playing cards. The size after trimming is 58mm x 88mm in actual size.
The size before trimming is said to be 73mm x 100mm. See the above photo of the bonus cards.
Personal Impressions
The paper quality is just ok. It is fun to use this deck with various playing cards decks. See my review of using this deck with other playing cards (reference page shown at the end of this article).
What I like
The design is wonderful. The themes of warlords, Japanese architectures, shrine maidens, ninja, yin/yang masters and those that all the Japanese are familiar with, that match the concept of each card in Tarot quite well. I have been looking for tarot decks with Japanese-style design for many years, and this is exactly what I’ve imagined.
What I don’t like
Major arcana only. I would definitely buy this deck in a full set of 78 cards with a small arcana if published in a future!
Where to buy
I bought it at Rakuten online shop. It is also sold at Azusa Shoin, the site of the publisher (as of March 2020).
Wrap Up
I enjoy using this Japanese Tarot with other playing cards, like shuriken playing cards. If interested, please have a look at my reviews on those playing-cards pages.
(15/Jan/2022) No trimming, original size as below
