High Card
High Card is a Japanese multimedia franchise created by Homura Kawamoto, Hikaru Muno, and TMS Entertainment. It consists of a manga series, a novel series, drama CDs, and an anime television series produced by TMS and animated by Studio Hibari, which aired from January to March 2023, with its second season aired from January to March 2024. The project's theme is poker, with everything from the title to the names of fictional locations referencing some form of playing card game.
During a preview of the anime series at Anime NYC in November 2022, Kawamoto and Muno further explained that High Card was heavily inspired by the Kingsman movies, including their decision to put the setting in a fictional kingdom outside of Japan, hoping to appeal to a wider audience across the world.
Plot
The royal family of the Kingdom of Fourland holds a secret deck of 52 "X-Playing cards", each of which bestow a superhuman power or ability to whoever uses them. However, the cards were nearly stolen one month ago, and then scattered across the land. In the present, a thief named Finn is struggling to raise funds for his orphanage before the landlord clears it out. After hitching a ride to a casino, Finn soon finds himself inducted into High Card, a special group tasked by the King to recover all 52 cards, while working undercover as salesmen for the Pinochle car company.High Card must deal with threats from rival car company "Who's Who" seeking to crush Pinochle, and the Klondike mafia family who wants the X-Playing cards for their own nefarious ends.
Characters
Pinochle (High Card)
; Finn Oldman; Chris Redgrave
; Leo Constantine Pinochle
; Wendy Sato
; Vijay Kumar Singh
; Bernard Symons
; Theodore Constantine Pinochle
; Owen Alldays
Who's Who
; Norman Kingstadt; Blist Blitz Broadhurst
; Brandy Blumenthal
Klondike
; Ban Klondike; Tilt
; Bobby Ball
; Zenon
; Burst
Others
; Greg Young; Sugar Peace
; Chelsea Hammond
; Michelle Redgrave
; Lindsey Betz
; Lucky Lunchman
; Aya Tawawa
; Chloe
Media
Anime
On June 9, 2021, it was announced that Homura Kawamoto, Hikaru Muno, and TMS Entertainment were working on a multimedia franchise, which include an anime television series. The project is done in collaboration with Kadokawa and Sammy Corporation.The series is produced by TMS Entertainment, animated by Studio Hibari and directed by Junichi Wada, with Naoki Kuroyanagi handling series composition with Kenichi Yamashita, Kazuhiko Inukai and Shingo Nagai writing the episode screenplays; Nozomi Kawano designing the characters; and Ryo Takahashi composing the music. It aired from January 9 to March 27, 2023, on AT-X and other networks. The opening theme song is "Trickster", performed by Five New Old, while the ending theme song is "Squad!", performed by Meychan. Crunchyroll streamed the series.
A second season was announced at AnimeJapan on March 26, 2023, which aired from January 8 to March 25, 2024. The opening theme song is "Showdown", again performed by Five New Old, while the ending theme song is "Hakuchūmu", performed by Raon.
Following the final episode of the second season, it was announced that the series would receive a twenty-fifth episode. Titled The Flowers Bloom, the ONA episode was released on November 5, 2024.