Why Saint Seiya Menko Still Captivates Fans Around the World

A 1980s Saint Seiya Menko Card from Japan's Anime Broadcast Era

Menko: Japan’s Oldest Card Game, Adopted by Anime

Menko cards trace their origins to the Edo period. The game is straightforward: players slam their thick card onto the ground beside an opponent’s, hoping the impact creates enough air movement to flip it over — whoever flips it keeps it. For centuries the format featured wrestlers and sumo champions; by the postwar years baseball players appeared, and when television anime took hold in the 1970s and 1980s, the cards followed entirely. By the time Saint Seiya began airing in 1986, anime menko were a staple at dagashiya — the small neighborhood candy-and-toy shops that shaped Japanese childhood in that era. Individual cards cost only a few yen, designed to be bought, played, traded, and occasionally lost on the way home from school.

Saint Seiya, the Franchise, and This Card’s Place in It

Saint Seiya is a manga created by Masami Kurumada, serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1985 to 1990. The story follows young fighters called Saints who wear celestial armor — each suit shaped around a zodiac or constellation — as they battle to protect the goddess Athena. Toei Doga brought the manga to television, producing 114 episodes that aired on TV Asahi from October 1986 through April 1989. During those years, Saint Seiya was one of the defining action series for Japanese boys, frequently mentioned alongside Dragon Ball.

The copyright line printed on this card — © Masami Kurumada / Shueisha / Toei Doga — is itself a small historical marker. The studio changed its name from Toei Doga to Toei Animation in the early 1990s, so the older form of the name is consistent evidence of manufacture during the original broadcast window, roughly 1986 to 1989.

The illustrated character is female: a winged dark helmet set with a yellow gem, a deep navy cape, red pants, and long pale hair, shown in a formal seated pose. Placing a specific name on her is difficult — menko often used original licensed artwork rather than direct animation stills, which complicates exact identification. Her visual design, particularly the winged helmet and commanding composition, fits the aesthetic of characters from the Asgard arc, an anime-original story broadcast in 1987–1988 that drew on Norse mythology. A firm attribution from the card alone, however, is not possible.

A Global Franchise in a Distinctly Japanese Format

Saint Seiya’s reach outside Japan is well documented. It aired in France as Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque, built passionate audiences across Brazil, Mexico, and Latin America broadly, and had significant runs in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and parts of Southeast Asia. Netflix produced revival series in the 2010s, sustaining that international following across a new generation. This long international history is a significant part of why interest in the original Japanese merchandise remains consistent among collectors outside Japan.

What makes a domestic menko card specifically interesting is the combination of format and origin. Menko as a toy category does not exist outside Japan — it is not a trading card, not a food-toy premium, not a gashapon insert, but a format belonging entirely to Japan’s own childhood culture. A card like this was produced for and sold within the Japanese market. For a collector in France, Brazil, or Italy who grew up watching the show under a local title, it represents something the overseas broadcast never carried: a physical artifact from the country and the era where the franchise began.