Over the past two weeks my life’s free time had been almost entirely con­sumed by pho­to­shop, as the Tarot Project is finally com­ing together. I only have three things to say on the mat­ter — I’ve never taken pho­to­shop to be such seri­ous busi­ness before; I can finally say I’m more than just a noob to pho­to­shop thanks to the picto-editing skills I’ve acquired; and I haven’t felt so proud of my goods for a long time.

Progress:
[Deck] Char­ac­ter Selec­tion: Fin­ished
[Deck] Card Stock: Fin­ished
[Deck] Art Selec­tion: Fin­ished
[Deck] Card Assem­bly: 95%
[Blog] Back­ground Assem­bly: 0%
[Blog] Ban­ner Cre­ation: 0%

Before any­one asks “why all girls?”, it’s to cut down on the com­pe­ti­tion between char­ac­ter and more con­sis­tency in art style. Not to men­tion — the deck is cuter this way.

I might think about mak­ing a bishie/GAR deck later, maybe, if I feel like throw­ing away another week+ of free time.

Deck would be fin­ished last week­end if I didn’t keep chang­ing my mind about the char­ac­ters, or two days ago if Com­pany of Heroes: TOV didn’t arrive and cause me to start wast­ing tons of time on it (epic game which requires a post later). But until then, take eleven…

Key­words: Zero, Blank
My Choice: Chii [Chobits]
Hon­or­able Men­tions: Sakura [Tsub­asa Chronicles][Everything CLAMP]

Con­trary to first impres­sions that the title gives off, the fool implies igno­rance rather than fool­ish­ness. It best applies to a char­ac­ter with a mostly blank slate who is ‘being released into the world’. I don’t think any­one can even com­pare to Chii from Chobits on this, whom started lit­er­ally blank with no mem­ory and a child­ish per­son­al­ity filled with curios­ity and a few prime direc­tives. She had to be taught on every­thing, start­ing from the lan­guage, and her per­spec­tives devel­oped entirely from there.

Key­words: Energy, Cre­ativ­ity, Con­vic­tion, Ini­tia­tive, Objec­tiv­ity
My Choice: Mis­aka Mikoto [To Aru Majutsu no Index][To Aru Kagaku no Rail­gun]
I Call This Card: The Doer

With a goal to accom­plish, the ini­tia­tive to get started, and the strength and resolve to carry it through, the Magi­cian is amongst the top pick­ings for ideal main char­ac­ter or pri­mary sup­port char­ac­ter per­son­al­ity in a plot-driven story. In Index, Mikoto may have been caught between a rock and a hard place and laid unde­cided until the last moment. But in rail­gun (I expect the anime to fol­low the manga), she takes the reins of the main char­ac­ter and all the priv­i­leges that comes with it, solv­ing the case solo with an inge­nious all-out use of her resources despite the fact she’s with nei­ther law-enforcement groups, just an over­pow­ered civil­ian bystander.

Key­words: Know­ing­ness, Intu­ition, Seren­ity, Intro­spec­tion, Rela­tion­ship
My Choice: Kinomoto Sakura [Card­cap­tor Sakura]
I Call This Card: The Shoujo Lead

Many of the best shoujo manga main char­ac­ters have emerged out of this mold. A serene naivety and a girl’s intu­ition sets the foun­da­tion, and through the course of the story they develop an under­stand­ing of them­selves and the world around them, as well as set­tling into that oblig­a­tory heart­warm­ing rela­tion­ship. Sakura, the quin­tes­sen­tial mahou shoujo, is cer­tainly amongst the pio­neers of this role.

By the way, Moonknives’ draw­ings are soooooooooo pretty~!

Key­words: Mater­nal, Com­fort, Fer­til­ity, Desire, Sat­is­fac­tion
My Choice: Nagi [Kan­nagi]
I Call This Card: The Mother
Hon­or­able Men­tions: Minase Akiko [Kanon]

Kan­nagi gives us plenty of imagery on Nagi the spoiled free­loader, but only tid­bits on her other, true self — Nagi, care­taker of the land. Shinto God­dess Nagi is one whom fos­ters and com­forts the crit­ters and souls of her domain, filled with mater­nal benev­o­lence and com­pas­sion. Mean­while, Nagi’s more phys­i­cal and less spir­i­tual self pos­i­tively lives off desire and sat­is­fac­tion, show­ing that other side of her­self as a pos­si­ble inner per­sona of the goddess.

Key­words: Sta­bil­ity, Author­ity, Dis­ci­pline, Tra­di­tion, Struc­ture
My Choice: Saber [Fate/stay night]

There was no con­tender to this card from the start as the Emperor marks the very essence of Saber, both fig­u­ra­tively and lit­er­ally. A dis­ci­plined indi­vid­ual who struc­tured her entire being around her ideals, Saber became a shin­ing bea­con of author­ity in one of the dark­est hours of his­tory. Even more grounded than her ideal of the King is her per­spec­tive as a Knight, car­ry­ing on the tra­di­tion of Chivalry (at least the honor part, not quite the courtship). The only thing she lacked slightly was sta­bil­ity, as she doubted her­self and her pil­lar of per­sonal ideals had been shaken far more than once, espe­cially by Rider (Iskandr) of Fate/Zero. But thanks to Shi­rou in Fate route, Saber was finally able to lay the past to rest and move on to her eter­nal dream in Avalon.

Saber Lily is totally still the same char­ac­ter. Also, my fig­ure arrived last week­end — pics soon.

Key­words: Knowl­edge, Con­ser­vatism, For­mal­ity, Matu­rity, Tra­di­tion
My Choice: Oga­sawara Sachiko [Maria-sama ga Miteru]
I Call This Card: The Mentor

The hiero­phant is the pin­na­cle of a stern and con­ser­v­a­tive edu­ca­tor of wis­dom, be it a par­ent, an older sib­ling, or a men­tor. While I’m not exactly huge into Marim­ite, Honya’s sug­ges­tion of her fits the image per­fectly, with excep­tion to the yuri and dis­dain of men of course. But the series’ genre aside, Sachiko’s teach­ings on being the proper and ele­gant lady cer­tainly comes to mind, paint­ing a strik­ing and vivid pic­ture of tra­di­tional education.

Key­words: Pas­sion, Affin­ity, Rela­tion­ship, Doubt, Temp­ta­tion
My Choice: Sheryl Nome & Ranka Lee [Macross Fron­tier]
I Call This Card: The Love Poly­gon
Hon­or­able Men­tions: Hayase Mit­suki & Suzu­miya Haruka [Kimi ga Nozomu Eien]

The Lovers arcana is the def­i­n­i­tion of romance love-polygon drama, where chem­istry and pas­sion exists side-by-side to fuel doubt and inse­cu­rity and drive the story through char­ac­ter rela­tion­ships. The most notable of these series as of late is Macross Fron­tier, where Sheryl and Ranka bat­tle for sec­ond place in Alto-hime’s heart with their songs (first place will always be the open skies). Although, Sheryl fits this posi­tion far more than Ranka, who seems to be more of an imouto arche­type with a teenage crush on their per­son of inspi­ra­tion. How­ever, amidst the doubts the two were able to cap­i­tal­ize on their affin­ity to over­come their jeal­ousy, bring­ing an equi­lib­rium to the tri­an­gle by the end. That’s cer­tainly some­thing Kimi­nozo fans (whom are still war­ring) can’t say.

Key­words: Honor, Con­vic­tion, Asser­tion, Impul­sive­ness, Inflex­i­bil­ity
My Choice: Shana [Shaku­gan no Shana]
I Call This Card: The Tsun­dere
Hon­or­able Men­tions: Louise Françoise de la Val­lière [Zero no Tsukaima], Aisaka Taiga [Toradora]

Resolved and active, yet pride­ful and inflex­i­ble, the Char­iot marks all the traits of a trade­mark straight­for­ward tsun­dere in one con­ve­nient pack­age. Shana is a prime exam­ple of this, a cru­sader of worldly bal­ance whom cuts the mid­dle ground between mild and extreme tsun-tsun (espe­cially Louise whose in the domain of being pos­i­tively sadis­tic) with a healthy dose of dere~dere, all the while dis­play­ing absolute con­vic­tion for her occu­pa­tion as a Flame Haze.
It should be noted that tsun­deres with more adapt­abil­ity (e.g. Tohsaka Rin, Mis­aka Mikoto) have a tends to fit the Magi­cian arcana more, leav­ing the Char­iot for those with less intel­li­gence cre­ativ­ity and flexibility.

Key­words: Impar­tial­ity, Objec­tiv­ity, Analy­sis, Ratio­nal­ity, Deci­sion
My Choice: Lafiel [Crest of the Stars][Banner of the Stars]
I Call This Card: Lone-Wolf/Warrior
Hon­or­able Men­tions: Tabitha Orleans [Zero no Tsukaima], Tear Grants [Tales of the Abyss]

The com­bi­na­tion of being imper­sonal and objec­tive marks this arcana as the mold in describ­ing those cold, mission-driven types, espe­cially the ones with robotic ratio­nal­ity and blunt­ness. In mod­ern fic­tion writ­ing, these char­ac­ters always develop bonds of cama­raderie as the story pro­gresses. But even with the onset of emo­tional inter­ac­tion, they are still the ones whose logic remain firmly in con­trol when the story hits its cli­max. An Abu by nature whose race is best known for their detached and cal­cu­lat­ing demeanor, Lafiel exem­pli­fies this even more as her Ruler-to-be forces upon her absolute objec­tiv­ity in all deci­sion mak­ing. She may be closely attached to Jinto, but she cer­tainly won’t hes­i­tate to leave the planet he’s dying on when logic and neces­sity calls upon it — even if she must shed tears (a sin for Abu roy­alty) in fear for his life when she returns.
I really wish I could find a good, clear shot pic­ture of an Empire of Abh navy ves­sel for this card, be it the Bas­roil Assault Frigate or Admi­ral Spoor’s Red Patrol Cruiser.

Key­words: Soli­tude, Reflec­tion, Philo­soph­i­cal, Under­stand­ing, Guid­ance
My Choice: Naka­hara Mis­aki [Wel­come to N.H.K]
Hon­or­able Men­tions: C.C. [Code Geass]

I would call this the ‘Wise Old Man’, but char­ac­ters of this arche­type today are not nec­es­sar­ily old, and often con­tains a gap­ing hole between all that wis­dom. They’ll still serve as a guide for the lead­ing char­ac­ters, but the influ­ence no longer flows one-sidedly. Mis­aki gets the spot­light from me not because she fits the card any bet­ter than C.C, but because she leaves a far more impres­sion­able image. At the start we find her a com­pas­sion­ate guid­ance coun­selor — still an ama­teur, but with a deep drive for philo­soph­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal under­stand­ing. It’s not until later does the truth sur­face: that she’s every bit as messed up, if not even more, than Satou (her patient) is and requires just as much Hermit-help as she offers.

Key­words: Oppor­tu­nity, Des­tiny, Cycle, Devel­op­ment, Sur­prise
My Choice: Furude Rika & Hanyuu [Hig­urashi no Naku Koro ni]
Hon­or­able Men­tions: Suzu­miya Haruhi [The Melan­choly of Haruhi Suzumiya]

As much as Haruhi may attempt to match it, with Haruhi-tards argu­ing so, Hig­urashi def­i­nitely exem­pli­fies the ulti­mate use of Fate, Des­tiny, and the For­tune card itself. Here our hero and hero­ines are trapped in an end­lessly repeat­ing cycle of hor­rific deaths, in which only the two lolis (nippa~!) com­pre­hend the sit­u­a­tion and must strive hope­lessly to defeat the antag­o­nists’ schemes. It wasn’t until the umpteenth cycle did they finally seize the day through the power of hope and team­work and man­age con­sec­u­tive suc­cess­ful sneak attacks upon the final boss. Well played Sev­enth Expan­sion! Bravo!!!

I know, this is only half. You’ll get the other half later…

Pos­si­bly Related Posts

• Mar­cana Tarot Project++
• Decline of ‘Set­ting’, Appease­ment by ‘Premise’
• Mid-Fall 2009 Anime Impres­sions: Rising

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