Japanese Tarot Decks, lots of new ones?

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 26 Oct 2002, and now archived in the Forum Library.

augursWell	26 Oct 2002
During the recent conflagration surrounding the D.C.Sniper(s) in Washington D.C. one of the reports I read had some information from an interview with Stuart Kaplan(if I have the name right) of U.S.Games, one of the main companies for Tarot decks. They interviewed him for more information after that Tarot Death card was reportedly found at one of the crime scenes. In the interview I believe he made mention of a whole lot of new Tarot decks that were coming out over the last year or two in Japan of all places. Has anyone seen any of these decks and have any information or opinions on them? Any more information on what he was referring to?

ihcoyc	26 Oct 2002
The only specifically Japanese tarot deck I am aware of is the Angel tarot, a traditional deck with Marseilles trumps and Spanish style pips. It's one of the more attractive such decks. Is the Osho Zen deck actually made in Japan?

Cerulean	27 Oct 2002
Jeanette Roth's excellent article on Osho, who seems to be East Indian: http://www.tarotgarden.com/library/articles/osho.html I think many older Zen book titles and authors used to be attributed to distinct Chinese and Japanese roots, but I believe that has changed in the past two decades. There are many different names and categories of American Buddhism and other writers of modern Zen...I've not encountered Japanese Osho people, so I don't know. My family's loose tie with a Buddhist community center never read like the Osho Zen tarot... I don't know what Mr. Kaplan means by new, but after 1991-1997, it seems many Japanese language decks were first distributed at high prices and then afterwards, some distributors have made them less pricey. Kaplan's excellent Ukiyoe tarot is actually 20 years old. To see some Japanese language decks: www.sasugabooks.com The Tarotgarden site has more information about many of the decks, as well. www.tarotgarden.com If there are newer decks and a new wave of Japanese tarot other than the above, I'd love to see. Especially if they are translated...I'm not a gifted linguist, so English is what I'd hope for in those from Japanese publishers. I hope a few of the above bits help... Mari Hoshizaki who is in the U.S., not Japan...

Pollux	27 Oct 2002
Jeanette, is there a page of Tarot Garden that has got listed all of the oriental decks? *LOL* I know I should search, but the keywords are not that successful. And I suspect that as for many things you have built a page on purpose there might be one about Oriental (Chinese/Japanese/Thai...) decks as well. *glowing eyes* I hope this question won't annoy you! :)

Jeannette	27 Oct 2002
Quote: Originally posted by augursWell ...In the interview I believe he made mention of a whole lot of new Tarot decks that were coming out over the last year or two in Japan of all places. Has anyone seen any of these decks and have any information or opinions on them? Any more information on what he was referring to? augursWell: Like many people, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet Mr. Kaplan "in person" at the ITS conference in Chicago last May. At that time, he arranged to purchase a large number of tarots from Tarot Garden for use in the pending fourth volume of his Encyclopedia of Tarot series. At that time, he left me with the impression that he didn't currently have any contacts in Japan or east Asia keeping him up-to-date on the "tarot scene" in that area of the world. In particular, he was unfamiliar with the bourgeoning manga/anime market, which itself has spawned a huge number of tarot decks as marketing "tie ins" to the various series. As part of our arrangement with Mr. Kaplan, we provided him with a fairly large number of Japanese titles, including several anime/manga-related selections. Subsequent correspondences and conversations with Mr. Kaplan suggest that he may have been surprised to learn of the sheer volume of such decks. In brief, there are certainly a lot more tarots being published in Japan these days than there were when Mr. Kaplan originally published volume 3 of his Encyclopedias, in 1990. In that volume, there are only about a dozen decks of Japanese origin included. If Mr. Kaplan were able to obtain all of the tarots published in Japan since that time, there would be well over 100 of them, by my estimation. -- Jeannette http://www.tarotgarden.com P.S. -- Do you remember where you read the interview you've cited above? I'd love to get ahold of a copy to read.

Jeannette	27 Oct 2002
Quote: Originally posted by ihcoyc Is the Osho Zen deck actually made in Japan? The Osho Zen is one of the most popular tarots ever published -- its sales don't rival that of the Rider-Waite or Thoth, but among the latter-20th-century decks, it's right up there at the top. It currently has worldwide distribution, with publishers in several countries and editions in many languages. But the actual original edition was published by Boxtree Ltd. in Great Britain. St. Martin's Press currently publishes the edition that's distributed in North America. -- Jeannette http://www.tarotgarden.com P.S. -- If anyone has a copy of the original Boxtree edition, and is willing to sell it or trade for it, please contact me via PM or my direct e-mail address of jkr@tarotgarden.com

Jeannette	27 Oct 2002
Quote: Originally posted by Mari_Hoshizaki ...I'm not a gifted linguist, so English is what I'd hope for in those from Japanese publishers... Japanese publishers publish for the Japanese market, of course, where there's little need to provide English translations of the texts. What is needed, I think, is for Western publishers to acquire the rights to publish English-language editions, or for the Japanese publishers to become interested in direct-distributing to a worldwide market (a la Lo Scarabeo of Italy). This would not only provide an impetus for translating the texts, but would also cut the price for Western buyers by as much as 50%, because it wouldn't be necessary for resellers to import the items and pay the associated higher costs associated with obtaining these items through overseas sources. -- Jeannette http://www.tarotgarden.com P.S. -- Thanks, Mari, for mentioning my "Osho" article. It was a very interesting subject to research and write about.

Jeannette	27 Oct 2002
Quote: Originally posted by Pollux Jeanette, is there a page of Tarot Garden that has got listed all of the oriental decks? *LOL* I know I should search, but the keywords are not that successful...I hope this question won't annoy you! :) Pollux: How could a question about visiting my website and using it to its fullest potential possibly annoy me? ;) :D For searches by theme or country of publication, don't use the "Deck QuickSearch" feature found in the upper left-hand corner of most of our webpages. Instead, use the link below the "Deck QuickSearch" box to proceed directly to our "Advanced Search" page, here: http://www.tarotgarden.com/database/dbsearchadv.html Use the "Country of Publication" menu to select the country you want. Currently, we have "Japan" and "China" available as choices for viewing titles by East Asian publishers. We currently have six selections from Chinese publishers listed, and 80 selections by Japanese publishers. For Japanese decks, I still have a number of additional titles sitting by my desk, waiting to be scanned and entered into the database. -- Jeannette http://www.tarotgarden.com

ihcoyc	27 Oct 2002
Quote: Originally posted by Jeannette and/or Lori The Osho Zen is one of the most popular tarots ever published -- its sales don't rival that of the Rider-Waite or Thoth, but among the latter-20th-century decks, it's right up there at the top. Interesting. I know I've seen the deck several times, but I've never actually seen it in use. I was unaware that there were more than one Osho decks, or that these decks were founded on the ideas of Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh. Rajneesh's followers were the subject of intensely hostile media attention more than ten years ago, but nothing in his own books that I've read seemed that awful. That Goose deck looks interesting. Anything that borrows from the art of Félicien Rops is going to pique my interest at least a little.

augursWell	27 Oct 2002
Quote: Originally posted by Jeannette and/or Lori augursWell: In brief, there are certainly a lot more tarots being published in Japan these days than there were when Mr. Kaplan originally published volume 3 of his Encyclopedias, in 1990. In that volume, there are only about a dozen decks of Japanese origin included. If Mr. Kaplan were able to obtain all of the tarots published in Japan since that time, there would be well over 100 of them, by my estimation. -- Jeannette http://www.tarotgarden.com P.S. -- Do you remember where you read the interview you've cited above? I'd love to get ahold of a copy to read. Jeannette: It seems the above mentioned article quoted the wrong source, you being the right one. ;) The reference in the article I read was only in passing, maybe one sentence at most, as they quickly moved on to the DC sniper which was the main subject of the story. It could have been the New York Times Online or another article through Yahoo! A search of Yahoo News might find it. So it wasn't actually an interview that I read, probably only information that a reporter got while doing back story. :(

Jeannette	28 Oct 2002
Quote: Originally posted by augursWell Jeannette: It seems the above mentioned article quoted the wrong source, you being the right one. ;) LOL! Trust me -- no one in the mainstream media would think to ask me anything about tarot. Quote: ...It could have been the New York Times Online or another article through Yahoo! A search of Yahoo News might find it... Okay, I'll check it out. Thanks! -- Jeannette http://www.tarotgarden.com

Zhritza	29 Oct 2002
Quote: Originally posted by Jeannette and/or Lori Use the "Country of Publication" menu to select the country you want I was not aware of this feature till now... Great, now I can gaze forlornly at all the decks from Russia simultaneously! :P :)

The Japanese Tarot Decks, lots of new ones? thread was originally posted on 26 Oct 2002 in the Tarot Decks board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Tarot Decks, or read more archived threads.