Magic Manga Tarot, confused by minors

Alan Ross

I just received the Magic Manga Tarot the other day. The artwork is beautiful throughout the deck and I'm fine with the majors, although they aren't symbolically deep, but the illustrations on the minor pip cards are giving me fits! The LWB significances are straight up RWS based, but I'm having serious difficulty linking most of the card scenes with the suggested interpretations. Is anyone else having any luck with this?

Alan
 

lilangel09

I do not own the Magic Manga, but from the scans I've seen online, the pictures are very loosely based on the RWS system. Some of the pictures seem random. It may be better to use your own meanings with it.
 

Hemera

LOL Alan.. we seem to be constantly buying the very same decks (Faerie Tarot, Halloween, Manga, Magic Manga..) :) And we seem to be having similar problems with them,too.
I´ve had precisely the same problem as you with this deck. I ended up getting so frustrated that I had a bad dream about it one night. There was an evil Fool from this deck. So, I put the whole deck aside for a while. Maybe to wait for a future study group or something..
Anyway, I´m sorry I can´t help you with this deck but I just wanted to share the frustration :D
 

Quester

I was looking forward to this deck, but sounds like one that I would have problems with too! :(
 

Alan Ross

Hemera said:
LOL Alan.. we seem to be constantly buying the very same decks
We must be channelling the same tarot-buying spirit. I'm beginning to wish I hadn't channelled it for this deck :(. Oh well, at least the pictures are pretty.

I´ve had precisely the same problem as you with this deck. I ended up getting so frustrated that I had a bad dream about it one night. There was an evil Fool from this deck. So, I put the whole deck aside for a while. Maybe to wait for a future study group or something..
Anyway, I´m sorry I can´t help you with this deck but I just wanted to share the frustration.
Thanks for sympathy, Maria. I wasn't really expecting anyone to hand me the magic key that would help me make sense of these cards, but it does help to share the frustration. For anyone who's interested, here are a couple of scans of some of the more puzzling cards:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3174/2947141473_2f08ecf895_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3270/2947998168_eb4d919f9c_o.jpg

Alan
 

TinkerKitty

I have Manga Magic, so I will attempt to help, though I won't guarantee anything. Starting with the cards you have the most problems with:

3 Wands: I'll get back to you on that one......

10 Cups: Word-picture association, because she doesn't look happy or cheerful or anything like that, although here looking at the water could be seen as her thinking about HOME.

3 Pentacles: See the wings? Let's pretend they're little angels that made the clock. It helps to have ARTISTIC ABILITY if you're going to make something, and most people want to MASTER what they need to know to make the things they make to be PERFECT. And in some places angels = DIGNITY and POWER.

2 Swords: The way she's holding the scalpels (?) looks kind of difficult and would require BALANCE (force) and two things can either be together in HARMONY or OFFSET (-ing factors) each other. And, well, she's a nurse. Most nurses at least pretend to have AFFECTION for their patients.

4 Cups: He looks laid-back and kind of lazy (or just bored), so I get the WEARINESS part. But the STATIONARY PERIOD? The hourglass is still moving.....

7 Wands: Let's now pretend like this is the first time this guy has managed to make those things float. I bet he's all "Ha! SUCCESS! I've OVERCOME ALL of the OBSTACLES and CHALLENGES to GAIN the power to do this!" Only his face doesn't give that impression because he's too busy concentrating.

6 Pentacles: And now we're pretending that the action of moving the disk from one hand to another (well, that's what it looks like to me) represents him giving it to someone else. He's being KIND and someone else is getting MATERIAL GAIN though CHARITY.

5 Swords: He has that "Don't mess with me, I have a trident!" look. "I shall either CONQUER or DEFEAT any ADVERSARIES that come my way."
 

Alan Ross

Nice try on those, but I feel that they're quite a stretch. I doubt that anyone looking at these card scenes would naturally derive the RWS significances provided in the LWB. I long ago decided that the best approach with this deck is to ignore the LWB, discarding the provided RWS interpretations, and adopt a purely intuitive approach.

Alan
 

Le Fanu

I received a card from the Magic Manga for the Frankendecken. It was the 10 of Pentacles/ Coins (I think) but honestly, it could have been any card except - I think - Death!
 

Sulis

I almost bought this one for my daughter and I'm really glad I didn't now. She has the Faerie Tarot by Natalie Hertz and likes it for making up stories but I can't make head nor tail of it with the way I read so it's useless for teaching her to read.
My daughter loves Manga art but unfortunately decks that use Manga art seem to stray a lot from the RWS system and don't seem that good at using with number / element either.
The decks I've seen (the ones that don't have non-scenic pips) often seem to have random images on the Minor Arcana and this one doesn't appear to be any different.
I wish someone would make a really nice manga deck that was based on a well-used system.
 

TinkerKitty

Alan Ross said:
Nice try on those, but I feel that they're quite a stretch. I doubt that anyone looking at these card scenes would naturally derive the RWS significances provided in the LWB. I long ago decided that the best approach with this deck is to ignore the LWB, discarding the provided RWS interpretations, and adopt a purely intuitive approach.

Alan

It probably helps that this is my first and only deck, so I have nothing to compare it to, and it works for me so I have no reason to change. I guess it's just personal opinion.