Anime / High Card

"What a High Card needs is manners, grace, and a readiness to risk your life."

"Fourland Kingdom is an island nation in the North Atlantic. In this country, there are 52 X-Playing Cards, considered the origin of playing cards. A card with a unique supernatural ability can gift its abilities to a qualified person: the Player."

— Excerpt on the anime OST cover

High Card is a multimedia project created by Homura Kawamoto (the creator of the Kakegurui franchise), Hikaru Muno (writer of multiple Kakegurui light novel spinoffs), and TMS Entertainment, assisted by Studio Hibari. The anime premiered January 9, 2023, around the same time as multiple spinoffs including a manga (High Card -♢9 No Mercy), a light novel (High Card -♦7 Never No Dollars), and a drama CD set that fills out the background of multiple characters.

Set in the Kingdom of Fourland, where the royal family secretly keeps a magical deck of "X-Playing Cards" locked in a vault in their castle. One fateful night, the Klondike mafia family raids the castle to steal the Cards, but before they can escape, the case holding the Cards is cracked open and nearly all the Cards are scattered across the Kingdom.

Fast-forward one month later: a young man named Finn tries to win some quick cash at a casino to save the orphanage where he grew up before it gets demolished by an uncaring landlord. However, his trip to the casino soon thrusts him into a deadly conflict as he quickly becomes inducted into High Card, a secret society under the King operating out of the Pinochle car dealership, working to secure all 52 X-Playing Cards that includes Finn's own lucky 2 of Spades.

Each of the Cards grants its wielder a unique ability or magic power, and High Card must race against the CEO of a rival car company and the Klondike family to secure the Cards before they are used to disrupt the balance of power across the world.

The show has been renewed for a second season, which started airing on January 8, 2024. At the end of Season 2, a special episode entitled "THE FLOWERS BLOOM" was announced which would focus on Vijay.

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High Card contains examples of:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Vehicles, various X-Card powers and As of Season 2, The Black Knight are rendered with CGI.
• All Myths Are True: The 52 Cards are part of a fairy tale about the first king of Fourland; a mage protecting said king having been the one to gift 13 knights of each region with the cards. To most, it's just a fairy tale, but it is true.
• All There in the Manual: The manga/novels/drama CD gives more details about who's involved in the anime. But they're only available in Japanese.
• And the Adventure Continues: At the end of the show, San Galgano is finally stopped but there are still some Cards out there that are unaccounted for. While the public slowly mistrusts the Royal Family after former Prince Noah's involvement with the Klondikes, High Card continues their mission to collect the remaining Cards.
• Anyone Can Die: While some side characters do end up dying, Captain Young's death signals that no one among the main cast is safe.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: Bobby Ball gatecrashes Lindsey's birthday so he can kill Finn once and for all. He ends up burning down the whole orphanage. Then, Finn relives his repressed memories of his parents' murders.
• Bittersweet Ending: The show ends with Sal Galgano defeated but at the cost of Flann's life. Sugar arrests Prince Noah for his role in Captain Young's murder, his involvement with the Klondikes, and his attempt to kill his brother Prince Louis. Because of this, the public becomes wary of the Royal Family with some calling for its abolishment. Regardless, High Card continues their main mission to collect the remaining Cards to bring an end to the misfortunes brought by the Cards. However, a lot of people died before and after the coronation of Louis as the new King, including Greg Young and a lot of Royal Guard soldiers.
• Breather Episode: Episodes 6 and 7, "Take Back Five" and "Love & Fake", are more lighthearted and comedic compared to "Power Game" and "Heat Up".
• Continuity Lock-Out: A downplayed example. Anime-only watchers would likely be confused about how Chris managed to get the 5 of Spades, something that happened in the ♢9 No Mercy manga.
• Color-Coded Characters: The Old Maid branch characters are color-coded by the color of their suits; not unlike a sentai show (and even having a similar color palette save for exchanging pink for grey).
  • Finn: Yellow
  • Chris: Red
  • Leo: Blue
  • Wendy: Grey
  • Vijay: Green
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The X-Playing Cards come in four colors, just like real-life four-color decks. While the Spade and Heart Cards are the traditional black and red, the Diamond and Club Cards are blue and green. Even regular playing cards follow this.
• Covert Group with Mundane Front: High Card operates out of a local Pinochle car dealership as a cover.
• Evolving Credits:
  • By "Power Game", the opening credits are updated with Wendy in her Love-P persona.
  • Starting with "Once Upon a Time", the ending theme includes a younger Theodore, Ban, Norman, and Greg playing poker and having fun, which was covered to cancel their faces before.
  • The second season opening for "Coming Day" changed where Finn confronts TILT instead of the Black Knight.
• Family Extermination: Season 2 confirms that Finn's family was killed by the Black Knight, leaving him as the only survivor. Finn believes that an X-Playing Card has something to do with it.
• Fictional Country: Fourland is a European-based country in the North Atlantic, while the design of its cities are influenced by London, New York, and Las Vegas.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In "Make a Choice", Finn is debriefed on the significance of the Cards when a TV screen shows the entirety of Fourland.
  • The description of the Ace of Spades can be read by pausing on a shot of it towards the end of "Samurai Girl".
    "Love is a strong emotion wishing the happiness to the others.
    Peace is the state of tranquility where there is no war or conflict."
  • When Apple Link leaves the Old Maid branch in "Heat Up", his unseen driver is wearing a glove that's suspiciously like the gloves of the X-Playing Cards.
  • When Chris presents some fake identifications for himself and Michelle to the police, you can see that they're for Ethan Hemsworth and Sophia Pfeifer.
  • In "Truth of the Hero", the case holding the Cards that High Card has managed to retrieve includes King of Hearts, 9 of Diamonds, and 4 of Clubs from the "♢9 No Mercy" manga, the 2 of Hearts, 10 of Spades, and 6 of Spades from the "♦7 Never No Dollars" light novel.
  • "Once Upon a Time" has Sugar make a relationship chart that shows how Pinochle and Klondike family are involved with each other. Ban's name is officially recognized as Ban, not Van.
• Government Agency of Fiction: High Card is a covert agency under the authority of the Royal Fourlandian government that's allowed to use extralegal measures if needed.
• Government Conspiracy: Season 2 shows that the Royal Family is hiding something about the X-Cards that none of the High Card members except Theodore knew about, particularly with the actual history of the Cards. Even Captain Young, who used to work with Theodore before, is suspicious of the Royal Family's secret.
• Humans Are Bastards: This is Lala's current perspective on how the Players in modern times use their Cards. He realizes that the Cards brought nothing but misery to everyone due to selfishness and greed. He requests Finn to kill him so that the Cards would no longer bring more misery to the people.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: In her dying moments, Burst believes that despite Sal Galgano completely possessing him, TILT/Flann is still in there. In the last episode, Chris and Finn try their best to free Flann from Sal Galgano's control. But despite taking the King of Spades card away from Flann, Finn has no choice but to kill his brother.
• Improbable Weapon User: Bobby Ball's Card allows him to turn anything he touches into marble balls. While this is violent enough alone, capable of dismembering people, he can also use the marble balls as something similar to very strong rubber bullets, enough to leave metal desks bent when hit and kill people at close range. In "Heat Up" He manages to be the first Player to use two Cards at once, turning his arms into morphable liquid metal capable of attacking opponents from afar.
• Jurisdiction Friction: The police and High Card would often clash with each other. This increases more in the second season where Sugar arrests all the High Card members, believing that the police should be the ones who would handle the Players and X-Playing Cards despite the lack of skilled. Players in the police forces.
• Kill the Ones You Love: In the end, Finn is forced to kill his brother Flann to prevent Sal Galgino from taking control of him. Before he passes, Flann is able to say happy birthday to Finn as he and Lala go into the light.
• Made of Indestructium: It's been stated that the X-Playing Cards are indestructible.
• Magic A Is Magic A:
  • Each suit of X-Playing Cards have a specific set of abilities.
    • Spades are Spontaneous Weapon Creations, ranging from pistols to swords.
    • Hearts grant the power to change one's body, from Super-Toughness to granting a Healing Factor.
    • Clubs grant the power to control natural objects, examples being the 3 of Clubs granting control of plantlife while the 7 of Clubs grants pyrokinesis.
    • Diamonds give individualistic and peculiar powers, ranging from the 7 of Diamonds' Cast from Money to the 3 of Diamonds being able to turn anything into marbles.
  • As mentioned in Volume 2 of the CD dramas, one rule all Cards follow is that they can only be used inside Fourland's boarders. This clues Leo that the island he and the others found themselves on is still part of Fourland when he uses his Card to summon a teaset.
• Masquerade: None of the general public knew that the X-Playing Cards existed except for the Royal Family, Pinochle, the Klondike family, some members of the police force (Young and Sugar), Who's Who, and unaffiliated Players. Any incidents related to the Cards are usually covered up and censored by the authorities.
• Mistaken for Gay: Finn and Chris, under the effect of "Love Connection", are forced to hold hands at all times, this leads to many people assuming they're a couple.
• Pensieve Flashback: In the Season 2 episode, "Lala Valdenklein", the mage Lala shows Finn the true history of Fourland and the X-Playing Cards by letting him experience his memories firsthand.
• Playing Card Motifs: The entire franchise is full of them, from the obvious X-Playing Cards themselves to the names of locations throughout the Kingdom.
  • High Card itself is the name of a poker hand.
  • The car company that High Card uses as a front for their operations is named Pinochle. The branch the main characters work out of is named Old Maid. The pub they frequent is called Crazy 8. The school Vijay is studying at is the University of Cribbage. All are names for classic card games.
  • Who's Who, the rival car company to Pinochle, is also the name of a card game.
  • Klondike is the familiar version of Solitaire.
  • The X-Playing Cards themselves seem to work under Poker rules for the order of strength in their numbers, with the Deuce being the lower-powered Cards while the Aces are incredibly powerful.
• Police Are Useless: The Royal Family prefers to have High Card collect the Cards because the police are too ill-equipped to handle the Players as seen in "Prisoners" where Zenon uses his Card's abilities to dismantle the police force with ease. It doesn't even help that according to Zenon, Klondike has placed moles within the police force.
• Required Secondary Powers: Using any X-Playing Card will give the player enhanced physical abilities and resistance, regardless of the power of the actual Card. Considering how wild a battle between Players are and the kind of things that each Card does or asks of the user, it's likely a bare minimum to be able to use it to any reasonable degree.
• Red Shirt Army: The Fourlandian Royal Guard unit gets trounced in both seasons when they're suppose to protec the Royal Family and VIPs in the castle. In the first season, Klondike Mafia soldiers conduct a special forces-like raid on the royal castle. In the second season, San Galgano massacres most of its soldiers while trying to get the Joker card.
• Sacrificial Revival Spell: An X-Hand composed of the four "5" Cards is capable of this. When he was a kid, Chris got saved by his father using said hand. Episode 11 reveals that Chris was secretly reuniting the Cards to use it again, this time to sacrifice himself to save his sickly little sister. Episode 23 then has Burst uses an X-Hand of the 5, 4, 3, and 2 of Hearts (while transformed into Chris via her Ace of Hearts) to revive Chris, at the cos of her own life.
• Sequel Hook: Considering how the IP is set to turn into a multimedia franchise, it's no wonder Season 1 leaves a lot of these hanging to be picked up.
  • Iris is introduced in the prologue as the one that stole the X-Playing Cards and is indicated to have saved Finn from Bobby Ball. Outside of that, she never appears or interacts with High Card, making her a source of possible story-telling.
  • Ban Klondike's ultimate plan and whatever Card he holds is still a mystery.
  • Tilt is introduced, but his character and role are yet to be explored.
  • In The Stinger of the first season, Nhat is impaled by the Black Knight of Finn's memories, asking him whose side are they on. This, combined with the Black Knight being used in the poster for the season 2 announcement indicates that they will play a big role up next; by extension, this is likely an exploration of Finn's backstory and the reason for the death of his parents.
• Shout-Out:
  • There's the Wizardsman tailor shops in Fourland.
  • Episode 7 involves two main characters chasing after a woman whose power is to connect them together, leading to several embarrassing scenarios and being Mistaken for Gay, very similar to Joseph and Avdol's fight against Mariah.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Every X-Playing Card of the Spades suit summons a weapon to the Player, from a loaded revolver to a wide variety of explosives.
• Stock Sound Effects: The Black Knight's screech of anger in Season 2 comprises of several kaiju roars, with Rodan's being the most audible.
• Summon to Hand: A feature of multiple Cards' powers, including Finn's 2 of Spades and Leo's 7 of Diamonds.
• Tricked-Out Gloves: Using an X-Playing Card turns it into gloves that allow the wearer to use their powers. Taking the gloves off turns them back into Cards, but on the other side, so does losing your arms or hands.
• True Companions: Theodore, on paper the Big Good of the series, discourages this, advocating for his employees to see each other as work colleagues and nothing more. Nonetheless, the current High Card team develop into real friends over the course of the season, with even Leo disobeying his father's orders in the season finale so that he, Vijay, Wendy, and Bernard can help Finn save Chris from sacrificing himself to save his sister via X-Hand.
• Wham Episode:
  • "Power Game": John Doe's killed by Ban without touching him. Sugar's warned of his death while having survived an encounter with a Klondike enforcer.
  • "Heat Up": Bobby Ball is back for revenge against Finn after their fight in Bell Land, has managed to find a way to use two Cards at once and is killed by a mysterious assailant before being able to kill Finn at the orphanage he grew up at. Finn also gets flashbacks to his past involving his family dying in a fire at the hands of a mysterious Black Knight.
  • "By Your Side": Prince Dylan, the crown prince of the Fourlandian Royal Family, is assassinated by one of the Klondike Mafia players.
  • "Chris" has Klondike soldiers raid the Forland Palace, taking out most of the Royal Guard, likely in a bid to assassinate the Fourlandian Royal Family.
  • "Answer the Door": The Klondikes attack Pinochle's headquarters and managed to steal the Cards collected and kidnap the president, courtesy of Zenon.
  • "Once Upon a Time": Some of the past between Theodore and Ban Klondike is revealed, along with the reveal that there is a Joker among the X-Playing Cards which has the power to sever the Cards bond with their Players with the Klondike's goal being to destroy it.
  • "Prisoners": Where to begin? The police are hold High Card and Burst captive, Greg manages to get the King to possibly reveal what the Klondikes are after, Burst's card is revealed and that she was Iris who led the raid on the castle at the beginning of the series, the Black Knight possesses Tilt, Chris returns to action, and the man Finn met in Magic Rose returns.
  • "Lala Valdenklein" reveals the true history of Fourland and the origin of the Cards. It is also revealed that King Ewan is the one who requested Lala to create the Joker card.
  • "Coming Day": It turns out TILT as the Black Knight was present during the massacre of Finn's family. Then, at the end of the episode, Captain Young gets killed by an assassin hired by the Royal Family.
  • "Winner or Loser": We finally see Ban Klondike's Start of Darkness. It turns out that his father was killed in a terrorist attack and that Ban was going to use an X-Hand to reverse time to save him, but Theodore stopped him. Theodore also breaks the rules and does an X-Hand to save Leo but is killed by Tilt. Before dying, Theodore reveals that the reason he prevented Ban from saving his father was to save Ban. So Ban uses an X-Hand to reverse time, at the cost of his own life. Then, Tilt turns into the Black Knight again as he eats Finn.
  • "Sweet Home": Holy crap! We learn what really happened on the night Finn lost his parents, along with the reveal that Ban Klondike was the one who killed them, not Tilt/San Galgano. Tilt reveals his real name is Flann Oldman and he's Finn's older brother. Not to mention he's bene using Burst's Card to be Apple Link to be close to Finn. And in a fit of rage at Chris, Flann fatally stabs him with San Galgano's before heading to the royal palace to kill the Joker. Chris then dies due to his injuries but Burst then uses her Card to transform into Chris and uses an X-Hand to revive him, sacrificing herself while telling Finn that there's still a chance to save Flann.
• Wham Shot:
  • At the end of "To Be Apart", Chris pulling a gun on Finn and shooting him.
  • "Answer the Door": Bernard pulls out a Card, revealing himself to be a Player.
  • "Look at Me": Tilt wants to work with the Black Knight (and Burst) to "change" the world.
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: As revealed in "Lala Valdenklein", King Ewan's wish was that he hoped the Cards would be used for the sake of the people's happiness. Unfortunately, as centuries passed by, many Players had been abusing the Cards' powers for their selfish means. Lala believes it would be best if he dies so that the Cards would disappear, freeing everyone. However, Finn refuses to kill him because he believes his Card helped other people, and while he understands that the Cards brought tragedy to others, he believes that it's his and High Card's mission to use their Cards to end the tragedies.
• Would Hurt a Child: While they are capable of holding their own, Finn and Leo are minors at 17 and 14, respectively. Anyone actively fighting against Pinochle are not above trying to wipe them out of the picture along with the rest of the organization.
  • And then at one point Bobby Ball attacks the orphanage Finn grew up in while it was full of kids and sets the whole place on fire.

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