How I Became A Pokémon Card (Pokémon Card Ni Natta Wake) is a Slice of Life-type Pokémon manga where every chapter is a different story. Each volume contained a Pokémon trading card. The chapters were drawn by an artist for the trading card game, Kagemaru Himeno.
How I Became A Pokémon Card provides examples of:
- Bifauxnen: In some panels, Kaede seems to be a rather cute young man.
- Distant Finale: The chapter about a young boy and the injured Persian he befriended skips forward several years at the end, to reveal that the boy is Giovanni, leader of Team Rocket.
- Harmless Villain: Hiroshi is a cute kid who wishes to be a member of Team Rocket. Team Rocket isn't nearly as intimidating as in the games, but they're still a threat. Hiroshi eventually grows up out of his Harmless Villain role, as shown in the author's note at the end of the volume he appears in.
- Mythology Gag:
- Giovanni has a Persian like in the anime. Team Rocket is also shown in a similar way to the anime.
- The ending to Giovanni's chapter resembles the part of Pokémon Red and Blue where Red arrives at his gym and beats him.
- Never Trust a Title: No chapter revolves around becoming Pokémon cards. Instead the title refers to the backstory of the cards.
- Papa Wolf: Dragonite did not take kindly to his son being "kidnapped" by humans.
- She Is All Grown Up: The ending page always shows the main character in the chapter a few years later, often once as a teenager and once as an adult.
- Trans Tribulations: Akari has unofficially lived as a boy from a young age, but when he enters secondary school his mother forces him to wear a skirt, and demands he act more feminine and use "watashi" instead of "ore".
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Giovanni is shown as a little kid, meeting his Persian, in one chapter. He nurtures him after he finds him injured and saves him from being captured.
