Reminds me of the fisherman call where you could sign up to have a professional fisherman give you a wake up call. https://soranews24.com/2017/05/12/japanese-fishermen-start-m...
I love this! I did not expect to love this.
Wow.
The cards are exemplary. Any Ojisan[0] featured on a card should feel honored. I looked at the cards shown to us and immediately was struck by the artists ability to both see the beauty in these fine people and deliver it on the card in a compelling, clearly respectful way.
And the motive! It is simple and noble: Elevating Town Fathers in the eyes of those for whom they often serve.
The idea is pure,[1] uncluttered by unnecessary detail and expectations. The only real complication came from the kids, who naturally wanted the game aspect to make the whole thing fun!
Of course they did.
Humans being beautiful. That is what this is and as much as I want this sort of thing where I live, I know it would not be this organic thing of beauty and that makes me sad. I am not sure enough of us here have what is needed.
I am definitely sharing today. What a delightful story!
[0] Capitalized because local heroes
[1] Pure is the word I use in this context. There may be better ones. Please share.
I remember as a young kid living in Norway, there'd be the "russefeiring"[0] around May where students finishing their final semester will don a brightly colored overall and cause mayhem in the town. I remember getting shot a lot with water guns. Anyway, one thing that is pretty fun about that tradition is that the students print cards for themselves with a picture and fun facts etc and hand them out to all the little kids, and we'd trade them between ourselves to have the whole collection of students.
I still remember decades and decades ago hearing about vending machines in Japan. Someone mentioned going to Japan and how you could get cold cans of coffee out of vending machines there. This was sometime in the 1990s, before even Starbucks was a huge thing. Everyone I knew thought the idea of cold coffee was ridiculous, a quirk of the Japanese that would never catch on.
I feel the Japanese have been pretty good at exporting culture, but it has a lot of misses among the few hits. I wonder if this is something that would catch on outside of Japan.
That's awesome.
Town celebrates its own via a medium that the youth seek out on their own. The youth then forge closer connections with their elders. Everyone is happy, everyone wins.
Original video and articles (in Japanese)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m21OBCVPWo
That’s neat. I hope they expand it to include middle aged women in the community too.
Reminds me of "Divorced Dads" playing cards
There are fundamental differences between Asian cultures and Western ones, particularly in how they view the individual versus the community, and the relationship between the young and the elderly. In many Asian cultures, the community is often placed above the individual, while in the West, individualism tends to take precedence. These perspectives have evolved differently over time, and each has its own advantages and drawbacks—there’s no single “correct” way.
That said, it would definitely be more challenging to implement this kind of community-first mindset in the U.S. or Europe.
i needed an "oh, that's really nice" story today. this delivered.
in every way, this seems well-intentioned, quirky, cute, fun, and positive. unless there's some subtext i'm missing, this is just a good and nice thing happening that's great for everyone involved.
nice to have a story like that these days.
This is a superb idea. I had seen random cat gacha but not trading cards of random dudes.
Most efforts at custom TCGs seem to go nowhere at all because of the absence of any practical trading meta game, so bootstrapping that with local interest is a very neat marketing move that aligns very well with the desired community engagement.
The result is that whole idea is greater than the sum of its parts.
The life expectancy in this area is impressive. Middle-aged men:
Mr. Honda (74) apparently expecting to live to 148
Mr. Takeshita (81) about to buy a high-powered motorcycle, perhaps
Mr. Fujii (68) has a new sports coupe and is on very good terms with his secretary, his wife has noticed
Reminds me of divorced dads card game https://www.youtube.com/@AudioOpera
> Kids have started attending local events and volunteering for community activities — just for a chance to meet the ojisan from their cards. Participation in town events has reportedly doubled since the game launched.
Kids involved in community seems to be the best result
This can only end one way...
In an animated tv show depicting middle-aged man battles by community-service-dance-off. May include flashing images.
The comment here are a perfect example of how this could not exist in the west without some shitstorm trying to destroy it.
I guess continuing to ignore 3/4:1 male suicide rates is one "solution" to mitigate demographic aging..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicid...
This sounds like something straight out of the Yakuza video game series. Which, incidentally, is a series largely focused on middle aged men - I would love a set of these cards with Kiryu, Majima, Saejima, Akiyama, Ichiban, Nanba, Adachi, etc...
Wow this is so heartwarming. Actually celebrating "common humans" is so underrated. And kids doing this no less is even more amazing!
Ages 74, 81, and 68. Are these middle aged?
The whole point of this is that we've reached breaking point with the ridiculous attempt to replace everything with a digital experience. It is fitting that Japan, which was arguably the place where the digital revolution really took off, should be the first place where it is rejected.
The Oregon Graduate Institute (or maybe just the CS&E dept.) once made trading cards of the professors, to promote STEM to area children.
i think it would be interesting to allow each Ojisan to be in charge of distribution. some would freely hand out their cards to any who ask, while some might be more "stingy", awarding cards only to youth who impressed them. the game designer could periodically restock the Ojisan's supply and each generation of cards could be mechanically rebalanced to reflect the observed rarity.
I think AR or augmented reality games like this trading cards is the future of gaming, but this one is offline AR rather than online.
One of the best game I ever played is the text based souvenir game shopping game on Windows 3. I can't recall the name of the game now since it's more than 30 years ago, but it's about shopping souvenirs using London Underground Tube. You have a semi realistic time constraints like train schedules, your flight schedules and of course list of souvenirs items to shop. This is totally offline since there is no Internet available at the time but it's very engaging nonetheless.
My proposal for the modern version of the game is to use real-time train schedules (with delays, ticket discounts, etc) that are available publicly on the Internet for many metropolitan cities in the world for examples Tokyo, London and Berlin [1],[2],[3].
Imagine you can have a real-world realistic in-app in-game items purchases feature that you personally can buy in the game and delivered to you or anyone you fancy of giving souvenirs except that you only virtually went there.
[1] A real-time 3D digital map of Tokyo's public transport system (2023 - 103 comments):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37829061
[2] Live map of London's Underground system:
https://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/
[3] Show HN: Ubähnchen – Animated subway map of Berlin (2020 - 102 comments):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32647227
[4] Berlin train info:
Feels like a portal to the alternate universe we could have with modern technology but no mass media.
This is so heart warming. I hope this action gains more interest to other cultures. By the looks of it, the rate of success is greater within a relatively small to medium community in size.
This is unexpectedly brilliant and heart warming. Thank you for sharing.
> Middle-aged man trading cards Examples are Mr. Honda (74), Mr. Takeshita (81) and Mr. Fujii (68). Japanese are just built different I guess.
This is such a wonderful thought. A great way to recognize the efforts put up by people in the community that often goes unnoticed and unappreciated.
Fascinating cultural phenomenon blending traditional trading cards with modern social media. Clever use of QR codes linking to biographical data. I wonder if future versions could incorporate digital signing and verification on the blockchain to create provably scarce digital collectibles. Potential model for other innovative physical-digital crossovers.
> The more actively the ojisan engages in volunteer work or community service, the higher the chances of their card being upgraded to a shiny version with a glossy laminated effect.
In systems like this, where artificial scarcity is seen as having value, making the cards _more common_ for good works seems like a perverse incentive; clearly, the best approach is to be Victor Meldrew, so as to have a rarer card.
> Seeing this, the game’s creator decided to take it to the next level. New rules were introduced, allowing the cards to be used in actual battles. The objective isn’t to defeat the opponent’s card but to outplay it based on the characters’ skills and abilities.
Anyone have an idea of how the gameplay works? How do you "outplay" your opponent?
Makes you think, if your life was reduced to a trading card, would anyone want it? For most, probably not.
Apparently the "fat Steve" minecraft toy is sold out everywhere.
https://shop.mattel.com/products/minecraft-steve-large-scale...
I like the idea. On one hand it promotes usung heroes, people who did good for their community. On the other hand it helps establishing role models.
It's better if kids have these people as role models than random rock stars or movie stars.
I thought it was a joke like https://divorceddads.shop/ It turns out it's something way more wholesome.
These aren't middle-aged men, they're straight-up old.
"Ojisan" means something like "gramps". Though given how youth-oriented Japanese culture is, I suppose it could refer to any man 35 or older.
I don’t think “middle-aged” is quite the right translation.
Reminds me of this old SNL skit:
Fantastic idea. Curious if this works in my town as well
Interesting translation issue where they use the dictionary definition of "ossan" (middle aged guy) but then they're all senior citizens.
"Middle-aged man ..."
also:
"It features Mr. Honda (74), ... Mr. Takeshita (81), ... Mr. Fujii (68)"
Is this the new "middle-aged" in Japan?
All they need now is some irl sujimon!
MY TIME HAS FINALLY COME
Wait I'm actually elderly
OK, Row 2 Column 2 has to be a mashup of George Bush and Barack Obama right?
https://www.tokyoweekender.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/oj...
Creativity thrives in Japan. I wonder why this country seems so prolific in that regards.
This such a genius idea to get the kids to learn about the people in their community.
Wow! What a fantastic idea!
How come the men on the cards have Magic/Mana Points (MP)?
This is a stupid idea that couldn't possibly work. But it did?
They should have called these Salarymon cards.
Ojisan as in O.G.san as in Old Gangster san?
Erm, are there some for middle aged women to?
Three months after loosing my Mum one realises and appreciates what a huge amount she did for so many people.
the idea is great by itself. However it highlights a big problem in today western society.
I NEED TO GO TO JAPAN NOW.
I love this so much.
“Japan has always had deep subcultures around games, cards, and character design — but what’s new is how global social platforms amplify them. It feels like TikTok is acting as a cross-cultural layer over local fandoms. Could this become a driver for new forms of cross-border cultural products?”
I would add some obasan - the female counterpart of "ojisan"
Wait, what does Japan know that 79 year old men are middle aged?
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"Rural Japan" checks notes. Pop 1.7M
Why only men? Women don't exist in any important role in their society?
I feel like this is the kind of stuff that will be common with AI. Imagine having a whatsapp family group and a bot auto-generates this type of games for you based on your group.
It's a privacy nightmare but it will be fun for sure.
I clicked the headline expecting a chuckle and left with an unexpectedly warmed heart.
> “We wanted to strengthen the connection between the children and the older generations in the community. There are so many amazing people here. I thought it was such a shame that no one knew about them,” [...] “Since the card game went viral, so many kids are starting to look up to these men as heroic figures.” > Kids have started attending local events and volunteering for community activities — just for a chance to meet the ojisan from their cards. Participation in town events has reportedly doubled since the game launched.
there's so much more I want to comment on--it's not screen-based, increased cross-generational interaction, strengthening community, elders having their stories known--but what I love is that these effects will compound into even greater benefits for the community.