Players: 2-6
Time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: 1 (of 10)

The Components

Manga Manga comes with:

• 80 cards
• 18 disks
• 1 rulebook

Cards: The cards are medium-weight cardstock printed full color on the front, grayscale on the front. 72 of the cards are warriors which ach show a warrior in one of the six colors (blue, white, red, purple, green, or yellow) with a shield in the lower-left corner which also shows one of the six colors.The remaining 8 cards are rainbow dragons which feature multicolored shields.

All of the cards feature anime-style artwork which is nicely done and generally attractive. The artwork is featured large, and I'm pretty sure it'll appeal to the kid's audience.

My only slight complaint on the cards is that the blue and purple are somewhat close in color, which is made more difficult by the fact that the color in the shield is generally lighter than the color on the main card. One of my opponents had problems distinguishing the colors as a result, though I didn't.

Disks: These disks are printed on solid, linen-textured cardboard. 9 of them are Victory Disks, which show one or two swords. The other 9 are consolation disks, which show either a sword or one of three different consolation icons. These are very attractive and the icons are easy to understand fairly immediately.

Rules: The rules are, fairly surprisingly, black and white, printed on a three-fold rulesheet. Given how important color is to the game, I don't have much doubt that the rules would have been clearer if they'd been printed in color. There's a little manga cartoon that opens up the rulebook. Other than the issue of color, they read pretty clearly.

Beyond the components themselves, I think the game does a pretty good job of evoking the feel of manga comics. I love in particularly the shouting of "Action Power!" (and "Action Stop!") in the game, which really made the genre for me. Based on that, and the general quality and attractivenses of the components, I've given Manga Manga a "4" out of "5" for Style. My rating was on the lower side for "4" and would have been more solid if the rules had been color or the price point had been a couple of dollars lower.

The Game Play

In Manga Manga your goal is to empty your hand of cards in each of 9 rounds of play.

Setup: Each player is dealt 6 cards. The dealer then flips over the top card of the draw pile, shouting "Action Power!"

Gameplay: Each card has a card color and a shield color. The shield color depicts card color must be played next.

All players play simultaneously. As fast as they can, players play their cards, with legal plays indicated by the current top shield. The same player isn't allowed to play two cards in a row.

There are also rainbow dragon cards, which may be played on any other card; the player yells the required color for the next card when he plays it.

A round of play ends when one player has played all his cards.

Scoring with Disks: At the end of the round the top player (who ended the round by playing all his cards) is given a face-down Victory Disk; it has either 1 or 2 swords on it. The player who ended the round with the most cards still in their hand gets a Consolation Disk. A new round of play then begins.

Consolation Disks may be played at the beginning of any future round of play, after cards are drawn, but before "Action Power!" is shouted. They allow:

• Discarding of 1 card.
• Exchanging of 2 cards for 2 new cards.
• Forcing all other players to discard their rainbow dragons.

There's also one Consolation Disk which has a victory sword on it; it's revealed at the end of play.

Winning the Game: At the end of 9 rounds of play, the player with the most victory swords wins; in the case of a tie, a sudden death one-on-one round is fought.

(Two player games have slightly different rules, allowing for consecutive plays and getting rid of the consolation disks.)

Relationships to Other Games

Manga Manga is ultimately a game in the Crazy Eights family, the most famous of which is Uno. It's a category of play that I generally call Card Matching because the play involves matching the card currently at the top of the discard pile in specific ways.

Manga Manga is also a simultaneous play card game, a fairly rare breed that includes kids' games like Slapjack.

I suppose it's also worth mentioning that Manga Manga is part of the Uberplay Small Box series, which is a set of card games published in small rectangular boxes, sometimes with additional components. I've previously reviewed Oh, Pharaoh! in the series. However, other than the fact that they're all small card games, I don't think there's a lot of consistency in the series. Manga Manga is a kid's game, while Oh, Pharaoh! is a family game. I haven't played them yet, but it looks like, of the other two entries in this series, Spy is another family game and Saga is a bit more of a gamer's game.

The Game Design

To really talk about the game design of Manga Manga it should be fully understood that it's a kid's game. And, this highlights a personal pet peeve that I have about card & board game marketing. The only clue that a casual browser has to the intended demographic of Manga Manga is that it's labelled "Ages: 8 and up". But, that really says very little, because there's a number of games that I entirely enjoy as an adult (such as Carcassonne) which also have that same label.

I've seen some people entirely turn their noses up at Manga Manga, and I suspect that's mainly because they picked it up thinking it was an adult's game. It's not. If games were labelled "Kid's Game", "Family Game", and "Strategy Game" this sort of thing wouldn't be a problem.

In any case, as a kid's game, Manga Manga is generally a fairly average one. The gameplay is largely reflex-based and largely random.

However the game does have a neat innovation, which is the consolation disks. These give losing players a way to try and catch up, mostly by letting them occasionally start with a smaller hand of cards. Ironically, I just wrote an article the other week about how kid's games aren't fair. That this one tries to introduce some fairness is a welcome and worthwhile addition.

Overall, I give Manga Manga a "3" out of "5" rating for Substance, but on the high end of that scale.

Conclusion

Manga Manga is a nicely produced card game that might appeal to the 6-10 year old demographic. The artwork and general focus on manga is fun, but the gameplay is just slightly above average