VIZ Media Inks New Trading-Card Game Deal

SAN FRANCISCO, June 19:
VIZ Media has licensed the North American trading-card game rights for its
animated property Blue Dragon to
Konami Digital Entertainment (KDE).

Under the agreement, KDE
will exclusively manufacture and distribute a Blue Dragon-branded trading-card game and trading-card game
accessories for North America.

Produced by Studio
Pierrot, the Blue Dragon animated TV series is based on the
Xbox 360 video game of the same name that was developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi,
the creator of Final Fantasy. The new trading-card
game is also based on the Xbox 360 video game.

The Blue Dragon animated TV series debuted
in Japan on TV Tokyo on April 7, 2007; it also premiered across the U.S. on Cartoon Network on Saturday, April 5,
2008, and now airs regularly at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings.

Both the Blue Dragon video game and animated series are centered on Seven
Soldiers of Light, brought together by fate, who must awaken the Shadow within
themselves in time to overcome a despotic power and bring peace to their land.

VIZ Media is the master North American licensor for the
television, home-video and non-video game merchandising rights for Blue
Dragon.

“Konami Digital
Entertainment, Inc. welcomes the opportunity to further build the popularity of
the Blue Dragon franchise with this licensing agreement with VIZ Media and is thrilled to
have the opportunity to work on its first-ever role-playing card game with a
dynamically advancing game mechanic,” said Yumi Hoashi, the VP of KDE’s card
division. “We look forward to reaching out to an array of players of all ages
and sharing the excitement of the group-oriented role-playing card game, Blue
Dragon. It
is our expectation that the character designs of esteemed creator Akira
Toriyama, combined with the unique game play of Blue Dragon, will create countless new
fans within the card-game community."

—By Irene Lew