TOKYO, Japan Wire – A daily newspaper in Iwate Prefecture launched the first batch of a series of collectible travel-themed trading cards on Saturday aimed at highlighting the region’s diverse attractions and drawing repeat visits from Japanese and foreign tourists.
Each card in the collectable series “100 Views of Iwate: Trading Cards” features an image of a landscape, historical landmark, or festival from across Iwate Prefecture in northeastern Japan.
Cards in the initial series cover 26 scenes, with at least one scene from each city in the prefecture, according to the Iwate Nippo daily newspaper.
The card series creator selected recent, high-quality photographs, taken for the newspaper by journalists and photographers, that showcase the prefecture’s diversity.
Scanning a QR code on each of the cards takes collectors to a dedicated website with explanations of the image locations, maps, and information about nearby travel resources, available in English, Chinese, and Korean.
Through the QR code unique to each card, visitors can unlock the same image on the website and keep track of their collection in digital form on their smartphone.
The trading cards are sold in packs of five random cards for 500 yen ($3). Sales locations — including hotels, roadside rest areas, and bookstores — are listed on the website.
The cards are marked by varying degrees of rarity — from those featuring scenes that visitors have a high chance of witnessing at any time of year, to rarer scenes that can only be seen under specific conditions, including the season, time of day, and weather.
The collection includes a card featuring Anatoshi-iso, a dramatic rock formation and symbol of the Goishi Coast — a National Place of Scenic Beauty — in Ofunato.
Railway enthusiasts may want to try and capture the image on another of the cards, which features a JR Hanawa Line train framed by the 2,038-meter Mt. Iwate, also known as the “Nambu Fuji,” for its resemblance to Mt. Fuji.
Lucky collectors might find a three-star scene in their pack — the rarest cards in the collection, featuring images processed with a holographic finish.
Iwate Nippo says it hopes the cards will serve not just as souvenirs, but as a starting point for visitors, guiding them to their next destination in the region.
The trading cards are the first product developed by Iwate Nippo using generative AI trained with the newspaper’s articles.
This article was submitted by a contributing writer for publication on Japan Wire.