Middle aged men (and older) trading cards created by Eri Miyahara of the Saidosho Community Council

In a story that will make you ‘aww’ and ‘aha’ like the best Pixar film, a Japanese community center released a line of collectable trading cards featuring the town’s older male residents.

Seeking a way for the younger generation to connect with the “amazing” community members middle-aged and older, the center’s secretary general leveraged the youth’s enduring love of the Pokémon trading card game to create these masterpieces of civic engagement.

The town of Kawara in Fukuoka Prefecture has a population of about 10,000 from half as many households. Limestone mountains, relatively famous from their appearance in a well-known novel, are all the northern Honshu town can boast of that visitors might have heard of.

But a strange phenomenon has gripped the town’s youth who attend the Saidosho Community Center. They’re rapidly taking up a new trading card game (TCG), but the cards don’t depict fantasy creatures, anime heroes, or even famous baseball players.

Instead, the characters shown on the distinctly Pokémon-like cards are the town’s ojisan, or middle-aged community members. Eri Miyahara, the Secretary General of Saidosho center, created them originally just as a collectable card game.

“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,” she said in an interview with Fuji News Network, according to Tokyo Weekender. “Since the card game went viral, so many kids are starting to look up to these men as heroic figures.”

It costs less than a dollar per card, while $3.00 gets you a set of 5 that includes one of the holographic ones.

The 47 characters include ‘Soba Master’ Mr. Takeshita, an 81-year-old maker of soba noodles and Mr. Fujii, a 67-year-old former prison guard-turned community volunteer whose card is so sought after that kids will approach him asking for an autograph on it.

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“I was honestly shocked when they asked me to sign it,” Mr. Fujii said, laughing. “I never imagined I’d become a trading card, let alone have fans.”

It was the kids, though, that took the idea and turned it into a card game where the town’s ojisan were given special abilities. A retired fire brigade chief can strike opponents for 200 fire damage, while a local electrician can do the same with electricity. His card explains how he can fix any electronic appliance in the country.

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The cards are made by hand and virtually always sold out, a result of Ms. Miyahara’s idea bearing a banner crop of fruit that has seen youth participation at the center double, and more ojisan meeting more of their younger neighbors than ever before.

Japan has one of the oldest populations, fastest-aging populations, and lowest birthrates of any country in the world, and these sorts of efforts connecting those of silver hair to those of black will be more important here than virtually anywhere else.

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