Learn how Kayou is uniting collectors worldwide! This interview explores their decade-long journey of international expansion and recognizes how cultural differences shape value.
Kayou also details their plan to captivate both Western and Eastern audiences with innovative card designs for popular franchises like My Little Pony Kayou Cards, Naruto Collectible Cards, and tokidoki Trading Cards.
Kayou Trading Cards US Launch Interview at NYCC 2025
Since its launch in 2018, Kayou has been dedicated to classic trading card games. A trusted partner of nearly 100 licensed global brands across anime, entertainment, and pop culture – Kayou has quickly become China’s number one trading card and collectibles powerhouse.
In 2024 alone, Kayou generated $1.4 billion in China and now plans to bring their beautifully illustrated trading cards to the U.S.! With a fan-first mission to be “Here for the Superfans”, Kayou celebrates passion, creativity, and community with its interactions at conventions like New York Comic Con and beyond.
At New York Comic Con, we had the opportunity to speak with Sergio Godinho, the General Manager and COO of Kayou US. As we received a tour of their trading card booth in the crowded exhibition hall, their studio-driven designs and the premium craftsmanship of their themed, collectible trading cards blew us away.
While Kayou has chosen to spotlight Naruto, My Little Pony, and tokidoki, other brands under their licensed IP umbrella include: One Piece, Evangelion, Blue Lock, Bleach, DC Comics, Detective Conan, Harry Potter, Crayon Shin-chan, SpongeBob, Sanrio, Tom and Jerry, Doraemon, Snoopy, and Spy x Family, to name a few.
Although not all of these titles are currently licensed for the US, they were still shown at the booth to exemplify the quality of partnerships and craft Kayou has created. “…You have Tom and Jerry, you have Marvel, this is part of a TCG game in China called Hero Battle. And then here you have a lot of DreamWorks and Peanuts or Snoopy cards. So very different IP, not officially licensed…This is an example of some of the ones that we do.”
Sergio stated that Kayou is constantly exploring new IP, and the U.S. launch is focusing on Naruto, My Little Pony, and tokidoki. Eventually, more diverse offerings should be offered similarly to the various licensed brands currently available in Asia. “We might even have some in the next couple weeks that we’ll be announcing. So, we’re excited to bring more.” He continued to reiterate Kayou’s core mission, “Everything we do is about super fans. So that means having variety and offering something for everybody.”
Now knowing the reason behind the spotlight on Naruto, My Little Pony, and tokidoki I learned that “…about 20 % of our business as a company is collectibles” meaning that Kayou also prioritizes collectibles like buttons and pen blind grabs, where you have a chance at getting designs that are rarer and or less common than others.
Kayou’s Answer to Cultural Differences in Card Collecting
While there are differences in the US market and the Asian market for trading cards, Sergio believes that a shared connection and passion for fandom is what unites both Western and Eastern fans of the same series or brand, despite any perceived cultural differences in card collecting.
“I find that fans and super fans are universal. It’s a passion for what they have, it’s a passion for the ponies or tokidoki. Opening packs is universal.” Sergio continued that despite the location, passion is always a connecting factor for the fans. “The passion center is always there. Whether they’re in China or in Europe, they’re always passionate. That’s my experience.”
Have you noticed any similarities across the international audience and what series’ they tend to gravitate toward?
“Anime is global. My Little Pony is global. My Little Pony is one of the largest IPs in Asia. It’s the largest one in China” Sergio continued, “It’s interesting because obviously, My Little Pony‘s been around for 40 years, so it’s got this long heritage across generations of fans, and certainly I don’t think it’s been around as long in China but it’s still been appealing to the Chinese consumers.”
Sergio’s comments hinted at a larger shift in pop culture collaboration between East and West.
“It’s amazing how you think about pop culture today in 2025, and going into 2026, it’s a global culture.” He continued, “I think Western culture was very popular for a long time, and now Eastern culture is popular, and Western culture is popular in Asia. So there is such a great respect for just collectors and culture in general and I think we can all appreciate different things.”
Sergio shared his astonishment at seeing this fusion of cultures on an international scale firsthand due to his work at Kayou, stating “I love being in a collectible company, it’s just awesome seeing that”. The fandom that shows up at NYCC in all shaped, forms, and creeds only furthers this message of inter-connectiveness through shared hobbies and fandoms that transcend language and cultural barriers.
“Being here at Comic Con and talking to fans and seeing how much they appreciate the Eastern nuances that we bring to our cards. Or just, you know, the wide appeal. It’s just there, and it’s awesome. It really is. I love witnessing it.”
Kayou’s Innovative Card Designs and Storytelling
When asked about Kayou’s first self-owned IP, Card Games of the Three Kingdoms, which explores traditional Chinese culture and history, Sergio mentioned that the series caught people’s attention due to its high quality during NYCC’s retail day.
There seems to be a debate within the company on whether or not to bring that card set to Western audiences. “It’s one of our owned IP in China, and we’re thinking about: Does it make sense? Do we bring it over? What form do we bring it over in?” Sergio pondered aloud.
Do you think Kayou’s original card series like The Three Kingdoms would be a great way for curious Western fans to learn more about Chinese culture through your cards?
Sergio gave an encouraging answer, stating, “Absolutely. You know it’s grounded in history, and there’s been a lot of content like Dynasty Warriors that explored Chinese culture and history through video games. So I absolutely do think there’s a place to manifest it through cards.”
Kayou’s My Little Pony Friendship Eternal Cards Moon Edition
We walked toward the ornate display of cards, first starting with My Little Pony. When viewed at specific angles, the way the light caught the foil on the cards made different, almost holographic iridescent colors shine through.
Sergio openly gestured to the lavishly illustrated My Little Pony card sets on the wall behind glass. “So seeing from a distance, you can really see the artistry and the craftsmanship in the cards” he continued, “You can see a lot of artistry and storytelling really coming through in the cards. They’re more than just cards with images, they’re stories and an artist’s vision coming onto a card.”
The My Little Pony cards had different themes, ranging from a musical-inspired design to mythology-inspired Egyptian, Roman, and even Greek Goddess designs. There were also seasonal variations to create a showcase of various artistic interpretations and situations for the series characters to appear in.
Every card set is between 150 – 190 cards, with different rarities ranging from common to rare in an effort to promote trading between collectors. Sergio stated that My Little Pony TCG would launch to the US market Q1 of 2026, and that compared to other released sets “It’s not as much battle-based, it’s more about journey and adventure” and geared towards both long-term and new, curious fans for its demographic.
In front of Kayou’s booth was a large painting of one of the ponies and I learned that it was a live painting demonstration that artist Andy Price had done.
Before the Kayou interview, I was hanging around watching Andy in front of the illustration answering questions in front of cameras for an interview. Sergio elaborated, stating “Andy Price is one of the My Little Pony artists. He’s been working with My Little Pony and Hasbro for 13 years. This will actually become a card, eventually. That’ll go into one of our card sets in the future”.
A note on the My Little Pony Friendship Eternal Cards Moon Edition card rarity:
This card set has a total of 186 different types of cards that are divided into 8 rarities.
- R Card – 30 types
- SR Card – 20 types
- SSR Card – 54 types
- HR Card – 36 types
- UR Card – 16 types
- LSR Card – 15 types
- SGR Card – 8 types
- SC Card – 7 types
Kayou tokidoki Wonder Voyage Collectible Cards Roaming Edition
Tokidoki is very popular with girls and women aged 16 – 26 for its target demographic, and the brand has been around for over 20 years. This set had “framing cards” that you could place over a different card to change its look and the feel of the card. “It’s a photo frame, think of like a green screen” is how Sergio explained these unique enhancement cards during the demonstration.
Another set of cards could be rotated into landscape view and using “your imagination a little bit” turned into a spread of the characters riding in a train broken up between individual cards – which was honestly a pretty innovative concept, and a genuinely fun incentive to collect all of the cards.
There were also “tokidoki through the seasons” cards and a set with the characters reimagined in a Chinese opera scenario. “Tokidoki collectibles kind of come to life on a card, in only a way you can do on a card” remarked Sergio on the card sets’ versatility for collection and interactions between friends and fans alike.
A note on the tokidoki Wonder Voyage Collectible Cards Roaming Edition card rarity:
There is a total of 157 types of cards that are divided into 12 rarities.
- OR Card – 1 type, US Exclusive Card
- BP Card – 4 types
- SP Card – 8 types
- XR Card – 8 types
- QR Card – 8 types
- CR Card – 12 types
- TR Card – 12 types
- MR Card – 16 types
- UR Card – 16 types
- SSR Card – 16 types
- SR Card – 24 types
- R Card – 32 types
Kayou Naruto Smriti Collectible Card Heaven Scroll
While discussing bringing a member of the original Big 3 of anime, Naruto, to a card set – Sergio mentioned that the card sets for Naruto and tokidoki are some of the first we will see, but there will be more related to the brand, as “we want to keep it fresh. So every two to four months, you’ll see a whole new set with all new cards”.
Some of the Naruto cards contain scenes with Naruto’s dream sequences with original content that differ from the anime that has been drawn by artists “…it’s us working with the IP owner, the brand owner, to say: How do we do something unique? How we redraw so it’s like unique content of the card?”, furthering Kayou’s fan-forward mission to always be “here for the superfans” and provide interesting content for those who love collecting for their favorite shows and fandoms.
In closing, Sergio left us with a story surrounding his favorite card rarity available in Kayou’s trading card packs: “One of my favorite card rarities is PU, and I’ll give you a dad joke. It’s not PU as in smelly, it’s PU as in parallel universe.” These cards are taking the characters from their traditional ninja world to a modern setting wearing modern clothing and having things like video games in the background of their rooms on the cards.
Fans can create their own worlds using the card packs, expanding on the original content found in tv shows and movies like the Naruto anime, and creating new scenes that expand on the created worlds with novel artist illustrations “this is four parts together. So again, that collectability of I’m going try to get all of them so I can form that larger picture. It’s pretty cool.”
A note on the Naruto Smriti Collectible Card Heaven Scroll card rarity:
There are 8 cards per pack, and 24 packs per box for a total of 158 cards across 10 rarity levels available for fans to collect.
- SE Card – 4 types
- PR Card – 1 type
- SP Card – 4 types
- BP Card – 7 types
- MR Card – 6 types
- PU Card – 8 types
- PTR Card – 2o types
- UR Card – 15 types
- SSR Card – 24 types
- SR Card – 20 types
- R Card – 50 types
Kayou’s trading cards offer a new opportunity for superfans and new inductees alike to experience fandom on another level, enhanced by the beauty and innovation of their original IPs and through wise partnerships with beloved brands.
We thank Sergio for his time spent with us, and for introducing us to Kayou’s mission as a brand and how it seeks to shape fandom in the years to come. You can learn more about their trading cards via Kayou’s official website.
Which Kayou card set are you most interested in collecting?
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☆ In Asian Spaces ☆ Ephesians 6:12 ☆
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