Touken Ranbu

Touken Ranbu is a Japanese media franchise that began as a free-to-play collectible card browser video game developed by Nitroplus and DMM Games. In the game, which draws on the Japanese title meaning Wild Dance of Swords, players act as a sage who travels into the past to fight evil forces and animates legendary swords, which are shown as young men. The game launched in Japan in January 2015, reached mainland China in 2017 and was released worldwide in April 2021, although the worldwide version ended service in 2023 while the mainland China app remained available. The game became widely popular with young women in Japan and has been linked to a trend of interest in historical swords. The franchise has since grown into four anime productions, two long-running stage play series, a Kabuki production, two live-action films, a spin-off game and several manga and comic anthologies.