# While NFT Marketplaces Die, Azuki Is Betting Everything on Manga and Trading Cards
The NFT market is consolidating brutally. Once-dominant marketplaces are pulling down their frontends, trading volumes have collapsed from the 2021 peak, and collectors who bet on profile-picture projects as the endgame have watched valuations evaporate. Yet one of the most famous NFT brands of the last cycle is not shrinking — it is spending the downturn building a franchise that does not depend on NFT floor prices at all.
Azuki, the anime-inspired brand launched by Chiru Labs and now operating under Azuki Labs, has spent 2026 pushing into original entertainment: a free monthly manga series created by a former Overwatch art director, a physical trading card game, and an interconnected universe designed to span mediums. The bet is straightforward — survive the market winter by becoming an intellectual property business first and a collectibles business second.
## From JPEGs to Storytelling
The centerpiece of that pivot is the original manga AZUKI, written and illustrated by Arnold Tsang, the former Character Art Director for Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch who shaped the visual identity of one of the most recognizable game rosters of the past decade. The series premiered on September 17 on Azuki.com, with new chapters releasing on the third Thursday of every month, and every chapter available to read for free.
The story itself is a familiar anime setup executed at high craft: two sisters, ancient Gates, and a bond tested across worlds. When Shao’s sister Rei disappears beyond the mysterious Gates, her search pulls her into a conflict that threatens both worlds, forcing confrontations with long-buried secrets and impossible choices about family, trust, and destiny.
The free-access decision is the strategically interesting part. “Azuki was always meant to grow beyond any one format,” Azuki Labs CEO Alex Q. Xu said when the manga was announced. “The manga is where the characters and world come together as a story. Arnold has spent years building toward this, and making it free means anyone can start with Chapter 1.”
That is audience-funnel thinking, not collectibles thinking. The NFT collections become the premium layer on top of a story universe that anyone can enter at no cost — the inverse of the 2021 model, where the JPEG was the product and the lore was a Discord afterthought.
## The Trading Card Game Is Already Here
The manga is not arriving into a vacuum. Azuki launched its physical trading card game earlier this year, and the brand has leaned into it hard enough to bring in outside marketing muscle: in August, gaming and esports company GameSquare announced a partnership with Azuki to run creator marketing campaigns around both the Gates Awakened trading card game launch and the manga release.
Physical trading cards matter for a brand trying to outlive the NFT cycle for a simple reason — the trading card market is a real, decades-old collectibles market with mainstream buyers who have never owned a wallet. A TCG gives Azuki distribution through channels the original NFT collection could never touch, while keeping the interconnected-universe pitch intact for existing holders.
The company describes the strategy explicitly: an interconnected tapestry of characters, factions, and mysteries unfolding across manga, trading cards, collectibles, and future entertainment experiences, designed for what it calls a global digital-first generation of fans.
## Why This Pivot Looks Different
Most NFT-origin brands that announced pivot-to-IP strategies in the bear market never got past the press release. Azuki’s version has a few things those efforts lacked.
First, genuine creative talent at the core. Tsang is a celebrated figure in visual storytelling, and AZUKI represents his first return to the comic medium since his work on Udon’s Street Fighter series — a pedigree that gives the manga credibility with audiences who do not care what an Azuki is. The series made its world premiere at Anime Expo 2026 in Los Angeles, with attendees getting early access to the first chapter and live drawing sessions with Tsang.
Second, revenue that does not require the NFT market to recover. Manga is free, but trading cards, physical collectibles, and eventual licensing of an entertainment universe are conventional businesses with conventional buyers.
Third, the timing is ruthless in a good way. The shakeout that is killing NFT marketplaces has also cleared the competitive field. Attention is scarce, but the brands that survive the winter with their communities intact will enter the next cycle with something the 2021 launchers never had — a track record through the hard times.
## The Catch
None of this guarantees success. Building an entertainment franchise is expensive, slow, and mostly fails, even for companies with far more capital than a crypto-native brand. The manga is free, which means it costs money rather than making it. And the NFT market’s pain is not purely cyclical — some of the 2021 audience is gone forever, and the addressable market for anime-branded crypto collectibles remains unproven at franchise scale.
But as a survival strategy, the blueprint is coherent: stop depending on floor prices, give the story away to grow the audience, monetize through physical goods with real markets, and keep the on-chain layer as an option rather than a requirement.
For collectors watching marketplace shutdowns stack up, Azuki is the clearest test case of whether an NFT brand can actually graduate into something bigger — or whether the IP pivot was always just a slower way to fade.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
gamesquare running ad campaigns for a tcg while 35 marketplaces sit dark is the cleanest summary of where nft value actually went. brands survive, tokens dont
meanwhile my 2022 azuki sits in the wallet while the brand pivots to paper cards. cant even be mad, the art carried it this far
the real test is whether the TCG survives past set one. every crypto card game so far died the moment rotation hit, but azuki at least has the brand to justify a second print run
set one surviving is already better odds than the pfp floor ever had. worst case the singles end up in bargain bins at locals, which is more than most 2021 projects can say
rotation killed every crypto card game because the cards had no secondary life. if azuki singles hold trade value at locals shops, set two sells itself
Rotation only kills games where old cards become literal trash. If Azuki keeps physical cards playable in an eternal format the locals scene handles retention by itself.
eternal format plus monthly chapters is basically the pokemon model. works forever as long as set one stays obtainable for new players
Arnold Tsang going from Overwatch character art back to comics is the most interesting hire crypto has made in years. Chapter 1 was genuinely good, and I mean good on its own, not good for an NFT project
Agreed on Tsang. My worry is output speed though, one manga chapter a month is glacial when attention spans are this short
monthly worked for saga and hellboy for decades. if the art holds, slow is a feature, it keeps speculators out and readers in
monthly pace is fine tbh, one piece has kept people waiting weekly for decades. if the art stays at chapter 1 level the schedule is the least of their problems
glacial is fine when the product is paper too. the tcg sets ship on their own schedule, the monthly chapters just keep the lore warm between releases
monthly is the industry standard for serialized manga though. readers wait decades for one piece chapters, they will wait for this if the story earns it
agreed, though the free manga costs money rather than making it. Gates Awakened carrying actual card game revenue is what makes this pivot real instead of a press release
manga into physical cards while every other pfp project tweets community first and dies. gates awakened is genuinely smart, tcg money is older than ethereum lol
^ this. card collectors dont care about floor prices, been saying azuki shoulda done this in 2023
collectors never cared, flippers did. if the tcg singles market gets any depth the floor price becomes the least interesting number on the project
physical cards was always the move. mainstream TCG buyers at locals have never touched a wallet and never will, and the GameSquare campaign gets Azuki in front of them anyway
the locals crowd is real spenders too. saw a kid drop 200 on pokemon tins without blinking, zero interest in seed phrases
200 on tins is nothing, grown men at my locals drop that on a single graded slab. thats the market azuki is actually chasing with gates awakened
this. the Anime Expo premiere crowd and the TCG crowd overlap way more with manga buyers than discord degen flippers ever did
The GameSquare angle is the interesting part here. Esports marketing money reaching an NFT brand in 2026 is not something I expected to write.
gamesquare also ran campaigns for way worse brands, this is just them following an audience. still holding my azuki tho
an anime expo premiere plus gamesquare retail distribution is a real funnel. most nft projects would kill for one of those, azuki quietly built both
free manga plus gamesquare ads means azuki is paying to acquire customers who never learn what an nft is. funniest possible ending for a 2021 pfp project