According to the Anime News Service, Sega Japan has announced two new anime movies based on popular card game/video game hybrids, Mushiking and Fashionable Witch Love & Berry.  In both of these games, which combine elements of a collectible card game with arcade video games, kids can swipe bar-coded cards in arcade game machines and then proceed to play (or adorn) the characters they have introduced. So far Sega claims sales of more than 398 million Mushiking: King of the Beetles cards, while 207 million Fashionable Witch Love & Berry cards have been sold.

Mushiking is a battling beetles game ('mushi' means 'beetle') with a forest-saving ecological theme and hyper-realistic graphics that appeal largely to boys (beetle collecting is a major pastime in Japan).  Mushiking has inspired a 50+ episode anime series that ran from 2004-2006 in Japan (and has just be licensed for Europe) as well as an anime movie that was released last December. Now Sega is planning a second feature length anime.

Fashionable Witch Love & Berry is a 'dress-up' and dancing game targeting girls 5-12.  In Japan machines with this game have been introduced to department stores as well as in arcades.  Sega's Fashionable Witch Love & Berry feature will be the first anime associated with this property.