Naruto TCG: Tokyo Gets Two Dates and Four Halls

The last stop of Bandai Card Games Fest 26-27 finally has a date. Two, actually. Tokyo runs February 20-21, 2027 and then again March 6-7, 2027, spread across four halls around the city. Until early this week the Fest site just said „Early 2027“ for Tokyo. Now there’s a dedicated page with dates, addresses, and an entry process that takes a bit of explaining (more on that below, because it’s the part that will actually bite you).

And the NARUTO CARD GAME? It’s the only title showing up on both weekends.

Who plays where, and when

Bandai split the seven titles across the two weekends. February belongs to Dragon Ball Super Fusion World at the TOC Exhibition Hall in Nishi-Gotanda (Shinagawa ward). March spreads Digimon, One Piece, and Gundam across Sunshine City in Ikebukuro, Ariake GYM-EX, and Bellesalle Takadanobaba. Union Arena and Battle Spirits appear in the title list, but the schedule shows no date or hall for either. The application timeline gives it away anyway: Union Arena sits in the February block, Battle Spirits in March.

The NCG gets two entries. „Date ①“ is February 20-21 at TOC, „Date ②“ is March 6-7 in Exhibition Hall C at Sunshine City. What actually happens there? Teaching sessions like Jakarta, Manila and the rest? Something bigger? The page doesn’t say, and the „View Activities“ buttons are dead for every title right now.

My take: the one game you can’t buy yet being present on both weekends has less to do with prestige than with logistics. A teaching table doesn’t need a tournament hall. Bandai can drop one anywhere there’s floor space. Still. Two Tokyo weekends, plus Orlando and London in January, all of it a few months before the 2027 release. Bandai is taking this run-up seriously.

Free to enter, hard to get in

Admission is free. Getting through the door is the hard part. Bandai states outright that there’s no same-day entry without pre-registration this year: „本年度は事前申し込みのない当日参加入場は行いません“. No walk-ins. If you want in, you need the BANDAI TCG+ app, a face photo on file (Bandai says review can take over a week), and some luck in the draw.

What’s new compared to the Asian stops is a priority lottery tied to the My Number Card, Japan’s digital national ID. Link your MOALA account to the card through the government’s Myna app and you get bumped up in the draw. Bandai stresses there’s no guaranteed win and no ID data gets stored. If you don’t hold a Japanese ID, that reads as: you can apply, you’re just standing in the second row.

I’ve only dabbled in One Piece, but the pattern at Bandai’s Japan events is visible from the outside: lottery instead of a line. Face scan plus ID linking turns the anti-reseller screw one notch tighter. And honestly? After what went down at Yankee Stadium a week ago, I get it.

The deadlines, and a contradiction

The Main Event application window runs November 20-29, 2026, with results around December 14. Side Events get an early round plus one second-chance round per block: from January 29, 2027 for the February block (Union Arena and Dragon Ball only), from February 10, 2027 for the March block, and that’s where NARUTO is explicitly listed. So for the NCG’s February date, as of today, there is no second chance.

Then the contradiction. The Tokyo overview page lists the Side Event early round as December 25 to January 3, with results around January 15. The participation detail page lists the same round as November 20-29 with results December 14, meaning the same window as the Main Events. Which version is right, only Bandai knows right now. If you want to play the NCG in Tokyo, apply in November to be safe and check the page again in December.

Tokyo is far, Essen isn’t

For readers here in German-speaking Europe, Tokyo is a trip, not a weekend outing. If you’re going to be in Japan in February or March anyway (no cherry blossoms yet, but empty halls in Akihabara), upload your face photo now rather than right before the deadline. Everyone else has closer options: Spiel in Essen in October and London in January.

On Reddit, u/OrangeSamuraiD was first to flag the split and asked the sub what they think of the change. I’d ask a different question. If a game that doesn’t launch until 2027 gets two weekends in its home country, how likely is it that the October 10 roadmap names a Japan launch ahead of the rest of the world? I have a hunch.

Sources: BCG Fest 26-27 in Tokyo (Bandai, Japanese) · Tokyo participation details (Bandai, Japanese) · BCG Fest 26-27 overview (Bandai, English) · Reddit r/NarutoCardGame · Narutoreca timeline

Kenearos