Forget Cupid. This year let Chocobo and Slime deliver your message of love.
Finding your one true love isn’t easy. You’ll likely have to search far and wide, overcome obstacles, and even grow as a person before finding someone not only who you want to give your heart to, but who wants to give you theirs as well.
In other words, finding love is a journey. An adventure. A quest. And by that logic, what better way to tell your special someone just how special they are than with a Final Fantasy or Dragon’s Quest Valentine’s Day card?
You won’t find these cards for sale at stationery stores or video game specialty shops, though. Instead, they’re being offered, free of charge, through the Square Enix online store. There’s some assembly required, but nothing too complex, and the quick bit of work involved also gives the cards the personal touch of being partly hand-made.
The cards’ templates are stored as PDFs on the Square Enix e-Shop page, from where they can be opened directly or downloaded. Each template consists of two pages, one of which is the card’s inside face and the other its outside, so you’ll need to set your printer to double-sided printing.
▼ Insides
▼ Outsides
Don’t start cutting right away once you’ve got them printed. Instead, look for the lines marked 折り目 (orime). You’ll find them slightly right of center on the inside face, and to the left of the center on the outside face.
Ori is the Japanese word for “fold” (like how origami literally means “folded paper”), so just fold the paper along the line indicated by the 折り目 markers. After you’ve made a nice, crisp crease, then it’s time to grab your scissors and start snipping along the dotted line.
Finish cutting, and you’re all set!
Ah, well actually there’s one more step, which is to write an eloquent declaration of love on the lines inside, which will be delivered by smiling Slime for the Dragon Quest card or the dapper duo of Chocobo and Moogle, plus a pair of Cactuar couriers, for the Final Fantasy one (disclaimer: your definition of “eloquent declaration of love” may differ from the suggestions below).
▼ “Baby, everybody knows that Tifa is Final Fantasy VII’s best girl, but you’re the world’s best girl.”
▼ “Hey, Valentine, why don’t you and I ‘draw nearer’ to each other?”
In case you’re wondering why the card templates make no explicit mention of Valentine’s Day, it’s because they’re actually designed to do dual duty. The custom in Japan is for girls to give gifts to guys on Valentine’s Day, and for guys to return the favor one month later on March 14, which is called White Day in Japan.
The templates can be found here on the Square Enix e-Store (just click on the ダウンロードはこちら [“download here”] buttons under the card samples to open their PDFs). Oh, and they’ll be available until March 31, so even if Valentine’s Day or White Day slip your memory on the exact days, you’ve still got a phoenix down-style second chance.
Related: Square Enix e-Store Valentine’s Day/White Day page
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