Tarot Cafe – Volume 1 introduces us to Pamela, the owner of The Tarot Cafe. She is a Tarot card reader with a mysterious past who is often visited by supernatural creatures looking for advice.

The episodes in this volume are:

1. A Wish-Fulfilling Cat
2. Eternal Beauty
3. A Fairy
4. A Heartless Princess, an Alchemist and a Jester (Part 1)

Synopsis of A Wish-Fulfilling Cat

In this episode we are introduced to Pamela, a Tarot reader and the owner of The Tarot Café. It is obvious from that start that she is someone special, since she says that superhuman customers occasionally visit her.

Tonight her customer is Butterfly, a black wish-fulfilling cat. He has set his feet on a path, and he wants to know the outcome. Alicia, the lame daughter of mafia boss, had rescued Butterfly from the street. When she wished for her legs to be healed, Butterfly worked his magic. Next she wished for a date with at “an amusement park with a hot guy”, and again, the wish-fulfilling cat obliged. But wish-fulfilling cats only have three lives, and Alicia had found a new love, the son of her father’s enemy.

Pamela tells Butterfly that he must be careful, because if he grants another wish he will die. But, if he wishes to live longer, he must take the soul of the person he has granted wishes to. Butterfly returns to Alicia with the intention of killing her, but her boyfriend arrives in order to elope with her. With her father’s security chasing after them, intent on killing her boyfriend, Butterfly has a difficult decision to make.

Synopsis of Eternal Beauty

Pamela is visited by Calic Cepesu, a blind vampire and fashion model with a tragic past. In renaissance Paris, he had fallen in love with a mortal woman, Isabel, but in a fit of hungry, he unknowingly murdered her sister. When Isabel discovers this, she curses Calic and falls to her death off a high balcony in his castle.

Centuries later, in the current time, Calic has found his love reincarnated in another body. But he has some concerns about the relationship and as come to Pamela for advice. After a positive reading from her, he returns home only to discover that history has repeated itself. He has killed Isabel’s sister again, and this time he is ready to pay the price.

Synopsis of A Fairy

This story is told by Fairy, a woman who is cursed with the body of a young girl. In order to free herself from this curse and be reunited with her fiance, Pamela has told her that she must help a certain young girl who she will meet at the Namnam shopping district.

Fairy meets the cute but slightly inept Ellie, who is desperately in love with her boss. Fairy eventually helps Ellie turn into a beautiful woman, but when Ellie asks her boss out on a date, she finds out he is gay. Ellie returns home sobbing, and ends up tripping on the street, just as a car is speeding in her direction. Fairy, showing an amazing amount of compassion, pushes Ellie out of the way and gets hit her self. Finally free of her curse, Fairy returns home after 345 years and two months, only to discover that her fiancé hasn’t aged all that well.

Synopsis of A Heartless Princess, an Alchemist and a Jester (Part 1)

In the first half of this two episode story we are introduced to Mikhail Meyer, an alchemist and the creator of “protein dolls”—living dolls who can smile, frown, and laugh but who have no real emotions. Mikhail has kidnapped the beautiful Princess Gwyneth, who has agreed to marry him if only he can make her smile and keep her happy. But she is a heartless beauty who is impressed by nothing.

In an attempt to win Princess Gwyneth’s heart, Mikhail creates The Jester, his most perfect protein doll. The Jester does manage to amuse Princess Gwyneth for a short time, but soon she is bored again. She invents a new “game”, torturing The Jester. At the end of this episode, The Jester confesses his love for Mikhail, and Mikhail discovers Princess Gwyneth’s abuse of him.

Tarot decks used in this volume

• Aquarian Tarot by David Palladini – this is the deck used by Pamela in her readings, also on pgs. 8, 56
• Art Nouveau by Antonella Castelli (published by Lo Scarabeo) – pgs. 6, 31
• Vampire Tarot by Natalie Hertz (published by U.S. Games System) – pgs. 57, 81, 105
• Whimsical Tarot by Dorothy Morrison and Mary Hanson Roberts (published by U.S. Games Systems) – pg. 129
• Secret Tarot by Marco Nizzoli (published by Los Scarabeo) – pg. 153