The Broken Mirror Tarot (4th edition) The Hero’s Journey, or If Stain Glass was Anime, 2021, out of print, 5th edition available currently but has altered images and colors. There is also a Marseille style available (coming in a future review)

Overall 8/10: This deck is one of the quirkiest Tarot decks I have in my collection while still, imo, remaining a true “Tarot” in the sense it adheres to the basic Tarot 78 card structure. This deck has a charming lack of cohesion when calling itself the “Broken Mirror”, because it is actually trying to replicate traditional European stain glass. The box also describes the art as being “modern art deco” based on architecture. The internal logic of the cards makes sense in the world it builds, and it produces interesting multi card draws.

I love that this deck is both cool and silly. It feels like its really trying to be RWS but it refuses to totally commit! There’s a witch hanging out in a gazebo in the field and eight wands bouncing away like they’re brooms out of Disney’s Fantasia. It’s masculine whimsy.

I was completely obsessed with this deck for the first two years I owned it and since then I’ve not picked it up nearly as often—this is why I wait a while before posting reviews. The Broken Mirror 4 ed was one of my first decks with very nice linen cardstock, holo-edging, and a black core, so the tactile feeling was much better than most other decks I’d had up until this point. And, the premise of this deck was mimicking stain glass windows. I really love stain glass, so it was an easy sell for me. There have been many stain glass themed decks on the market and I still think this one is a great rendition if you can manage to get your hands on this edition. There are many editions available, and I think they are all different (differences range in coloration, to complete art overhaul as this deck has changed ownership hands several times), but this 4th edition with it’s rich colors and simplified art, is for me, the best.

I love the incorporation of song and dance in several cards through this deck–its not something you see much of when looking at fantasy/myth decks (notable exceptions that jump to mind are Yoshitani’s Tarot of the Divine, and Law’s Shadowscape deck).

The deck is themed as if you are progressing past a series of stain glass motifs–but the images are supposedly reversed to the RWS, as if you’re looking at your own life story in a mirror. There’s so much play around this concept you can quickly get lost in all the extraordinary things going on in each card. There’s also a theme of time of day in each suite (and the majors), that adds a very interesting level of interpretation.

This deck feels particularly masculine without being broody, or in-your-face male. There’s a strong theme of the Hero’s journey, and there are many images grabbed from myths surrounding that journey. Its elegant, beautiful, bright, playful, and somewhat non-traditional but still approachable to the person who isn’t a confident reader. There are giants, maidens in distress, witches, heroes, figures of myth, musicians, all feeling like a 80/90’s “kids” movie pipe dream. It’s fun!

Card Quality: 5/5 The card stock is shockingly thin–feather light, but it is incredible quality! High flexibility, amazing linen texture, satin finish, great layout and structure, rainbow edging—I honestly wish this was the industry standard. Best of all worlds, and they jump out without hesitation. The back design is…not to my usual liking, but it’s consistent with the oddness of the rest of the deck.

I will say, there’s something about the texture of these cards that make them hard to photograph clearly.

Readability: 3/5 This deck reads quite differently from almost all my other decks, and is a good (and playful!) deck to pick up once you’ve got your basics down. Given the design of the card image there is a bit of a story-board flow when you lay out a spread of multiple cards and it’s easy to let your imagination run with it. For me, this is not an inner-focused reader, nor does it tend to go where you think it ought to. This deck in my readings feels very unpredictable, so it’s not a deck I use to read for others, but it is a deck I bring out when I really want to mix things up.

The little white book is…interesting. I don’t find myself relying on it, but it gives prompts to think beyond the RWS structure.

The puzzling swords.

I will say a word of warning: the suite of swords is highly metaphorical–the red ribbons representing the thoughts that tie you down. This kinda blindsided me in my first few readings, but after working with this deck for several years it feels right in its own strange way.

Art: 5/5 I mean, it’s definitely a “style” so if you’re not feeling the art, there’s nothing to be done. But hot dog, I do (still) think this a beautiful deck.

The art is simplified compared to how stain glass would be designed, and it feels more like what I’d imagine stain glass would look like in an anime film. But there are frequent suggestions of broken glass, and also some interesting imagery that is flipped as if in a mirror. The setting of the cards is all over the place. There’s a strong theme of Greco-Roman images, medieval Europe, Christian, and then some Chinese myth imagery as well. At the risk of sounding nerdy, I get strong Hyrule vibes from these cards! It brings me back to my N64 days slogging through Zelda: Ocarina of Time and especially the highly stylized Legend of Zeda: The Wind Waker.

Favorite Card: Justice, The Wheel of Fate

Least Favorite Card: The Empress, The Hierophant. There’s nothing wrong with either of them, they’re more standard RWS than most of the cards. Given the rest of the deck, I wanted something with a little more personality.

Card I Identify As: The Hermit

The deck Identifies me as: The Chariot

Boxes it Checks: Masculine, Classical, Heroic, Medieval, Roman, Mythological, Story telling,

Similar Decks: The Revelations Tarot, Il Tarocco delle vetrate – Tarot des vitraux by Luigi Scapini, Tarot of the Cloisters, Tarot of the Eastern Ink, Fantasy Garden Tarot, Crystal Tarot, The Stain Glass Tarot, The Lucid Tarot

Seasons: I get major spring vibes from this deck, but not in a gentle way