Hanafuda – Japanese Flower Cards

I purchased a deck of Japanese Flower Cards while in Japan since I like games and it was both interesting and inexpensive. The cards look really neat but a bit difficult to get used to because they are not numbered. The deck consist of 48 cards, 12 sets of 4 cards illustrated to represent each month of the year with specific leaves or flowers that relate to that month.

I found a website called Hanafuda that has some interesting information on how to play Hanafuda and on the history of it. One interesting bit described how Nintendo was originally formed as a Hanafuda deck manufacturer. Neat!

At the end of the 19th century, the Nintendo corporation was founded for the sole purpose of producing hand-painted Hanafuda decks. This would be their primary source of income for nearly a hundred years.

Hanafuda.com has an online Hanafuda game you can play. It’s a quick, fun matching game so give it a go.