Now that the year is winding down, I have had time to catch up on some personal projects, and that includes watching the anime Chihayafuru. In season one episode 12, I was surprised to see one of the characters recite a poem, not from the Hyakunin Isshu, but from the Manyoshu, so I wanted to share it here:
Original Manyogana1
Modern Japanese
Romanization
Translation
茜草指
あかねさす
Akanesasu
The crimson sunset
武良前野逝
紫野行き
Murasaki no yuki
sets these forbidden fields
標野行
標野行き
Shime no yuki
aglow.
野守者不見哉
野守は見ずや
Nomori wa mizuya
Wave not,
君之袖布流
君が袖振る
Kimi ga sodé furu
for the guards might find us.
Translation provided by Chihayafuru
This poem was composed by Princess Nukata (額田王, Nukata no Ōkimi), who was the wife of Emperor Tenji (who composed poem 1 in the Hyakunin Isshu). According to Chihayafuru, Princess Nukata had formerly been married to Tenji’s younger brother, Prince Oama (大海人皇子, Ōama no Miko). Although they had separated, Prince Oama snuck into the Emperor’s lands and waved to her. She was worried that they would be seen, hence the poem.
But, here’s where things get interesting: Princess Nukata recited this poem at a banquet attended by her husband, Tenji, and her ex-husband Prince Oama. What’s going on?
My book on the Manyoshu provides further context. Prince Oama and Emperor Tenji had a …. complicated relationship. Tenji was ambitious and wanted to strengthen his own family lineage, so he pressured Prince Oama to marry his daughter Princess Unonosarara better known as Empress Jito (poem 2 of the Hyakunin Isshu). Tenmu was thus forced to marry his own niece. Further, Tenji designated Prince Oama as his heir until much later when he finally gave birth to a son. Later, after Tenji’s passing, the son was made Emperor briefly, but Prince Oama quickly raised an army and marched on the capitol and became the next Emperor, Tenmu.
Nonetheless, this poem is brilliant because of the visual imagery, but also relatable feeling of unresolved feelings towards someone you still care about.
But as we shall see, the story doesn’t end there… stay tuned.
I am happy to report that I’ll be appearing in a podcast about the Hyakunin Isshu and Karuta coming up in a few weeks! It is exciting to collaborate with a fellow karuta player, “Steph”, who hosts the Karuta Chat podcast.
(Also available on Apple Podcast and many other feeds too)
I’ll have more details soon, but it will be a chance to share my experiences with the Hyakunin Isshu, karuta and more with a wider audience. If you’d like to know, I hope you’ll consider giving the Karuta Chat podcast a listen.
On a quiet Saturday afternoon, the first in a long time, I caught up on some reading and continued to read through my book about the Hyakunin Isshu (mentioned here): the Hyakunin Isshu Daijiten.
In one chapter, the book discussed a special artistic collection of the Hyakunin Isshu called the Kōrin Karuta collection (kōrin karuta, 光琳カルタ) which was painted by the famous artist Ogata Kōrin (尾形光琳, 1658-1716). The featured image above is one of his famous paintings depicting irises in a field (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons).
I had a hard time finding available images of the Ogata Kōrin collection of cards, but you can see an example at the Tengu-do homepage. There’s a few things that make this collection noteworthy among the long history of the Hyakunin Isshu….
First, the cards use a gold background, instead of white or off-color white. If you look at Ogata’s other paintings, this is a common technique that he used, so it makes sense.
Second, and more significantly, the torifuda cards are painted as well. Whereas the yomifuda cards have portraits of the poets (with some subtle details we’ll talk about below), modern torifuda cards only have the text on them. Ogata decorated the torifuda cards using scenes that matched the poem.
For example, poem 100 (ももしきや) is shown here on the Tengu-do website. The corresponding torifuda card shows the eaves of a palace since the poem is about the declining condition of the Imperial palace amidst political strife. Poem 35 (ひとはいさ) is shown here. Since the poem is about the first cherry blossoms in spring, the torifuda card depicts cherry blossoms. And so on.
Third, the cards were larger in size than a standard karuta card used today. Perhaps the cards were not meant for playing, but as a medium of art.
Also, I realized that the illustrations of the poets looked awfully familiar. My first karuta set uses the same Ogata illustrations, even though the torifuda are not illustrated, and the card background is plain white versus the original gold color.
Even the paintings of the authors has some pretty interesting qualities to them. Using my own set, let’s take a look at a few notable quirks.
First, the “emperor” cards (cards where the poet was a reigning or retired emperor) have them seated on a straw mat with a brocade edge, a sign of authority. None of the other poets have this, even if the poet was a high ranking officials in the court. Here are the cards for Kōkō Tennō (“Emperor Koko”, poem 15) and Juntoku-in (“Retired Emperor Juntoku”, poem 100):
Second, while most poets’ faces are visible, the card for Shokushi Naishinnyo (“Imperial Princess Shokushi”, poem 89) completely hides her face. Why is that?
Evidentially, Princess Shokushi was quite beautiful, and Ogata didn’t want to leave her open to criticism or scrutiny, so he hid her face to protect. In some versions of the Kōrin Karuta set, Ono no Komachi’s (poem 9) face is also hidden.
The Kōrin Karuta collection isn’t the only famous illustration of the Hyakunin Isshu, and in time I hope to highlight others.
After playing some recent matches with the good folks at the Competitive Karuta Club (Discord invite link here), and also in person with the Seattle Karuta Club, I realized that, as of writing, I’ve been learning to play for 11 weeks. It felt longer somehow. I even double-checked the calendar and, sure enough, it has only been eleven weeks from my very first karuta experience.
In that time I have managed to memorize all 100 kimari-ji. It wasn’t always easy, and I recall some of them faster than others, but practicing fuda-nagashi does help.
Further, I haven’t won a single match yet (online or in person), but I feel like more confident than before, am more aware of my opponents card arrangement (tei’ichi 定位置), sometimes able to keep track of cards that have already been read, and even take a few cards now and then. My rate of penalties is still higher than I like, but that’s still a work in progress.
In short, I have grown as a Karuta player. Not a lot, but it’s nice to look back and actually see progress.
Using the analogy Fire Emblem: Three Houses again, if I may,* there is a part of the story where your students have the option to face the dreaded Death Knight. Unless your student’s name is Lysithea, very few characters can defeat the Death Knight without considerable luck and strategy. It’s not that the characters are weak, they’re just not ready. So the game encourages you to know your limits, and just skip if you’re not prepared. Much later in the game, when your characters are much stronger, you will encounter the Death Knight again and have a much better chance to emerge victorious.
In the same way, battling an advanced player in Karuta probably won’t result in victory, but those little incremental wins, each card taken, each penalty avoided, is still a sign of growth.
As a game, karuta is more difficult to learn upfront compared to things like Magic: the Gathering, Pokemon TCG, etc. However, once you pass that hurdle, it becomes a game you can carry with you the rest of your life. You don’t have to keep buying new sets of cards, dealing with “power creep” with new card sets, etc. The 100 poems of the Hyakunin Isshu have been around for centuries and will continue to be around for many more. The more you play, the more your skills refine. There’s no rush, come as you are, enjoy the poems, learn a little bit each time.
Finding a community of players isn’t always easy, but the budding international community continues to grow and we are always welcoming new people.
If you’re unsure, feel free to take the plunge anyway. Hopefully, you’ll be glad you did. I was.
P.S. featured photo taken at Ryonaji temple in Kyoto, Japan, in summer of 2023.
* the best part of owning your own blog is that you can write whatever silly stuff you want. 😋 Also, if you own a Switch, please try FE:3H. It’s a pretty neat game.
Due to length and complexity of poem, plus it’s very old Japanese, I can only offer a rough translation (based on modern Japanese ones) like so:
A basket. The beauty holding the basket. A digging tool (lit. a spatula-like tool). The beauty holding the digging tool. You who are on the hill gathering vegetables, tell me, what family do you come from? Do you not know? I am the sovereign of this land (lit. Yamato, old name for Japan), and that every corner is under my dominion? So, tell me, what is your family’s name and origin?
This poem was composed by Emperor Yūryaku, who reigned in the 5th century, before recorded history. Technically, the title of “Emperor” was not used by ancestors of the Japanese imperial family at this time, and was later implemented by the time of Emperor Tenmu, brother of Tenji (poem 1), but this is a retroactive title. At this time, Yūryaku and others of the lineage were more like great kings (daiō 大王). Interestingly, although this point in Japanese history is pretty murky, Yūryaku is mentioned on a dedication inscribed on an ancient sword, providing historical evidence that he did in fact exist.
Yūryaku was described in early historical documents as a strong ruler, who slew his brothers following the death of the last king/emperor to get to his position. In later years, he helped consolidate power, but also was described as tyrannical as well.
The poor girl whom the poem was addressed to probably wasn’t in any position to say “no”, in any case.
The reason why I posted this poem is two-fold.
First, this poem is noticeably different than the tanka (短歌, “short poem”) style poems of the Hyakunin Isshu. This is a chōka (長歌, “long poem”) style poem. Tanka poems, including all poems of the Hyakunin Isshu, follow the style of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. Chōka poems were 5-7-5-7-5-7…..5-7-7 syllables, with as many 5-7 syllable verses as needed. The Manyoshu has both formats, but by the time of the Hyakunin Isshu, the chōka format had fallen out of favor, probably because it was simply too long and difficult to fire off verses quickly.
Yūryaku’s poem doesn’t fit the chōka format very closely though, so it’s hard to say how strict poetry was back then. Over the centuries, and by the time we get towards the end of the Hyakunin Isshu, the style poetry had definitely solidified into a very rigid format with many specific rules, customs, and phrases. Yūryaku’s poem reflects an earlier, looser style of poetry. Or, as a powerful sovereign, maybe he just didn’t care. Who’s to say?
Second, the tone of the poem (ignoring the power-imbalance between him and the girl1) is a very lighthearted and romantic tone. Early poems in the Hyakunin Isshu tended to have a similar tone, but gradually the tone tended to get more somber centuries later as the aristocratic culture came to an end. Compare poems 95-100 to poem 1-5 in the Hyakunin Ishsu, and you’ll see what I mean. Yūryaku’s poem definitely belongs to this earlier, more bucolic time.
Anyhow, it’s interesting how poetry reflects history as well.
1 When you look at Lady Murasaki’s diary as well, when Michinaga makes a pass at one of the servant girls, it’s strongly implied a visit later will certainly follow. Again, women back then had less agency, and would have been hard-put to say no to powerful, ambitious men like that.
Centuries before the Hyakunin Isshu was compiled and before official Imperial anthologies such as the Kokin Wakashū were promulgated there was the Manyoshu (万葉集) or “collection of ten thousand leaves”.
The Manyoshu is the oldest extant poetry collection, completed in 759 CE for the pious Emperor Shomu, and has much that resembles the Hyakunin Isshu, but also much that differs. I have been reading all about it in a fun book, which is in the same series as this one.
The Manyoshu was purportedly compiled by one Ōtomo no Yakamochi (大伴家持, 718-785), author of poem 6 (かささぎの) in the Hyakunin Isshu, but it’s also likely that he only compiled the collection toward the end, and that others were involved too.
Sadly, English translations are very few in number and usually quite expensive. Translating the Hyakunin Isshu hard enough, and this is even more true with a larger, more obscure volume like the Manyoshu.
Format
The Manyoshu is a collection of poems from a diverse set of sources, including members of the Imperial family and the aristocracy, but also from many provinces across the country and people from many walks of life. In fact, 40% of the poems in the collection are anonymous, with sources unknown. It also includes a few different styles of poetry:
265 chōka (長歌), long poems that have 5-7 syllable format over and over (e.g. 5-7-5-7-5-7…etc), until they end with a 5-7-7 syllable ending. These are often read aloud during public functions. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (柿本 人麻呂, 653–655, or 707–710?), who wrote poem 3 in the Hyakunin Isshu, was considered the foremost poet of this format, but the longest was composed by one Takechi no Miko (高市皇子) at 149 verses.
4,207 tanka(短歌), short poems as opposed to the long poems above. The “tanka” style poems are usually 5-7-5-7-7 syllables long, and are what we see in later anthologies such as the Hyakunin Isshu. At the time, they were often included as prologues to long poems above. The Hyakunin Isshu is entirely tanka poetry, by the way.
One bussokusekika (a poem in the form 5-7-5-7-7-7; named for the poems inscribed on the Buddha’s footprints at Yakushi-ji temple in Nara),
Four kanshi (漢詩), Chinese-style poems often popular with male aristocrats that contrasted with more Japanese-style poetry.
22 Chinese prose passages.
Additionally, these poems were often grouped by certain subjects:
Sōmonka (相聞歌) – Originally poems to enquire how someone was doing, but gradually involved into couples expressing romantic feelings for one another.
Banka (挽歌) – Funerary poems honoring the deceased.
Zōka (雑歌) – Miscellaneous poems about many topics. Basically everything else that is not included into the other two topics.
Manyogana
One of the interesting aspects of the Manyoshu compared to the later Hyakunin Isshu, and other related anthologies, is the written script used. When people think of karuta or Hyakunin Isshu, they think of the hiragana script, but the hiragana script didn’t exist in the 8th century when texts such as the Manyoshu, the Kojiki or Nihon Shoki were composed. Such texts were composed purely using Chinese characters, but in a phonetic style native to Japanese later called Manyogana. Confusing? Let’s take a look.
The book above explains that in Manyogana, Chinese characters such as 安 and 以 are read phonetically in the Manyoshu as “a” and “i” respectively. Even modern Japanese people can easily intuit this.
Then you get more difficult examples such as 相 (saga) and 鴨 (kamo) in Manyogana. These are more obscure, but still possible for native Japanese speakers to understand them.
Then you get much harder examples such as 慍 (ikari) and 炊 (kashiki).
And finally you get even more difficult examples such as 五十 (also read as “i“) and 可愛 (just “e“). My wife, who has an extensive background in Japanese calligraphy, struggled with these.
In any case, words in the Manyoshu were all spelled out using Chinese characters like this, with no phonetic guide. You just had to know how to read or spell them, and as you can imagine this was a clunky system that only well-educated members of the aristocracy could make sense of. However in spite of its issues, this system of phonetic Chinese characters is how the later hiragana script gradually evolved.
Technique
When we compare the Manyoshu with the Hyakunin Isshu, there are many similarities. Both have tanka poetry (5-7-5-7-7 syllables), and cover a variety of topics. Further, both collections make good use of pillow words. In fact the same pillow words you see in the Hyakunin Isshu, such as hisakata no (poems 33 and 76), also show up centuries earlier in the Manyoshu:
Original Manyogana
Modern Japanese
Romanization
Rough Translation1
和何則能尓
我が園に
Waga sono ni
Perhaps
宇米能波奈知流
梅の花散る
Ume no hana chiru
the plum blossoms will
比佐可多能
ひさかたの
Hisakata no
scatter in my garden
阿米欲里由吉能
天より雪の
Ama yori yuki no
like falling snow
那何久流加母
流れ来るかも
Nagarekuru kamo
from the gleaming heavens
1 Amateur translation, apologies for any mistakes
This poem, incidentally was composed by Yakamochi’s father, Ōtomo no Tabito, when he organized a flower viewing party at his villa (book 5, poem 822).
Another commonality, the book explains, is the use of preface verses or jo-kotoba (序詞) where the first verses are just one long-winded comparison to whatever comes after. Poem 39 in the Hyakunin Isshu is a great example of this since the first 3 verses describe various grasses in order to make a point: that love is hard to hide.
The Manyoshu used this technique as well:
Original Manyogana
Modern Japanese
Romanization
Rough Translation
千鳥鳴
千鳥鳴く
Chidori naku
Just as the plovers’ cries
佐保乃河瀬之
佐保の川瀬の
Sabo no kawase no
along the wavelets
小浪
さざれ波
Sazare nami
of the Sabo river
止時毛無
やむ時もなし
Yamu toki mo nashi
never end,
吾戀者
我が恋ふらくは
A ga ko furaku wa
so too are my feelings of love.
Author: Ōtomo no Saka no Ue no Iratsume (大伴坂上郎女), book 4, poem 526
Historicity
Similar to the Hyakunin Isshu, the Manyoshu covers a fairly broad span of history, but much of it is now pretty obscure to historians. Even so, the poems in the Mayonshu can be grouped somewhat reliably into 4 specific eras:
first half of 5th century to 672 CE, starting with the reign of Emperor Nintoku onward.
672 to 710 CE
710 to 733 CE
733 to 759 CE
These periods mostly coincide with certain authors who contributed poetry, but also appear to have breaks due to historical events such as conflicts, temporary political upheavals, etc.
Differences with the Hyakunin Isshu
Although there are many commonalities between the Hyakunin Isshu and the Manyoshu, there are also differences. The most obvious is that the Manyoshu is a mixed-format collection, so it includes poetry other than Tanka style. Another difference is its broad sources for poetry, not just contributions by the elite aristocracy.
However, the book above notes that on a technical level there are other differences.
For example, the use of “pivot words” frequently used in the Hyakunin Isshu ( poems 16, 20, 27, and 88 for example) is a technique that is almost absent in the Manyoshu. Similarly, puns are also rarely used.
Legacy
As the largest and earliest extant poetry collection, it set the standard for Japanese poetry that people were still studying and emulating centuries later. Poems such as 22, 64, and 88 are all examples that use themes or poetic styles that closely resemble poems in the Manyoshu.
Further, compared to more polished anthologies that came later, the Manyoshu’s bucolic and unvarnished content has often been revered by later generations (including Japanese nationalists and Shinto revivalists in the 19th century) for getting to the “heart of Japanese culture”.
The book has been a great read, with amazing illustrations, and it helps show how the roots of the Hyakunin Isshu, including a few of its early authors, lay centuries earlier in the Manyoshu.
I’ve been writing in my other blog several articles about my family’s visit to Kyoto and Nara in July 2023, but for this particular article, I wanted to write it on this blog instead. You’ll see why shortly. While in Kyoto, we made an unexpected stop at a Shinto shrine called the Kitano-Tenmangu Shrine (北野天満宮) right in the middle of the city.
Kitano-Tenmangu Shrine (English / Japanese homepages) is devoted to a Shinto kami named Tenjin, who’s essentially the God of Learning. Each year, thousands of kids trying to pass their entrance exams visit local shrines, and pray for success. I’ve prayed at the Yushima Tenmangu Shrine in Tokyo myself years ago when trying to pass a Japanese-language certification test (I passed). The one in Kyoto, though, Kitano Tenmangu, is the original shrine.
But what’s the big deal?
The kami Tenjin is a deified form of the poet and scholar, Sugawara no Michizane, who composed poem 24 in the Hyakunin Isshu. When he was ousted by the powerful rival Fujiwara no Tokihira (father of Atsutada, poem 43), and died in exile, people worried that his vengeful spirit had returned to plague the capitol. The untimely deaths Tokihira and Atsutada certainly didn’t help this. Michizane was posthumously re-instated to the Imperial Court bureaucracy, elevated to a high rank, and venerated as a Shinto kami1 to appease him.
Anyhow, Kitano Tenmangu is the original shrine devoted to Michizane and has since grown into a large network of shrines across Japan.
The Shrine itself is relatively small, since it’s inside the city, but it has lots of neat things in it. When you first come in, there is a walkway like so leading to the inner sanctum:
To the right, is a plum tree, though not blossomging in July:
Plum blossoms (umé 梅) are associated with Michizane due to a famous poem he wrote in exile:
Japanese
Romanization
Translation
東風吹かば
Kochi fukaba
When the east wind blows,
にほひをこせよ
Nioi okose yo
let it send your fragrance,
梅の花
Ume no hana
oh plum blossoms.
主なしとて
Aruji nashi tote
Although your master is gone,
春を忘るな
Haru o wasuru na
do not forget the spring.
Sugawara no Michizané (845 – 903), translation by Robert Borgen
Anyhow, if you continue you get to the gate to the inner sanctum:
The inner sanctum is here (I prayed for my Japanese-language exam this year as well… we’ll see if I pass again 😄):
What’s really neat is that if you loop back around toward the main entrance, you’ll see this:
The pavilion near the front entrance had displays of various poems from the Hyakunin Isshu in the form of yomifuda karuta cards! If you look at the photos, you might even see my reflection, too. ;-p
The inside room of the pavilion was interesting too, with lots of really old pictures and paintings affixed:
I also picked up an omamori charm as well:
I keep this in my wallet.
Kitano Tenmangu is a great place to visit while you are in Kyoto, and its tribute to both the famous scholar, and to the Hyakunin Isshu really warmed my heart.
1 This isn’t that unusual in Shinto since the notion of a kami is very broad, and includes not just gods, but also nature spirits, great historical figures, and “anything else that inspires awe” according to one writer.
In the book Hyakunin Isshu Daijiten, which I mentioned here, it explains that the fourth verse, karakurenai (唐紅), is in fact a traditional color word in Japanese. The Chinese characters read something like “Chinese (lit. Tang Dynasty China) scarlet or vermillion”. There is no one-to-one equivalent in English.1
You can see an example of what karakurenai looks like on this amazing website, among other tradition colors. You can also see a list of colors on Wikipedia as well. Both sites also include the HTML codes (a # sign, followed by 6 alpha-numeric characters) if you want to reproduce yourself. For example using the HTML hex code #C91F37 I get:
karakurenai
In truth, many of these colors would be obscure to modern audiences, except in some literary circles, but some, such as yamabuki-iro (山吹色, “golden yellow”) are still used in common vernacular. Further, as is common with other Asian languages, colors green and blue are often conflated (e.g. 信号は青, shingō wa ao, “the traffic light is blue/green”).
In any case, try it out the website above, and see what other colors you might find!
Update: I decided to update the blog appearance and apply a new background color based on the HTML codes above. For the blog background color, I am using Haizakura (灰桜, code #d7c4bb).
1 Similarly, I bet some English tradition colors would have no translation in Japanese. Such is the way with language and cultures.
A blog reader recently left a comment about this, and I realized that this would make a good topic for discussion, especially if are you are trying to memorize the Hyakunin Isshu, or learnkaruta. If you know even a little modern Japanese, you may soon start to notice that the hiragana spellings for some words aren’t always what you expect. For example, the fourth verse of poem 2 reads:
ころもほすてふ
But it reads as:
koromo hosu chou (not te-fu)
Another verse that threw me off recently was poem 44:
逢うことの
In modern Japanese, this would read as au koto no, but in the Hyakunin Isshu it is read as ou koto no.
Then there are other examples throughout, too many to list. The issue is that Japanese language, like any language, changes over time. People don’t speak or pronounce things the same as they did 1,000+ years ago.1 English language, for example, has undergone some dramatic sound-changes in the last 500 years, and yet the spelling was never updated. Hence, English spelling is confusing now.
Japanese underwent a similar change. Hiragana script at the time when it was first adopted was probably phonetic and intuitive to native speakers. However, fast-forward 1,000 years and it has long since diverged from the way people pronounce it.
This was finally fixed after World War II when the modern Hiragana spelling system was used, but old literature such as the Hyakunin Isshu remained as is. Hence, spelling of words in the Hyakunin Isshu differs from the modern Japanese equivalents.
For this reason, Japanese students of the Hyakunin Isshu often rely on furigana pronunciation guides when reading about the Hyakunin Isshu. For example, this excerpt from a Chihayafuru manga my daughter has shows examples of furigana usage:
From the manga ちはやと覚える百人一首 (“Remember the Hyakunin Isshu with Chihaya”)
Further, some hiragana themselves are pronounced differently:
ひ (modern “hi”) is pronounced like い (“i”), see poem 12.
The aforementioned てふ (modern “te-fu”) is pronounced like ちょう (“cho-u”), see poem 2.
Similarly, けふ (modern “ke-fu”) is pronounced like きょう (“kyo-u”), see poem 54 and poem 61.
ぢ is pronounced the same as じ (“ji”), see poem 12.
おもふ (modern “o-mo-fu”) is pronounced as おもう (“o-mo-u”), see poem 85.
Archaic hiragana ゑ (“weh”) and ゐ (“wi”) are pronounced as え (“eh”) and い (“i”), see poem 5 or poem 14.
を (“wo”) is pronounced the same as お (“o”), see poem 12.
む (modern “mu”) is often pronounced as ん (“n”), but only if it’s at the end of a word, see poem 3.
And so on. If unsure, just listen to audio readings of the Hyakunin Isshu and you’ll often get a feel for how it’s pronounced anyway. Or, note the furigana text above the letter, as this provides a visual cue for native Japanese speakers. Whatever the furigana says is correct. Just be aware that the spellings differ from modern, standard Japanese, and that this is a common feature of pre-modern Japanese literature. There are patterns to this, and once you get used to it, you don’t even think about it anymore.
P.S. if you think the history of hiragana script is confusing, the history of romaji (Roman alphabet for Japanese) is even nuttier.
1 I always find it mildly amusing (or annoying) when time-travel movies have everyone speaking perfect English, often British-accented English. I get that it’s hard to work in another language, especially finding actors who can pronounce it reliably, but still….
Karuta is a game of memory and speed. You’re trying to take a specific poem card before your opponent does, and you can’t know which card it is until the reader starts reading the selected poem. So, players have to use clues called kimari-ji (決まり字), or “deciding letter (or character)” to determine which poem is being read as quickly as possible.
I had heard of the concept before, but in my quest to learn all 100 poems of the Hyakunin Isshu, I didn’t pay attention to kimari-ji, and thus during my first competition I struggled a lot. Learning an entire poem, and learning its kimari-ji are two separate skills. Over the long run, a person can do both, but if you want to play karuta you should invest in memorizing the kimari-ji for as many poems as you can.
A torifuda card (取り札) containing only the last two verses. The last two verses are also known as shimo no ku (下の句) or “lower verses”. This particular poem is poem 58.
What are kimari-ji though? These are the first letters (or characters, I’ll explain shortly) of poetic verse, that tell you which poem is being read. Since the cards on the floor, the torifuda cards, only contain the last two out of five verses of a poem, it’s not immediately obvious which is which. The reader has the full poem using the corresponding yomifuda card.
Anyhow, both the torifuda and yomifuda cards are written using Japanese hiragana script. Hiragana is not an alphabet. It’s a syllabary. Each letter/character is a self-contained syllable or ji (字) in Japanese. Like many languages, English uses an alphabet so it takes 2 letters to spell the syllable “go”, but in Japanese this would require a single character: ご.1
If you’d like to learn more about hiragana script, check out my other blog here and here. Learning hiragana is worthwhile not only because it will unlock the Japanese language, it will help you play karuta a lot more effectively. It takes effort to learn upfront, but the good news is that it’s a learn-once-use-often skill.
When first learning to play karuta, and memorizing the poems, you soon realize that cards often fall into common patterns just based on the first few hiragana syllables. Others stand out from the others and are thus easier to recognize during play.
Let’s look at an easy example, poem 77 (my wife’s favorite).
This poem begins with the first verse:
せをはやみ
se wo hayami
The “se” (せ) in “se wo hayami” is unique among the Hyakunin Isshu anthology in that there are no other poems that start with “se”. So, as soon as the reader says “se”, highlighted below in blue, a seasoned player knows the poem being read is number 77, and that its fourth verse starts with われても, shown in red below.
This is an example of a one-character (一字, ichiji) kimari-ji poem, also called a ichiji-kimari (一字決まり). Poems that can be recognized by the first two characters are niji-kimari (二字決まり), three-character poems are sanji-kimari (三字決まり), four are yojikimari (四字決まり), and so on.
At other extreme end are six-characterkimari-ji poems, also commonly called ōyama-fuda (大山札, “big mountain cards”). Here’s an example below.
The yomifuda cards above are poem 64 (left) and poem 31 (right). Both start with the same 5-character verse, shown in green: asaboraké. It’s not until the sixth character (blue) that they differ. In this case, the sixth for poem 64 is “u” (う), and the sixth character for poem 31 is “ah” (あ). So, if you are listening to the poem, you have to wait all the way until the start of the sixth character to know which poem is being read. If you jump the gun and pick the wrong one, you get a foul (otetsuki, お手つき). Speaking from experience, I have done this. 🤦🏻♂️ It sucks.
In any case, vast majority of poems out there usually fall between these two extremes. The more you practice playing karuta, or memorizing them, the more you internalize them. This is important as kimari-ji work like a trigger: if you’ve memorize the “board state” (i.e. where everything is on the board), as soon as you hear the right syllables, BOOM, you take the card before your opponent does.
If you’ve been training for a while, this motion is almost unconscious. It’s a great feeling when it happens.
Shifting Kimari-ji and Late Game
As the game progresses, or depending on which cards are on the board, even a “six-kimariji” card can become a one-kimariji card. How? This is called kimariji-henka (決まり字変化, “shifting kimariji”).
“Rachel” from the Seattle Karuta Club kindly provided the following chart for the blog:
This chart shows a breakdown of all 100 poems with their kimari-ji, sorted by the initial hiragana character on downward. This is important because if the cards start with naniwa-e (poem 88) and naniwa-ga (poem 19) are both on the board, you have to wait until the fourth syllable (e vs. ga) to determine which card to take. Because of their initial similarity, they are grouped together as tomofuda (友札, “friend cards”).
However, if one of the poems above has already been read, and another card with the kimari-jinanishi (poem 25) has not, then you only need to determine which one to take based on naniwa vs. nanishi. You don’t have to wait until the fourth character. If there is only one card on the entire board that starts with “na” (usually very late in the game), you can just trigger off that.
As the cards on the board reduce in number, this comes up more and more. This is a slightly more advanced topic, but as you gain more experience, you’ll start to notice this too.
So…. How do you memorize them all?
There are many approaches to learning the kimari-ji, so you should find a method that works for you, and not be afraid to adjust that method if it’s not really working. I have created a chart to help listed out the kimari-ji and also group them by tomofuda for easier memorization.
Since my last karuta competition, I’ve shifted methods a few times. But there are some popular methods worth mentioning.
First of all, the 1-character kimari-ji can be remembered using this simple rhyme:
む す め ふ さ ほ せ
mu su me fu sa ho se
Which actually spells a mnemonic sentence in Japanese:
娘房干せ
“Daughter, dry the bunches [of flowers, grapes, whatever]
However, for learning all 100 poems, the Seattle Karuta Club pointed me to some helpful resources online:
This site divides the kimari-ji by initial letters, and has good visuals.
There are mobile apps too, though many have advertisement banners and such. You can search for “hyakunin isshu” in your favorite app store.
There are a lot of helpfulcharts and explanations in various Japanese sources (this is a great example), since it’s a popular pastime, but if you’re still learning hiragana and not familiar with Japanese language, you may need to stick with English-sources for now.
For my part, I started trying out some things at home. Since I don’t have a goza mat yet, I just grabbed one of my battle-map playmats I use for Dungeons and Dragons, and used that as a play area:
I started practicing with batches of 5-10 karuta cards at a time, starting with the 1-character and 7-character kimari-ji, since they are both fewest in number.
But then I started sprinkling poems in that I just happened to like. Since I spent so much effort memorizing poems previously, I picked out another 10-15 that I liked, and mixed them in anyway.
Then, I started making my own flash cards using Anki SRS using a format similar to this site:
As you can imagine, there’s many ways to learn the kimari-ji. The sky’s the limit as they say. Find something that works for, or keep experimenting until you master all 1️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ poems! Once you’ve done that, the game really starts to open up.
Anyhow, my goal is to try to learn at least half of the cards reliably before the next meeting of the Karuta Club in September. It won’t win me any matches, but it will build a foundation for (hopefully) future wins.
Good luck, and happy Karuta play!
1 There are a few exceptions to this in the Japanese, mostly in the revised modern spelling, but not worth calling out here.
The Hyakunin Isshu 
