Dear Readers,
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.
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.
Having played Karuta now for three months and against a variety of opponents, including computer opponents, I realize that I get otetsuki (お手付き, “penalties”) a lot. Like, a lot.
In one in-person game, I was nervous and got eight penalties which is simply painful. Even when playing against the computer on hard mode, I get 2-4 penalties at a time.
Anyhow, after finishing some other long-term projects recently, I’ve been investing time to practice karuta, and to grow and develop my skills. One of my big goals has been to reduce penalties as much as possible, and so after some introspection, I realized that my biggest issue, besides being nervous and jumpy, is that i don’t pay attention enough to the reader.
As folks who have been following the blog know, the key to playing karuta is to know the kimari-ji syllables, those first, unique syllables each poem has to distinguish from other poems. Until you hear those syllables, you can not be 100% sure which poem is being read, and if you guess wrong, you get a penalty. Sometimes, I got lucky and guessed correctly, obviously though, sometimes I guessed wrong.
Memorizing the kimari-ji is the first step. You also have to recognize them when you hear them, and hopefully faster than your opponent.
I decided this month that I wanted to invest more time in discipline and listening skills, and less on speed, so I have switched to playing “solo mode” on the online karuta app. There are other ways to do this of course, but the point is that I am playing against a “goldfish”.
Why a goldfish?
A “goldfish” is a term in Magic: The Gathering, for when you are practicing against a completely passive opponent. They are there, but do nothing. Like a goldfish. 🐠
If you play solo mode on the online karuta app, you are not pressed for time. You can slow down, pay attention to the reader, and then take the card when you recognize it. It is also a good way to catch your bad habits, test your different card arrangements, etc. It’s a surprisingly handy tool for improving your game.
Also, it’s a great way to analyze your play style. when playing “solo mode” against the computer, I still got jumpy and took a penalty.
Further, as your listening improves, your speed will gradually improve, but it does require a touch of patience, and a willingness to sacrifice speed over accuracy. I need this. My accuracy is poor, and speed cannot fix that. If I don’t play more accurately, I will continue to suffer loss after loss.
Even when I practice fuda-nagashi drills, I realized that I had to slow down a bit, or I would mis-identify cards again. It’s important to recall cards quickly, but if you mis-identify a card, then it’s not worth it. Better to accurately recall the correct kimari-ji, even if slower.
So, if you are learning karuta, and you feel like you are struggling, stop, backtrack, slow down, and focus on playing good karuta, not fast karuta. With a bit of time and patience, it should pay for itself.
P.S. Special thanks to the crew on the Competitive Karuta Discord group (Discord invite link here) for their helpful advice, much of which was incorporated in this blog post. ☺️
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.
As part of my efforts to improve my practice routine and make small, incremental gains, I got some helpful advice from the Seattle Karuta Club, and was pointed toward this website. This Karuta Club, the Akita Kohohana Karuta Club, in Akita Prefecture demonstrates how to practice Karuta using a method called fuda-waké (札分け), meaning “distributing cards” or “dividing up cards”, etc.
This technique takes a bit of setup at first but is a great way to both reinforce kimari-ji and also positioning your cards (tei’ichi 定位置).
First, you need to make a chart large enough to place your cards on a 7×4 grid, like so:
Then fill in the Japanese hiragana like so. I’ve added both romaji (Roman alphabet) and kiriji (Cyrillic alphabet) for convenience.
| や ya я | み mi ми | は ha ха | た ta та | さ sa са | か ka ка | あ a a |
| ゆ yu ю | む mu му | ひ hi хи | ち chi ти | し shi си | き ki ки | い i и/й |
| よ yo ё | め me мэ | ふ fu фу | つ tsu цу | す su су | う u у | |
| わ wa ва | も mo мо | ほ ho хо | な na на | せ se сэ | こ ko ко | お o o |
I wanted to try out this method, so I used my old battle-map from Dungeons and Dragons, and drew the same chart on there:
My handwriting is terrible, but hopefully legible. You can see a close-up here:
To be honest, I made my grid a bit too small, so as I piled cards, I couldn’t see which space was which. If you make something similar, make sure the squares are extra big.
Anyhow, the method for fudawaké is to pile up your torifuda cards to the side, then time yourself:
According to the Akita Konohana Karuta Club website, their team standard is 1:40, which is quite fast. You can see that some members finish in less than one minute!
When I tried it the first time, it took me 8:05, and then on my second try, it took 6:07. Not even close to their standard, but it was a fun exercise. It is more challenging than fuda-nagashi, but still teaches many of the same skills. It also helps with the initial board setup too, because you can correctly remember where to group your cards based on common kimari-ji.
Try it out and let me know what you think!
Recently I learned about the concept of go-shoku Hyakunin Isshu (五色百人一首), or five color Hyakunin Isshu.
During my recent trips to Japan, while shopping for Karuta sets, I did see some advertised as “five color sets” but didn’t understand the significance, and there is no information in English.
According to this helpful website, it’s a kind of teaching aid for grade school kids to learn Karuta by diving the cards into 5 sets of 20, color-coded: Blue, Pink, Yellow, Green and Orange. The website above has a comprehensive chart for each color, and which poems belong to each.
The cards are grouped this way to ease the memorization of the kimari-ji for playing karuta by organizing easier versus more difficult cards into different groups. The website above suggests the following game to help (my rough translation below):
There is a helpful instructional video too (sorry, no English):
It also points out some penalties: touching the wrong card (even if you touch the correct one later) and such. Most of this is geared towards grade school kids, so adults would not likely make such mistakes.
Also, some groups seem easier than others. Based on reviews in the website above, yellow and blue seemed easiest, while orange and green were the hardest.
Since I don’t own an official five-color set (yet), I decided to make my own set by using one of my non-competitive sets, and dividing it up into the five color groups. You can see my efforts above in the featured photo. Also, please buy Dr Mostow’s book on the Hyakunin Isshu. This blog is graciously his debt. 😌
Even if you don’t play the five color Hyakunin Isshu game, you can still use an online reader app like Karuta Chant (iOS and Android). The app even has options for reading only the specified color group:
This established method of dividing up the cards into five colored groups is a very handy way to divide and conquer in your efforts to learn the karuta cards.
Try it out and let me know what you think in the comments!
One of the most essential skills in playing karuta is to quickly and accurately recall the Kimari-ji for each card. Speaking from experience, if you recall the cards too slow, your opponent takes them first. If you are not accurate you take otetsuki penalties which are painful. As a new player, I tend to do both. 🤦🏼♂️
The trick is looking at the torifuda card, the last two verses of the poem, and from that recall what the kimari-ji is. This is not easy to do with 100 cards possible, but with practice it is possible to get good at this. With even more practice you can do this both accurately and quickly. Since there are only 100 cards possible, it is a finite set of information to learn.
The online app provides a handy mini game called “Flashcard” that’s lets you practice this. In Japanese, this method is called fudanagashi (札流し, “flow of cards”). This means to quickly sift through flash cards and correctly guessing the kimari-ji.
The app will let you practice this easily, and posts the correct answer in red. It also randomly shows the cards upside down (since half the cards on the board would be upside down anyway):
But you can also do this using flash cards. In Japan they often sell cards like this. I bought this ring of flashcards at the Tengu-dō store in Kyoto (product link here):
On the other side is the kimari-ji:
Sometimes I take this with me when walking around the neighborhood and just practice a few cards here and there.
As for the flashcard game on the online app, my first run-through I finished in 7:33 (7 minutes, 33 seconds), but also made several mistakes. Within two days, I narrowed the time down to 4:23 and fewer mistakes. After that, I decided to be more strict about mistakes (as they are costly in the game) and would reset the stack even if I made one mistake.
That was difficult at first, but I learned each time I mess up, even when I made the same mistake more than once. I probably had to reset 12-15 times but eventually I finished without errors and with a time of 4:21. Yay.
Finally, you can do this while blasting your favorite Fire Emblem: Three Houses song to keep you motivated:
The point is, is that fuda-nagashi is an essential skill for any karuta player, and there’s many ways to approach it. Find what works, and make it fun. If you do, you’ll be surprised how quick you can improve.
Edit: after writing this post, got to 04:18.
Edit #2: as of December 2023, I am down to 3:14.
Dedicated to “Rachel” and “Lore”, and to blog reader 猫. Thank you all for the encouragement!
In my last post, I talked about taking stock after a bad loss in karuta and focusing on small, incremental improvements rather than “shooting for the moon”. I used the Nintendo Switch game Fire Emblem: Three Houses as a source of inspiration.
The blog post title comes from the main character Byleth, who sometimes says this after combat. In the game, if your students defeat a foe in combat, they gain experience points making them grow stronger. If they are attacked by an enemy, they still gain experience. If they dodge an attack, do something supportive or other things non-combat related they also gain experience.
In other words, the characters get stronger not just from defeating foes, but from many other things too.
In the same way, I realized that Karuta isn’t just winning battles. It’s lots of small things you do and get gradually better at.
If you use the flash card “minigame” on the karuta app, how long did it take you to finish all 100 cards? Did you beat your time? If so, experience gained. If not, experience still gained.
If you tried a new way to arrange your cards on the board (tei’ichi 定位置), did it work better or worse? Experience gained either way.
If you practice listening and distinguishing tomofuda cards (cards with very similar kimari-ji), did you succeed? Even if not, experience gained.
If you listen to audio readings of the Hyakunin Isshu is it starting to sink in? Experience gained.
And so on.
Like Byleth says, each encounter or task is a chance to grow. It may not seem like it, but given a few weeks or months, you’ll begin to see the difference.
If you’re feeling down or discouraged, keep looking toward the skies and take it one step at a time.
Good luck and happy karuta’ing!
P.S. Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a criminally underrated game. Definitely check it out if you can. Also, image source above is from Nintendo.
After taking up karuta with the local community, I was soon introduced to the international Karuta Discord group (Discord invite link here). The international karuta community is great, and you get to meet people from places like Brazil, Russia, Germany, etc. If you are even casually interested in karuta, or the hyakunin isshu, it’s a nice community and worth joining.
Further, the community has been organizing periodic tournaments using the online Karuta app. I started learning karuta 2-3 months ago, and finally got to the point where I know (more or less), the 100 kimari-ji. So, I decided to throw my hat into the ring and register for the October competition.
Right away, I realized that I might be in over my head.
I lost a couple matches, both very decisively, and felt pretty of embarrassed. At the end of that day, I played poorly. In addition to slow reaction time to take cards, I tilted (in Magic: the Gathering speak) and fell apart under pressure.
I was pretty disheartened by this and I wondered if maybe I am just hopeless. Since I am starting karuta pretty late in life, I feared that maybe I am just getting too old for the game.
But, then I got to thinking. In my spare time, I’ve been playing a game called Fire Emblem: Three Houses (mentioned in my other blog here, among other places). The game, at its core, is about taking a team of amateur students and gradually turning them into an elite force through training, trial, etc. The instructor and main character, Byleth (catchphrase: “stay focused”), develops their individual talents, addressing weaknesses, taking them on training missions, etc.
I kind of felt inspired by this (and frankly, it’s an awesome game), so I got to thinking: I really do want to improve. However, if I want to improve at karuta, I need to get back to basics, stay focused, and work towards small improvements at a time:
So, if you’re playing karuta, or any competitive game, and you’ve been crushed in defeat, take heart. Given enough time and dedication you will definitely improve. Don’t worry how well other people play, focus on how well you’re playing now.
Edit: if you are a fellow Three Houses fan, I challenge you to boldly declare “I am Ferdinand von Aegir” during your next Karuta match and swipe half the cards from the board Chihayafuru style.
Either you’ll make a new friend (since they are a fan), or they’ll think you’re nutty.
P.S. Featured image source is from Nintendo, and depicts both genders of Byleth (you can play either one, which is neat).
While here in Japan for a couple weeks, I picked up my first karuta set of the Hyakunin Isshu at the local bookstore when I realized that getting to the more famous store was harder than I expected, and I just won’t be here long enough for local delivery.
However, my interest in the Hyakunin Isshu was not sated with a single set, and so, when the family I went to a local Kinokuniya bookstore (we have them in the US too), I found another set that I liked, shown above.
This set, by Silverback, linked here, is another set of karuta cards, but this one includes a CD of someone reciting the poems (読み手, yomité) just like in a karuta game. As you can see from the linked product description, this set has the cards color-coded. The illustrated cards (yomifuda) have a beige background, while the verses cards (torifuda) are blank white for easy searching.
When I got back home, I imported the CD into my iTunes playlist, so I can shuffle the album. That allows me to practice the karuta game since the next card read out loud will be random.
I can’t decide with of the two sets I like better. The artistic detail on the Kyoto set (the first purchase) is really quite amazing, while the character illustration on the Silverback set is more what I am familiar with. The CD the Silverback set is quite handy (and sounds very nice), while the box and presentation on the Kyoto set is more sturdy.
I suspect I will probably continue collecting sets over time. Each one is a work of art by itself. I also learned alot how and where to purchase karuta sets and will be updating my blog post about it as a result.
Separately, while at Kinokuniya though, my wife noticed this fascinating book (publisher’s link):
This is a comprehensive book (大辞典, daijiten) all about the Hyakunin Isshu. I like this book because it’s geared for younger audiences, so it’s easier to read, but it’s very comprehensive in detail about each poem, old vocabulary, famous places mentioned in the anthology and so on. I will likely be drawing on this book in the future.
One other interesting note about the book is that it does not present the poems in the usual numerical order, instead it sorts by topic (love, spring, autumn, etc) which is (coincidentially?) closer to how Waka poems were organized in official Imperial anthologies.
Anyhow, it’s been a very lucrative haul, and gives me plenty to admire and practice with. I have been busy memorizing poems of the Hyakunin Isshu over the past few weeks and will write more about how to accomplish that.
I finally did it! I got my very own karuta set of the hyakunin isshu.
Since we came to Japan earlier this week (just ahead of snowy weather, no less), my original plan was to go to the famous karuta shop in Tokyo: Okuno Karuta.
However, since we are here primarily for family matters, we are here for a narrow window of time, and because it’s fairly deep in Tokyo (and thus far removed from my in-laws home), getting there is probably not feasible. Plans might change, but I don’t think I will be able to visit this time around.
On the other hand, at a local bookstore I found a really nice, affordable set!
This set is made by Kyoto Tengu-dō, another famous karuta company. I love the box design. Inside, you can see the full set of yomifuda and torifuda cards:
As the product link shows, this set was designed for beginners to karuta games, and the torifuda cards (the ones without pictures) are written in a very legible font, so they’re easier to newcomers to find cards on the fly.
The illustrations are different than what I normally see on karuta cards, but I found out later that this is more typical of handicrafts from Kyoto, versus more Tokyo-style art. Also, the more I look at them, the more I appreciate the amazing detail, such as the clothing patterns, curtains, etc. It’s really fun just to flip through the cards and look.
This set cost me ¥1700, so about $12-15 (depending on exchange rate), which as a gorgeous starter set is quite good deal in my opinion.
Also, I suspect that this won’t be the last set I collect either. 😜
P.S. I had also thought about ordering from Okuno Karuta, but I can’t be sure it would arrive at my in-laws house in time due to holidays and our short schedule. Like I said, I am in no rush and will visit another time.
The Hyakunin Isshu 