Tag: Karuta

Learning Karuta For Fun

My journey with the game of Karuta began one August day in 2023 with the kind folks at a local karuta club, and right away I loved the game. However, over time, I realized that the competitive style of karuta, like you see in the anime Chihayafuru, was not for me. The constant pressure to grind out game after game to make incremental improvements, especially as a working parent with little time or energy for such endeavors, made me feel increasingly hopeless about making any real gains.1 Finally, with my children getting older, and one of them graduating, I had to take a long break from karuta. It just wasn’t fun anymore.

Recently, I’ve been playing again with a small informal group where we just mess around a bit, and play shorter Karuta games using the casual format. This is how most Japanese people play in Japan, by the way.

Thus, I wanted to share my experiences lately with readers in hopes that they may find ways to keep enjoying karuta, or help introduce it to people outside of Japan who didn’t learn it in grade school.

For starters, I ordered this 5-color Hyakunin Isshu set online from the good people at Oishi Tengudo last year,2 and after using the set a few times, I finally realized this five-color set is different than the more well-known version sold in Japan. It uses different colors, and divides the cards differently. My karuta reader apps were not set to recite poems according to Oishi Tengudo groupings, so I was really confused at first.

Using my favorite karuta reader app, Wasuramoti (Android and iOS), I decided to make custom lists based on the Oishi Tengudo groupings. You can do this too in Wasuramoti by selecting Advanced Config, then Set of Poem:

In the Oishi Tengudo set, the “red” group (also called Group A), is comprised of poems whose kimari-ji (starting syllables) start with む (mu), す (su), め (me), せ (se), う (u), つ (tsu), し (shi), も (mo), ゆ (yu), ち (chi), and ひ (hi). These cards have very few or no tomofuda (cards with similar kimari-ji), so they’re distinct and easy to learn first. I created my custom list with 20 cards, just like my physical set.

I made a similar custom list for Group B (“blue”) as well. This group is a bit harder because it includes cards whose kimari-ji have slightly more tomofuda cards (3-4): い (i), み (mi), た (ta), and こ (ko). So, there’s a bit more effort required to distinguish one card from another. Yet it’s still the second easiest group.

… and so on.

When I practice, I just grab the color I want to play (“red”, or Group A in this case) and scatter then on my desk, casual-style.

Then in the Wasuramoti app, I select the group of poems I want (see above), set the app to display the torifuda, same as cards on my desk, and set the reader to “auto” mode so it doesn’t stop with each poem. I just want to see if I can recognize the poem before too late. I don’t care very much about speed.

It is fun to play this way. I can finish a game pretty quickly (roughly ten minutes) and it is not very exhausting. Since I chose the easiest set of cards first, I remembered many of them pretty quickly despite the long hiatus, which was gratifying.

This format of playing smaller sets of cards, with optional levels of difficulty, and no threat of penalties, seems to be a great way to introduce to new players as well. I was happy to see that a new player, who had experience with Japanese language, quickly pick up the game, took a few cards of her own, and had a great time. If people aren’t having a great time, why play karuta?

Karuta is super fun, and a great game to enjoy throughout one’s life. However, if you are struggling, don’t blame yourself. Instead, find what you enjoy about karuta, pick a more gentle format, and focus on that, not what the A-rank players are doing.

Happy gaming!

1 The final nail in the coffin was when I joined some online communities which I soon realized were very focused on competition, and very little on actually enjoying the culture of the Hyakunin Isshu. It was just another sport, with physical training regimens, and techniques to edge out your opponent. That is not why I created this blog back in 2011, and not why I continue to enjoy the Hyakunin Isshu now. I had left the world of competitive card games behind when I quit playing Magic the Gathering before the Pandemic, and didn’t want to resume.

2 They only ship in Japan as far as I can tell, and with tariffs making things more expensive, it might be hard to get outside of Japan. Thus, I am adding a new index page for five-color Hyakunin Isshu to help readers make their own sets

Why Learn the Kimari-ji

Lately, I’ve been having some fun conversations with coworkers introducing them to the Hyakunin Isshu, and while describing the poems, I realized that learning the kimari-ji of each poem is a handy way to keep track of which poem is which. When I first learned the Hyakunin Isshu way back in the early days of this blog, I tried to learn the poems by number. They are listed in numerical order in many publications, so this made sense.

However, many publications in Japan also list the poems by their kimari-ji too.

But if you’re not playing karuta (casual or competitive) why bother? Think Michael Jackson.

The album cover for Michael’s Jacksons Thriller, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Michael Jackson’s songs are tremendously famous. As soon as I say out loud, “Eddie are you OK?”, or “Billie Jean”, anyone listening beyond a certain age range will know how to finish the next lyric. It’s not necessary to know the whole song, simply knowing a key lyric triggers the rest of the song, or at least recognition of the song.

Think of kimari-ji the same way. Since the Hyakunin Isshu was meant to be a compilation of the very 100 best waka poems in Japanese antiquity (as chosen by Fujiwara no Teika), you can think of them as a “Best of Michael Jackson” album collection.

Thus, rather than remembering poem 29 it may be easier to remember it as the ko-ko-ro-a poem since the first line starts with that verse (kokoro até ni), and that’s enough to distinguish itself from other poems.

So Long Flashcards

In 2023, during a visit to Kyoto, I picked up some flashcards for memorizing the kimari-ji syllables of the Hyakunin Isshu poems (product link here). These flashcards were really helpful in those first few months of learning to play karuta, and although I don’t really use them anymore, I kept them around for nostalgia…

But… after I took my flashcards to the office one day recently to show some curious co-workers about the Hyakunin Isshu and Karuta, I forgot to take them out of my pants pocket. This is what happened after they got washed…

Initially, I tried to just let the ring dry out, but it’s pretty water-logged. Plus, I found that if was careful, I could peel the cards apart one by one, so they could dry much faster….

Sadly, a few cards ripped in the process, but I think I have salvaged about 80% of the cards. In reality, I will likely purchase it again anyway (preferably with extras to give out to others) since it is very cheap. However, shipping overseas is pretty expensive, so I have to wait until I am in Japan again.

And so, like cherry blossoms and moonlit nights, all things fade. Unlike cherry blossoms and moonlit nights, my flashcards faded in my pants pocket in the washing machine.

Hyakunin Isshu-A-Day

A Japanese friend who is also a fan of the Hyakunin Isshu shared this website with me:

https://fromnkichi.github.io/fortune-of-100nin-isshu/

This fun website will let you pick a Hyakunin Isshu poem at random, and that will be your fortune for the day. After your poem is selected it is shown in the upper right corner:

On the left hand side is your “lucky color” for the day, and in middle is a fortune for you. You can see the matching karuta card on the bottom. The site is entirely in Japanese, so you will have to use an online translator. It reminds me of those page-a-day calendars I used to buy for work.

In any case, this is a terrific site and worth visiting. Enjoy!

The Hyakunin Isshu in the Edo Period

Since I began, this blog has focused on a period of Japanese history which I like to call “Classical Japan”, or “Japanese Antiquity”.1 That’s just a convenient name I call it.

But most researchers and historians tend to divide Japan’s history into “periods” (jidai, 時代) based on where the capitol was at the time. So, precisely speaking, this blog and the Hyakunin Isshu cover a 500-period of history overlapping the Asuka (6th – 8th c.), Nara (8th c.) and Heian Periods (8th – 12th c.), while dipping our toes just a bit into the the early Kamakura Period (12th – 14th c.) for certain poems (poems 93, 99 and 100 for example). For the sake of the Manyoshu we also ventured even further back to somewhat murkier periods of time since some of the very early poets of the Hyakunin Isshu (poems 1, 2, 3 and 4 for example) were also contributors.

But the blog has never really explored anything beyond the early 13th century because that’s when things effectively end. The Hyakunin Isshu was compiled, the aristocracy of the Heian Period were totally sidelined by the new samurai class, and Japan continued on in a new trajectory. The aristocracy still lived until the modern era, and Imperial poetry anthologies were issued from time to time, but the quality and popularity gradually petered out. As poem 100 above alludes to, this era embodied by the Hyakunin Isshu was effectively over.

For the purposes of this blog, why pay attention to anything that comes after?

Well, I attended Professor Mostow’s recent lecture at the University of Washington, and I learned that history of the Hyakunin Isshu kept going. In fact, it was all the rage in the much later Edo Period (17th – 19th c.).

Japan by the Edo Period was pretty different than the earlier Heian Period. By this point, Japan had been effectively ruled by one military government or another for centuries, while the capitol had shifted from Kyoto in central Japan, to a fortified castle town in eastern Japan called Edo (江戸). Edo started as a fishing town, but soon grew into a metropolis thanks to good urban planning and government policies that forced rival warlords to stay there every other year. Edo, later the modern capitol of Tokyo, was one of the largest cities in the world at one point.

After a century of constant warfare throughout Japan, the Edo Period brought unprecedented stability and cultural flourishing. Its isolation from European explorers and rival Asian powers meant that people turned inward and rediscovered Japanese culture that had been forgotten in ages past due to war and instability.

One aspect of this flourishing was the invention of block printing which suddenly allowed the masses to enjoy reading in a way that earlier generations had not. Books became far more affordable, and more available, and suddenly a variety of books about the Hyakunin Isshu were published. There were books about the Hyakunin Isshu as far back as the 15th century, namely the Ōei-shō (応永抄) composed in 1406, but mass-printing made books much more accessible and allowed for a greater variety.

Professor Mostow has collected and aggregated many examples on his website here. Take a look if you can, there are some neat scans of really old documents from the era.

One common usage of the Hyakunin Isshu at the time, according to Professor Mostow, was in the instruction of girls. Books about young women’s education were a popular subject, and such books would work lessons in along with poems of the Hyakunin Isshu. For example, Professor Mostow posted scans from a book called the Hyakunin Isshu Jokun Shō (“A Selection of the Hyakunin Isshu for Women’s Instruction” ?), published in 1849. Another example can be found here.

Men were often taught things like Confucian values and such. And yet, even the boys learned about the Hyakunin Isshu from their mothers who had been raised on it. Also, books that were published for men about the Hyakunin Isshu often did so under the theme of Kokugaku (“national learning”).

A block print of the Masanobu Kabuki theater, 1743. Hokusai, Masanobu, Kiyonobu, XVII-XIX century, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The high point of Edo Period culture, and something that influences Tokyo even today was the Genroku Period (1688 – 1704). Many things people imagine of pre-modern Tokyo, such as Kabuki theater and Ukiyo-e prints, have their origin in this brief period. The Hyakunin Isshu was used in some Ukiyo-e block prints too. Since many of these images were racy or scandalous, publishers would work in poetry of the Hyakunin Isshu to either obfuscate the content from Edo government censors, or to lend a more “classy” air to the image. I found some examples here.

Even the famous artist Hokusai of “Great Wave” fame made block prints that would feature poems of the Hyakunin Isshu. We have a calendar at home and I was surprised to see this Hokusai block print with poem 50 (きみがためお) composed in cursive:

Our wall calendar featuring art by Hokusai. Turns out this page was from the Uba ga Etoki.
In blue, reads Hyakunin Isshu Uba Ga Toki, and in the yellow box poem 50 of the Hyakunin Isshu.

It turns out this is part of a series by Hokusai called the Uba ga Etoki (姥がゑとき), or more formally the 百人一首姥がゑとき2 , which means something like the “The Illustrated Hyakunin Isshu As Told By a Nurse(maid?)”. You can see more examples of this work here.

Anyhow, it’s fascinating that as literacy among the populace improved during the Edo Period, and access to information via books and printing increased, popular interpretations and illustrations of the Hyakunin Isshu took on a new life. The Hyakunin Isshu was, by that point, already 600 years old, and yet it enjoyed a revival that we benefit from today in the form of anime, karuta, and so on.3

Special thanks to Professor Mostow for his lecture and website! Also, check out Professor Mostow’s new book!4

1 I suppose my reason for doing this is that the end of the Heian Period and the subsequent change in Japan was somewhat similar to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in Europe, and how later generations of feudal lords kept up some of the trappings of the Romans, and yet it was still a different society altogether. But in the end, this is just one history nerd’s interpretation.

2 In modern Japanese 百人一首うばが絵解. See this post for more explanation.

3 Although social media and Internet reveal a pretty ugly side to humanity, it does also lead a similar explosion in cultural and accessibility. Two sides of the same coin, I suppose.

4 This is my associates link on Amazon. I get a small amount of credit for any purchases made through here. Feel free to purchase directly from University of Hawaii press instead though.

How To Recite the Hyakunin Isshu Like a Pro

If you’re here reading the blog, chances are you like the poetry of the Hyakunin Isshu. Who doesn’t? Maybe you like it so much, you’ve tried to memorize your favorite poems too (I do). But what’s better than memorizing your favorite poems? Reciting them!

When I first learned to play karuta, I realized that poems of the Hyakunin Isshu are recited in a specific style in Japanese. This is necessary for the players to hear clearly, but also reflects a traditional singing method for reciting waka poetry.1 Even on kids shows about Japanese language, when waka or haiku are recited, they’re recited in the same way. Of course, this is not required, but it is cool to learn, and doesn’t take that much effort.

First, let’s look at this Youtube playlist of Hyakunin Isshu poems.2 In particular, let’s look at poem 2:

Poem 2, はるす

All waka poems, including the Hyakunin Isshu have five verses, and are usually written top to bottom, right to left. The poems are further divided by the first three “upper verses” (kami no ku, 上の句) and last two “lower verses” (shimo no ku, 下の句) for structured, reciting, and for games.

It really helps if you can read hiragana script, but even if not, listen to the intonation of the poem, and the way some syllables are drawn out longer (expressed above as vertical “|” lines). That’s how you recite waka poetry.

The syllables that are drawn out are not always in the same place, by the way. Poem 24 of the Hyakunin Isshu does not always match poem 2 especially the fourth verse (fourth column from the right):

Poem 24, この

Or take a look at poem 11 which has a slightly unusual format. This makes the pacing different, and affects where syllables are drawn out:

Poem 11, わたのはらや

Poem 11 is a particularly tricky poem to recite, in my opinion, but also fun because the first two lines sound really neat.

Reciting isn’t just for showing off by the way.

In my book on the Manyoshu, it talks about how many poems come alive when they are recited. This was true during Japanese antiquity, and centuries later when the Hyakunin Isshu was compiled too. There are sounds and expressions that have a nice ring to them and it’s not always apparent if you are just reading the poem in your mind. For example poem 3 of the Hyakunin Isshu uses a lot of “no” (の) sounds that come alive when recited aloud:

Poem 3, あし

Another example is poem 58 which simply has a nice ring to it:

Poem 58, ありま

Anyhow, unless you’re training to be a professional yomité reader in karuta, it’s not necessary to master reciting all 100 poems, or to even sound this nice. However, if you have a handful of poems you like, learning to master the recitation is a great way to bring poems to life. You can use the excellent Youtube list above, or if you are a tactile person (like me), you might consider getting a set of yomite cards like the ones sold by Oishi Tengu-do, direct link here. I purchased mine in Japan this year and enjoy flipping through them and practicing poems I like.

In truth, I am a TERRIBLE singer. I am truly tone-deaf. But, with a bit of practice you get used to the rhythm of a poem and can recite it without much effort. Some poems are easier than others (poem 11 is tough), but with a bit of practice and familiarity anyone can learn to recite their favorite poem.

1 Roughly 99% of the poems I’ve posted in this blog for the past 13 years are all waka poems. These poems almost always have a pattern of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables, as opposed to later haiku poetry that only have 5-7-5 syllables.

2 If you want to search other Youtube examples, search for 百人一首　読み上げ (reading Hyakunin Isshu aloud).

A Look at Casual Karuta

In the past year, I’ve spent a fair amount of time talking about what’s called competitive karuta (kyōgi karuta, 競技カルタ in Japanese) after my first encounters, and subsequent efforts to learn to play the game. The truth is is in that in recent months, for various reasons, I’ve really started to wind down my involvement in the competitive karuta scene. I do enjoy playing karuta games, but frankly just not a very competitive person at heart, and the thought of investing what little time I have to increasingly small, incremental gains in an obscure sport doesn’t really appeal to me. I learned how to play the game, and consider myself decent at it, but the poetic side of the Hyakunin Isshu is still what appeals to me most.

Further, I realized through talking with Japanese people that a lot of people play casual karuta games, not competitive. This mundane side of karuta gaming is not featured in animé such as Chihayafuru. However it is a common past-time for people who enjoy karuta and the Hyakunin Isshu poems,1 but don’t necessarily want to invest countless hours in practice, drills, and so on. So, I wanted to explore the casual side of karuta gaming, and help casual players find ways to enjoy the game without the intense stress of competition.2

Japanese “Karuta”, especially karuta games based on the Hyakunin Isshu, come in many forms. There is a spectrum of very easy games on one end, and competitive karuta on the other. If you think of it like a video game with difficult settings, then games like bozu-mekuri are easy mode. You don’t have to know anything about the cards, it is visual only, and the rules are simple. On the other hand, competitive karuta is hard mode: you are playing against some very good players, the margin of error is very small (in higher ranks), and every bit counts including hand-techniques, card position, mental training, and so on. It’s a tough struggle, with lots of exciting moments, but sometimes also crushing defeats.

So between “easy mode” of bozu-mekuri, and “hard mode” of competitive karuta, isn’t there anything in between? Turns out, yes.

I found good examples of casual karuta games through my Hyakunin Isshu Daijiten book, mentioned here, as well as subsequent information online. Let’s look at the games of chirashi-tori and genpei gassen.

Chirashi-Tori

The game of chirashi-tori (散らし取り), meaning “scatter and take”, can be thought of as a lightweight version of competitive karuta. You don’t have to know the kimariji, but it helps, nor do you have to think about card position. In the same way, penalties don’t exist. You do need to know how to read the hiragana script though, even if slowly.

The game basically works like so:

  1. Take all 100 torifuda cards (the ones that are not illustrated) and spread them around face up. Players sit around the pile, spread out evenly.
  2. Similar to competitive karuta, someone else (not a player) reads a random yomifuda card (the illustrated ones). It’s customary to read the last two verses twice.
    • You can also use one of several nice karuta reader apps on your mobile phone too.
  3. As the poem is being read, whoever finds it’ll the corresponding card touches it, or takes it. If they are correct, they remove the card from the field and keep it in a stack next to them, face down.
  4. The reader then draws another card and a new round begins until there are no more cards on the field.
  5. Whoever took the most cards by the end of the game wins. 🏆

In terms of difficulty, this is the next step up from bozu-mekuri in that you do have to be able to read hiragana, but it’s a nice first step to getting familiar with the poems with little or no training. Even though knowing the kimariji is not required, knowing some can help you recognize some cards on the field quicker.

Genpei Gassen

The name of this game comes from the climatic war in 12th-century Japanese history: the Genpei War, pitting the Genji (“Gen”) clan versus the Heike (“pei”) clan. Unlike Chirashi-tori where each person plays separately, in Genpei Gassen people divide into even teams. Ostensibly one side plays the Heike clan, and the other the Genji clan.

There are a few other differences to Chirashi-tori:

  1. The two teams sit facing one another, with teammates sitting side by side. Ideally, 5 or 7 people will play. The odd-man-out is the reader (see below).
  2. The 100 torifuda cards (non-illustrated ones) are evenly divided into two groups of 50. Half the cards go to one side (i.e. facing them), and the other 50 go to the other team. Arrange the cards into three rows, roughly equal.
  3. To play the game, a separate person reads a random yomifuda card (the illustrated ones), one at a time. It’s customary to read the last two verses twice.
    • You can also use one of several nice karuta reader apps on your mobile phone too.
  4. As the poem is being read, players from both sides try to find the corresponding card somewhere on the field. If someone finds the poem, they may touch it, or take it. If they are correct, they remove the card from the field and keep it in a stack, face down.
  5. The first team to get to zero cards on their side wins. 🏆
  6. Similar to competitive karuta, if you take a card from the opponent’s side, you send over a card from your side. This way, their number stays the same, but since you correctly took a card, your side reduces by one.

This games has the advantage of being a gentler version of competitive karuta, but still keeping the look and feel of it. As with Chirashi-tori, you will need to be able to read hiragana script, and knowing the kimariji, even some of them, gives you an advantage, but these are things you’d learn anyway from repeated play. Also, having a team develops some fun and interesting strategies.

Five Color Hyakunin Isshu

Finally, if you still want the look and feel of competitive Karuta, but an easier version, you can look at Five Color Hyakunin Isshu. This way you can play a much smaller set of cards and warm up to the full competitive version. The catch is that it requires a custom set, or you will have to make your own by customizing a standard set.

Non-Hyakunin Isshu Karuta

If, like me, you somehow get a hold of a karuta set not featuring the Hyakunin Isshu poems (there are a surprising number in Japan), the games above will still work. Many karuta sets, regardless of theme, use the same basic format: two sets of cards for reading and taking. They are all meant to be read by someone, with other players finding the correct, corresponding card.

Conclusion

The game of Karuta at heart is just that : a game. It’s a great way to savor the poetry of the Hyakunin Isshu in a fun interactive way, and the more I explore it the more I realize that there are games to suit every player. If you purchase a set, you can try any number of games with friends or even by yourself. The most important thing is HAVE FUN! If poem 96 teaches us anything, it’s that life is short.

P.S. Speaking from experience, playing

1 Fun story, in summer of 2024, I was in Japan again briefly to visit my wife’s family, and found the famous Okuno Karuta store in Tokyo. I didn’t post about it as there wasn’t much to say (I didn’t find what I was looking for, tbh). I did see a tour group of elderly Japanese people come into the store in a single mass, and many of them bought karuta goods in one form or another before leaving again. So, it’s definitely a pasttime, but not quite the way I expected when I first learned about the game.

2 I don’t mean this lightly either. Some people definitely revel in competition, but I find such situations always make me intensely nervous, and uncomfortable, even when I win. Used to feel this way about Magic the Gathering competitions too. I thought maybe it was just me until I spoke to someone Japanese who also felt that way when playing competitive karuta. They just wanted to play casual games. That’s when I started to realize that there were different games for different crowds, but all of them celebrate the Hyakunin Isshu poetry in some way.

Similarly, some people want to play Pokemon TCG or Magic the Gathering at home with friends, rather than big competitions. Other people live for the thrill of competition. There’s enough room in the game for both types of players. I personally prefer Hyakunin Isshu karuta myself.

The Iroha Poem

y. One of the most famous poems across Japanese history and even contemporary culture is a poem called the Iroha. The name “iroha” comes from the first three letters of the poem “i”, “ro” and “ha”. What makes this poem famous is that it uses each hiragana syllable exactly once, and still makes an intelligible, not to mention lovely, poem.

Because of this, it was often used in pre-industrial Japan as a way to organize things. Theater rows would be organized by the order in the Iroha letters, and so were firefighter brigades in pre-modern Tokyo (a.k.a. Edo). Even modern karuta sets are organized by iroha order. I don’t mean the Hyakunin Isshu karuta that I often discuss in the blog, but more informal karuta games that kids often play. We have a few sets here at home, given to us by my in-laws for the grandkids. You can see a nice selection of Iroha karuta sets on the Okuno Karuta online store, too.a

Various karuta sets my in-laws in Japan sent us. The top one is my wife’s original Hyakunin Isshu she had from grade-school.

But I digress.

The Iroha poem’s author is unknown (more on that later), but it was originally composed in old Manyogana script, like other poems of the early Manyoshu anthology, then later in hiragana. It includes many old spellings, so it’s a bit hard to render in modern Japanese.

The poem is as follows:

ManyoganaModern JapaneseRomanizationTranslation1
以呂波耳本部止いろはにほへとI ro ha ni ho he toEven the blossoming flowers
千利奴流乎和加ちりぬるをわかchi ri nu ru o wa kawill eventually scatter
餘多連曽津祢那よたれそつねなyo ta re so tsu ne naWho in this world shall
良牟有為能於久らむうゐのおくra mu u i no o kuremain unchanged? Let us today2
耶万計不己衣天やまけふこえてya ma kyo (ke fu) ko e tecross the mountains of impermanence
阿佐伎喩女美之あさきゆめみしa sa ki yu me mi shiand no longer have superficial
恵比毛勢須ゑひもせすe hi mo se sudreams, nor be deluded
1 adapted translation from Wikipedia, plus a few modifications of my own
2 有為 (u i) meaning “viccisitudes of life” or the impermanence of all phenomena

This poem has strong Buddhist allusions to such concepts as samsara (“the aimless wandering lifetime after lifetime”), the delusions that bind us to this existence, awakening to these delusions (e.g. “enlightenment”), and finally nirvana (“unbinding”). The poem itself shows considerable familiarity with earlier Buddhist texts such as the Perfection of Wisdom sutras, including the Heart Sutra, as well.

But I digress. Again. 😅

There are some really interesting aspects of this poem that are worth sharing. First, authorship. Given the strongly Buddhist undertones of the poem, it’s often been attributed to a famous Buddhist monk named Kukai (a.k.a. Kobo Daishi) who was a talented poet and calligrapher. Another theory states that this poem may attributed to none other than the famous court poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, who composed poem 3 in the Hyakunin Isshu (あしびきの).

But things get even more interesting.

Scholars have noted that if you take the last syllable of each line (highlighted above for convenience) it spells another sentence: toka (ga) nakute shisu (咎[が]無くて死す) meaning “he/she died without fault or blemish”. Another theory, mentioned in my new book, points out that the 5th column spells out ho(n) wo tsu no ko me (本を津の小女), which could mean “deliver this book to my wife in the town of Tsu”, which if taken together with the 7th column implies that “I will die without blemish, please deliver this poem to my wife”.

So, is the poem a tribute to someone else? Perhaps Kukai or Hitomaro? If so, then who wrote it, and why? Was the poem a coded message to someone who was executed for political reasons? Or was the poem simply an attempt at word-play?

We will never know, but the impact of the Iroha on Japanese poem can still be easily seen today.

a Although things like Chihayafuru and this blog tend to emphasize the competitive karuta of the Hyakunin Isshu, in reality that’s only a small subset of karuta gaming culture. Most of it is much more informal stuff you play at home with family, much like board games in Western culture, and often times doesn’t even relate to the Hyakunin Isshu. Maybe I’ll post about it some time, but thanks to grandparents in Japan, we have 4-5 sets here ranging from such subjects as places in the city of Kamakura, old folks-sayings, Japanese fairy-tales, and just really basic words in Japanese. Most of these list the cards using iroha-order, and are not related to the Hyakunin Isshu. We’ve played them with our kids from time to time, and they’re much easier than competitive karuta, though it’s still assumed you know at least some basic Japanese.

Karuta Training through Nakama-Waké

As I wrote previously, I have been spending a lot of time trying find more effective training methods for myself and for new, foreign Karuta players because of the scarcity of resources. One website that has been particularly helpful in Japanese is Karuta Club, managed by the Meijin (master player) Kawase Masayoshi and his wife.

It’s a pretty nice site and has a ton of training and resources, though almost all of it is in Japanese. There is a nice English-language introduction that is worth reading.

But for this post I wanted to focus on one particularly helpful article. This teaches a method of memorization called nakama-waké.

The method seems a bit complicated upfront but really helps in those 15 minutes (or 30 seconds on the app) when you have to memorize the board, and uses knowledge you probably already know: the kimari-ji.

Let’s look at my kimari-ji chart here. You can see how the cards are group by first syllable : “ha” cards, “tsu” cards, “ki” cards, “wa” cards and so on.

Kawase’s article suggests that after you learn the kimari-ji, next invest time memorizing how many are in each group. If you look at the chart, there are only two cards in the “tsu” (つ) group, compared to seven in the “wa” (わ) group, or 16 in the “a” (あ) group. Some groups are very large, some are very small.

Let’s use the examples of the “ha” group. From the chart we can see that there are four cards that start with “ha” (は):

Kami no Ku
(upper verses)		Shimo nu Ku
(lower verses)		Poem No.
はなさそう あらしのにわの ゆきならでふりゆくものはわかみなりけり96
はなのいろは うつりにけりな いたずらにわかみよにふるなかめせしまに9
はるすぎて なつきにけらし しろたえのころもほすてふあまのかくやま2
はるのよの ゆめばかりなる たまくらにかひなくたたむなこそをしけれ67

If we remember that the “ha” group has 4 cards total, and when you are memorizing at the start of the match, you can determine which of the four are on the board. The rest can be safely ignored as kara-fuda (“empty cards”).

This separation of similar cards (“friends”) between the ones on the board and the ones that aren’t is why this is called nakama-waké (仲間わけ): “separating friends”.

Using the online karuta app, let’s demonstrate this. Here’s a game I played earlier, using default settings: 8 cards per side, only 30 seconds to memorize. The cards are all laid out, and my opponent (the computer) and I are memorizing.

Of the four “ha” cards, I can see two on the board, highlighted in purple. The two cards are “haruno” (はるの) on my side and “harusu” (はるす) on the opponent’s side. That means the other two in the group “hanano” (はなそ) and “hanasa” (はなさ) can be totally ignored if they are read aloud. That helps me avoid accidentally taking the wrong “ha” card and getting a penalty.

While we’re here, you might notice that both “shi” (し) cards are on the board, highlighted in green: “shira” (しら) and “shino” (しの). Even better they are on my side. That means I can just put group them together and simply listen for “shi” (し). Of course, the danger is that the opponent knows this too. Position matters.

Similarly, both cards of the “tsu” (つ) group are on the board too, highlighted in red. They are on opposite sides of the board though, so I still have to be careful to distinguish which is which when read. But it also means there are no “empty” tsu cards either.

Finally, of the seven unique “one syllable” cards, only one of them is on the board: “sa” (さ) which I’ve highlighted in blue. That means I can totally ignore the other six: “mu” (む), “su” (す), “me” (め), “fu” (ふ), “ho” (ほ) and “se” (せ) if they are read.

This may seem like more work upfront, and it does take time to get used to thinking like this, but it really helps in a couple ways:

  1. Your memorization process is more structured, less haphazard, and so you can memorize a full board of 50 cards more easily.
  2. Less risk of penalties because you’re only paying attention to the cards you know are on the board per group, and disregarding the rest.

If you’re relatively new to karuta and you find this process intimidating, you can focus on smaller, easier groups of cards for now: the one, two, and three card groups. With experience, and familiarity, you can then expand to larger, more difficult groups and even use this trick with the huge “a” group.

Five Color Hyakunin Isshu Update

Hello,

If you are learning to play karuta there are plenty of resources in Japanese language, but outside of that, there’s almost nothing. This is understandable since karuta has only very recently become known outside of Japan, but it still challenging for foreign players to develop good foundations. So, although I am a casual novice myself, I try to share what I find.

One training method used in Japan, especially for children learning to play in school, is the Five Color (go-shiki, 五色) Hyakunin Isshu method. This is a way of color-coding the 100 poems of the Hyakunin Isshu into five groups of 20, based on relative difficulty to learn. I have posted about it before but didn’t have a set to try out and demonstrate.

Since I was in Japan earlier this year with the family (visiting in-laws), I decided to get a boxed set for myself. They are hard to obtain outside of Japan, and I had to order directly from the Oishi Tengudo. My package soon arrived at my in-laws house,1 and later I brought them home and opened up the box.

The set is very nicely put together. It comes in separate boxes for the reading cards, yomifuda, and corresponding the cards you take, torifuda.

Torifuda cards on the left, and yomifuda cards on the right.

Because the Five Color Hyakunin Isshu is mostly geared for children (and not nerdy middle-aged foreigners 😅), the illustrations have a cute, cartooinish quality, and the hiragana script uses a very readable font. Notice that the card borders have colors too: yellow and red in the pictures above.

Something that surprised me was that the back of the torifuda cards, which are usually not seen during play, also show the first half of the Hyakunin Isshu poems, with the kimari-ji emphasized. This saves new players the hassle of having to go and look up what the kimari-ji are.

Poem 15 shown in yellow on the left, and poem 65 in red on the right.

Also, if you get a set like this, and you use a Karuta reader app to read only that color. Many reader apps have readings sets specifically for the Five Color Hyakunin Isshu, however, the Oishi Tengudo set divides its cards differently, and so the sets in karuta apps are not the same. You have to make your own custom sets like I did here.

So, does it work as a training method? Is it worth foreign players going to the effort to getting one of these sets?

I haven’t had a chance to field-test yet, especially with new karuta players, so I don’t know. Some foreign players online have derided the five-color method, and instead advocated other learning methods (more on those in later posts), but unfortunately I don’t have enough data to say which works. Since I have already self-learned karuta (more or less), I can’t really use myself as a test.

That said, the resources above are really nice, and since they’re geared for children, they provide a nice, gentle introduction to playing karuta. You do need to read hiragana script, but if you’re intending to play karuta, you need to know hiragana anyway. It is also one way to start with learning a smaller subnet of the 100 poems, with increasing difficulty as you move between colors.

I am eager to try this out the next time I meet with the local karuta club.

1 I also ordered a yomite card set for reading purposes. I’ve written about that in a previous post.