I learned a neat little cultural facet from watching the historical drama about Lady Murasaki, but also from the anime Onmyoji.1 Since people in Heian-Period Japan did not have the technology to play Super Smash Brothers Ultimate,2 they passed the time in other ways.
One such pasttime, besides poetry contests and court music, was a neat little game originally called Kai-Ći (èČèŠă, “Shell hiding”), but came to be more commonly known as Kai-awase (èČćăă, “Shell matching”). Using shells from the common Meretrix lusoria or “Asiatic hard clam” (hamaguri in Japanese), the insides of the shells were painted so that both halves of the shell had the same picture. Then the shells would be put face down alongside many other similar shells for a matching game. In art, the game seems to be played mostly by women, and in later generations it was used as a wedding gift to upper-class brides.
The designs of shells started out fairly simple in the 11th and 12 centuries (i.e. the late Heian Period which we focus on so much here), but by the Edo Period, the designs were increasingly elaborate, and tended to hark back to the earlier period in history. Here’s a set of shells featuring scenes from Lady Murasaki’s novel The Tales of Genji:
This nice blog post below shows kids painting their own shells at the Toy Museum in Hyogo Prefecture:
The idea of a matching game is easy to find in many cultures, but the idea of painting the inside of shells, featuring scenes from a 12th century novel is awfully clever, and shows how the brilliance of the Heian Period culture still shines through even into modern times.
1 Onmyoji was pretty good, but I didn’t get very far. To be honest, I don’t watch anime very much. Even Chihayafuru; I only watched the first season.
2 Who would be the “main” for each poet in SSBU? My guess is:
- Lady Murasaki – Sephiroth (dark and brooding)
- Sei Shonagon – Samus
- Lady Izumi – Bayonetta or Zero-suit Samus
- Fujiwara no Teika – Metaknight (loyal to Gotoba-in)
- Ono no Komachi – Peach
- Ariwara no Narihira – Marth or Link (dashing guy)
- Gotoba-in – King Dedede
- Fujiwara no Mototoshi – Bowser (demanding)
- Kakinomoto no Hitomaro – Kirby
- KankĂ© – Dr Mario (scholarly guy)
As for me, I usually play “best dad” Chrom or his daughter Lucina. Byleth is fun to play sometimes, but kind of sluggish in the game.
P.S. I think I spent more time making this SSBU list than writing the rest of the post. đ€ŠđŒââïž
The Hyakunin Isshu 
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