Karuta – The game of 100 poems

Today I will talk about a card game called Karuta, a game that mixes poems, reading, listening, memorization, and agility. Karuta is usually taught to children in elementary school I and II during classes, as an educational activity. But it is also played among adults, where championships take place across the country.

The idea of the Karuta game is to quickly determine which card, among many, is the correct one and then grab it before your opponent. This allows for various decks and different ways to play Karuta.

In this article, we will talk about the classic, the competitive Karuta that uses a set of uta-garuta cards that includes 100 poems from “Ogura Hyakunin Isshu” created in the early 13th century by the poet Fujiwara no Teika.

About Karuta

To play traditional Karuta, you must have a basic knowledge of the Japanese language and be able to understand the poems. Karuta players must memorize the 100 poems in order to perform well in the game.

The game consists of 200 cards. 100 have the reading of the poem (Yomifuda), and the other 100 are the cards to be grabbed used in the game called Torifuda that must be shuffled and divided among the players.

The reading cards of the poem Yomifuda usually have a short poem known as tanka which has 5 lines totaling 31 syllables divided into lines of 5-7-5-7-7. The grabbing cards have the ending of the poem with the last 2 lines of 7 syllables or 14 hiragana.

Of the 100 Torifuda cards of the players, 50 are set aside in the game and 25 are distributed to each of the 2 players, who must organize them on both sides in 3 rows. Before starting, the players have 15 minutes to memorize the position of all the cards.

An audio recording or a person is responsible for reading the poems using the other 100 Yomifuda cards that have the entire poem written. An introductory poem is read first, and as soon as they start reading the poem from the card, the players must desperately touch the corresponding card to the poem being read.

If the poem that was read does not correspond to any of the cards in the game, it is a dead card. When an existing card in the game is read, the player must quickly touch that card before the opponent; whoever succeeds must remove that card from the game. If that card is in the opponent’s field, you must take one of their cards and send it to their field. When all the cards in your field are gone, it means victory.

The secret of the game is not only in memorizing the cards, listening to the poems, and being quick; even the way you shuffle your cards, or when you grab a card from the opponent’s field will have significant effects on the game. It will be normal for cards to fly across the scene, or for your hand to mess up the cards. The game has some other rules and fouls that can be seen below:

Otetsuki (Fouls)

• Touching the wrong card in the same territory as the correct card is not considered a foul. As a result, players can “sweep” the correct card and the nearby cards away from their territory;
• Touching the wrong card in the opponent’s territory where the card is results in a foul. The opponent can then pass one card from their territory to the other player;
• Touching a card when a dead card is read results in a foul;

Double Fouls

• If a player touches a card in the opponent’s territory and the opponent touches the correct card in the other player’s territory, a double foul has occurred. Penalty of two cards;
• If a player touches BOTH territories when a dead card is read, they have just generated a double foul;

The cards can be repositioned at any time during the game. However, doing this frequently is considered unsportsmanlike and a lack of sportsmanship.

There are seven poems that have unique syllables (Fu, Ho, Me, Mu, Sa, Se, Su) and 86 poems with three unique syllables. There are three cards that start with “Chi,” which are: “Chihayafuru,” “Chigirikina,” and “Chigiriokishi,” so the player must react as soon as he/she hears the decisive part of the poem, which is called kimariji. As a result, quick reasoning, good reaction time, and good speed are required.

Chihayafuru

To understand more about Karuta, there is a great anime, with 3 seasons and good reviews that shows the story of a girl named Chihaya who is addicted to Karuta. I recommend this anime even if you don’t like the game.

This is the kind of anime that grabs you from the first episode, has that touch of romance, and even though the sport may not seem appealing, it manages to engage those who watch the anime.

Learning Japanese with Karuta

Playing Karuta will enhance your Japanese, both in listening and reading, and will increase your agility and memorization. It will be a long challenge to memorize the 100 poems. Your eyes must be wide open during the game to visualize and grab the correct card. A traditional deck of Karuta is not expensive and can be found for 40 dollars on eBay.

Besides the Karuta of 100 poems, there are countless other ways to play Karuta. Searching for Karuta in your smartphone’s store, you will find apps focused on learning hiragana, kanji, and various others. Karuta has infinite possibilities; you can even invent a Karuta in Portuguese, since the game consists only of grabbing the card before your opponent.

You also do not need to follow the traditional rules of competitive Karuta. You can play with as many cards as you want, shuffle them however you like, and play with as many people as you want.

Thus, I encourage you to play this game, which is quite simple yet promises great challenges and fun. To finish, I will leave a short video showing a game of Karuta held right here in Brazil:

Join their YouTube channel to know details about how to play Karuta here in Brazil; there you will find the Facebook page and the website with some tips and tricks of the game.