Hyakunin Isshu Karuta

How to play karuta (Hyakunin Isshu)

• Twenty grabbing cards lie on the table. Each shows the second half (the last two lines) of a poem. Press Start and the poems are read out one syllable at a time in the band above the cards. Turn on Voice to hear them in Japanese as well.
• Tap the card of the poem being read before the CPU does. Tap a wrong card and it’s a fault: you can’t take that poem any more. If nobody takes a card, it lights up to show you.
• After each poem you see its number, the poet, both halves of the poem and its kimariji. When all the poems have been read, whoever took more cards wins. Solo has no opponent and measures how fast you tap after the kimariji, which makes it good for practice.
• Choose Friends to make a link. Send it and 2 to 4 of you grab from the same table, each on your own phone or computer. No sign-up.
• Pick an opponent (Solo, Easy, Normal or Hard) and a card set: Poems 1–20 through 81–100, the five-color sets of 20, a random 20 of all 100, or the 7 one-syllable poems. The Review after each game lists the poems you lost, missed or faulted on, and once five weak cards build up you can play just those.

Romaji or kana cards

Real karuta cards are written in hiragana, in classical spelling. Here the cards start in romaji so you can play right away: the reading band, the kimariji and the review are in romaji too. Press Romaji in the heading to switch to the real hiragana cards (vertical, right to left) whenever you like, even in the middle of a reading. The romaji follows the modern pronunciation that readers actually use, with no long-vowel marks, so each letter group matches one kana.

What is kimariji?

The kimariji (“deciding syllables”) are the first syllables of a poem’s opening half that no other poem shares. Hear them and you already know which card to take. For example, poem 7, ama no hara, is decided by “amano”: three syllables. Seven poems are decided by a single syllable: mu, su, me, fu, sa, ho and se. Most people learn those first.

About the Hyakunin Isshu

The Ogura Hyakunin Isshu is an anthology of 100 Japanese poems (waka) by 100 poets, one poem each, traditionally said to have been compiled by Fujiwara no Teika in the 13th century. Playing karuta with these poems is a New Year tradition in Japan, and the competitive version, kyogi karuta, has national tournaments and became known worldwide through the manga and anime Chihayafuru. In competitive karuta the reader recites the whole poem, and players grab the card showing its second half as early as the kimariji allows.

Tips for learning the cards

• Learn 20 at a time: play Poems 1–20 over and over before moving on, and the kimariji and the cards will start to connect on their own. Starting with the 7 one-syllable poems is a good first step.
• Use the five-color sets: Blue through Orange are the sets of 20 used in Japanese schools (goshiki hyakunin isshu), and the cards get a border in that color so you always know which set you’re on.
• Practice your weak cards: poems you lost, missed or faulted on are remembered on this device, so you can replay just those.
• Try Today’s 20: every day a different 20 poems, the same cards in the same order for everyone, so you can compare times with friends.