The early history of playing cards is not well documented. They were often associated with vice. Many of the earliest references to playing cards were laws banning them, or someone getting in trouble for using them.

The origin of playing cards is attributed to China around the 9^th century. The first playing cards were games for drinking parties. The cards had poems that instructed players to do different acts to amuse the rest of the party.

Later, another kind of card game for gambling developed around the 12^th century. Money suited playing cards developed in parallel with paper money. Money cards have a familiar four suits of numbered cards and face cards with pictures of people. The suits are different groupings of coins and denominations. Chinese money cards are the likely ancestor of European playing cards. Mahjong is another descendant of money cards.

Portuguese “carta” playing cards were some of the first to arrive in Japan. Their introduction was probably not a single event. European trading ships regularly visited Japan from the mid-1500s, and Japanese ships were also trading with European outposts in southeast Asia.

The first playing cards produced in Japan were copies of Portuguese designs. The family of Japanese cards based on Portuguese designs are called “karuta,” which is a transliteration of “carta.” Early versions of Japanese karuta have dragons, which is specific to the Portuguese carta design. These Japanese domestically produced cards are called Tensho karuta because they were made in the Tensho era (1573-1592).

Later, unique Japanese variations began to appear. Unsun karuta is an early Japanese version of the Portuguese designs with expanded suits, and they incorporated additional cards featuring Japanese lucky gods and Chinese bureaucrats.

Another name for the cards was nanban karuta, or “southern barbarian cards.” Nanban is a borrowed Chinese word “nanman” 南蛮 for foreigners from the south. From the Chinese and Japanese perspective, Europeans in ships came from the south. Many Japanese things inspired by European contact during this time are given the title “nanban.” Tempura is an example of nanban-ryori, Japanese food using Spanish or Portuguese ingredients or preparation techniques.

The Portuguese had a particularly strong presence in Japan in the 1500s. The King of Portugal declared an exclusive monopoly on European trade with Japan in 1550. Portugal established permanent trading posts in Japan and priests traveled within Japan doing missionary work. Portuguese merchants and priests developed Nagasaki from a small fishing village into a city, and they were even allowed to administer Nagasaki under their own rules for a short time between 1580-1586. During this time, Japan began to have more exposure to exotic foreign objects and ideas, ranging from food to firearms. Card games were just one of many Portuguese introductions to Japan.

The evolution of Portuguese carta into hanafuda was driven by the changing social political environment of Japan. In the mid-1500s the Portuguese were attempting to establish colonies in China and southeast Asia. The Portuguese arrived in Japan during the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States Period, about 1450~1600). The first contact between Portuguese and Japanese was on Tanegashima island in 1543.

The Portuguese diplomats and merchants that followed the first contact took advantage of the chaotic Sengoku era. Different provinces were eager to get weapons technology and increase their wealth through international trade. The Portuguese played competing provincial lords against each other to gain favorable trade deals and land concessions. Nagasaki developed into one of the largest centers of trade and Christian conversion in Japan. Trade with Japan became extremely lucrative for the Portuguese.

From the Japanese perspective, the use of adapted European weapons technology enabled Lord Oda Nobunaga to gain a military advantage over his rivals and slowly consolidate power. Oda Nobunaga did not live to see the unification of Japan. The goal of unification was finally achieved later by an ally, Lord Tokugawa Ieyasu. Around 1600 Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated the last remaining competing faction and completed unifying the country under a single government. This was the beginning of the Edo period. This era is named for Tokugawa’s administrative capitol, Edo, which eventually became Tokyo.

Portuguese carta gained a foothold in Japan just before the doors to the outside world slammed shut. Nanban karuta, Japanese copies of carta, evolved into hanafuda partially in response to the changing attitude of the government toward card games.

Copies of foreign carta became contraband. Portuguese designs could be misinterpreted as Christian iconography and result in harsh punishments, like execution. Japanese domestic card designs responded by becoming more abstract. Cards were simplified to be purely functional.

One descendant are cards known as mekurifuda. Mekuri- means to “turn over,” and -fuda is the Japanese word for “card.” The name refers to the game play, where cards are picked and “turned over” from a drawing stack. Many different fishing style card games can be played with mekurifuda.

Another type of cards that evolved from karuta is kabufuda. These cards were stripped down to their essentials to play only one game, oicho-kabu. These cards have only one suit repeated four times. The game of Kabu probably got its name from the Portuguese slang word for wager “cavo.” Kabufuda means “kabu cards.”

Kabufuda are used for gambling. The game is similar to baccarat or blackjack. The term for gangster in Japan, “yakuza,” comes from the game oicho-kabu. Yakuza literally means “eight nine three” which refers to a losing hand in oicho-kabu. The term yakuza means “loser.” Very disrespectful.

It’s possible to play mekurifuda and kabufuda  games with hanafuda cards. However, mekurifuda and kabufuda do not look like hanafuda. The image design of hanafuda came from hana awase, which has different roots.

Later, a game called kai awase, or “matching clams” became popular with aristocrats. The game is played with clam shells painted on the inside with pictures and poems. Each clam shell is a unique physical match to its other half. The matched sets of shells have matching pictures, or contiguous parts of a famous poem written on the inside of each half. Players score points by matching the shells.

Kai awase sets can have hundreds of intricately hand painted shells stored in exquisitely decorated lacquer boxes. At times, it was exclusively reserved for the nobility and an essential wedding gift for high ranking marriages.

The imagery and structure of the suits of hanafuda is related to hana awase. Hana awase is a “flower matching” game from the early 1700s. It originally had as many as 400 hand painted cards, which made a hana awase set a luxury item. Because early hana awase are hand painted, the flowers and number of suits varies between different sets. The cards are arranged in suits of four cards. The suits each had paintings of the same flower and were ranked by how elaborately they were decorated. In each suit one card has a brightly colored background with a bird or person, one with a slip of paper called a tanzaku, and two plain cards with only flowers.

Sometime after the original hana awase sets appeared, someone had the idea to merge the hana awase and karuta cards to create hanafuda. Hanafuda means “flower cards.” hanafuda cards are a fusion of the hana awase images and karuta games.

The four suits of twelve cards in the karuta deck can be rearranged to create the twelve suits of four cards in the hanafuda deck. Hanafuda games can be played with karuta cards, and karuta games can be played with hanafuda cards. Hanafuda cards are versatile and adaptable to many different games. Hanafuda Hawaii Style is based on the Japanese game called sakura. The mechanics of this game is mostly an awase matching game. Although, there are some elements of the karuta games embedded in the gameplay.