The origin of the game Karuta’s name is “Cartão”, the Portuguese word for “Card”, and entered the Japanese vocabulary with the arrival of the Portuguese in Japan in the Muromachi period.
In Japan, a game using shellfish shells with pictures and poems written on the back was popular with the upper class of the period. The game of Karuta is believed to come from the combination of playing cards and this game of guessing matching pairs of shells.
Games of Karuta are often enjoyed on occasions like New Years, when family gets together. This is because Karuta is a game that both adults and children can enjoy playing together.
There is a wide variety of types of modern Karuta.
Some use Japanese proverbs or customs, while others are just collections of silly puns.
Now, allow me to introduce how Karuta is played.
In Karuta, there are letter cards and picture cards.
The picture cards are spread out on the floor face up, and a reader reads the letter cards, then players look for the matching picture card and touch it with their hand. It is a simple game where the first person who touches the card gets it, and the player with the most cards wins.
In this race to see who gets the card first, the winner will be decided before the reader has finished reading the description. Veteran players will get cards just from the first few letters from the reader.
There are some strong players who can take a card the moment the first letter is uttered. They predict the first letter from the way the reader’s mouth moves, and once the sound is out and they have confirmed it, they swoop down to claim a card with their hands.
However, if their prediction is wrong and they touch the wrong card, they receive “otetsuki”, a penalty where they must sit out the next round.
When things get so heated that it is hard to say who touched the card first, it can cause a fight. If the reader can’t determine who was right or wrong, then its time to use rock-paper-scissors to decide who will get the card.
Will the fun event end in excitement or a sullen, angry mood?
That is one of the dangers of Karuta.