Uta-garuta

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Uta-garuta is the most popular among the many kinds of karuta (card games) in Japan. It is played mostly on New Year's Day, and there are national conventions for uta-garuta.

How to play

The game of uta-garuta involves two types of cards.

one hundred cards with drawings (yomifuda)
one hundred cards with words (torifuda)

There are whole phrases of waka from the collection called Hyakunin Isshu written on the yomifuda. Only the lower phrase of the waka is written on the torifuda. When the reader reads out the waka on the yomifuda, the player quickly searches for the card among the torifuda to look for the phrase that matches the one that the reader is reading. This is the basic rule.

There are two ways to play this game.

Chirashidori

One reader, more than three players:

Mix up the hundred torifuda, and lay them out on the floor. Players sit around the cards.
The reader reads out the waka.
When you know the lower phrase by only hearing the upper phrase, you can take it.
If you don’t memorize the whole waka, then you have to wait until the reader reads out the lower phrase.
When someone takes the yomifuda, the reader moves on to the next waka.
When all the cards are read, the person who has taken the most cards wins the game.

Genpei Gassen

One reader, two players on each side

Divide the people into two groups. One is called the Genji side, and the other is called the Heike side.
Mix up the torifuda, and give fifty cards each to the sides.
Genji and Heike sit face to face. Lay out your own fifty cards in three lines, facing your own way.
The way to take the torifuda is same with Chirashidori.
You can take not only your side’s cards, but your opponent’s too.
When you take the opponent side’s cards, you give them one card from your side.
If you take the wrong card, your opponent will give you a card from his side.
The side which takes all of their side’s torifuda first wins the game.

The goal of the game is to memorize all one hundred waka. If you do, then you will be able to take the cards when the reader only reads the upper part of the waka.

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