Unsun Karuta

Karuta (かるた, from Portuguese carta ["card"]) are Japanese playing cards. Playing cards were introduced to Japan by the Portuguese traders during the mid-16th century. These early decks were used for trick-taking games. Karuta packs are divided into two groups, those that are descended from Portuguese cards and those from e-awase.E-awase originally derived from kai-awase, which was played with shells but were converted to card format during the early 17th-century. It is said that the earliest indigenous karuta was first invented in the town of Miike in Chikugo Province at around the end of the 16th century. The Miike Karuta Memorial Hall located in Ōmuta, Fukuoka is the only municipal museum in Japan dedicated specifically to the history of karuta.Chinese playing cards of the money-suited and domino types existed in Japan from at least the late 18th century until the early 20th century. Their games would influence those played with the Hanafuda pack.

The basic idea of any E-awase karuta game is to be able to quickly determine which card out of an array of cards is required and then to grab the card before it is grabbed by an opponent. There are various types of cards which can be used to play karuta. It is also possible to play this game using two standard decks of playing cards.

The two types of E-awase karuta decks that are most often seen are the uta-garuta and iroha-karuta. In uta-garuta, players try to find the last two lines of a waka given the first three lines. It is often possible to identify a poem by its first one or two syllables. The poems for this game are taken from the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu and are traditionally played on New Year's Day.

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