Playing Cards

A pack of playing cards called Iroha Karuta intended for children to learn Japanese characters called hiragana. There are 96 cards in total. 48 have images and a kana character in the corner and 48 cards have a poem or proverb that starts with the same hiragana character as the cards with images. The game consists of a player reading the proverb and the other players needing to find the card with the corresponding character. The image cards are missing こ ko and have a duplicate of ろ ro. The proverb cards are missing あ a, and has an extra card with katakana on it. This set includes two kana no longer in use, wi (ゐ) and we (ゑ) as well as card for kyo (京). The order of the cards is based on a poem from the Heian period that uses every kana character only once thus making it a pangram. The poem is:

いろはにほへと

ちりぬるを

わかよたれそ

つねならむ

うゐのおくやま

けふこえて

あさきゆめみし

ゑひもせすん