Deck description

A regional hanafuda pattern from the northeastern part of Tokushima prefecture, slightly modified for Koi-koi gameplay purposes. This pattern features beautiful, large illustrations of animals, flowers, and other designs, printed clearly with thick, solid lines. Most cards have the month number printed inside a circle, while other month numbers were printed on the tanzaku strips. Japanese poems were mostly removed, leaving only an abridged version of the Pine tree poem on the January chaff cards, and the full "Musashino" poem on the August chaff cards. Typically, the two highest scoring cards of each suit are striped with gold paint, or stamped with a gold ink pattern, allowing them to be distinguished easily from the chaff cards. Hidden Lore The Rebellious "Rain Man": The November Light card depicts calligrapher Ono no Michikaze, who learned persistence from a frog leaping for a willow branch. The Phoenix Ring: The December Light card has a gold ring around the head of the Phoenix stamped on it. This gold ring represents the planet Venus, whose Japanese name literally translates to "Gold Star", and is one of the original 3 brights in the early days of hanafuda, along with the Sun (January Light card) and the Full Moon (August Light Card).