Offensive Karuta

“Offensive Karuta” is a style of karuta focused on taking cards from the opponent sides. It is used by many players, and has various advantages/disadvantages.

Advantages:

• can be easier to control the flow of the game if you successfully attack
• are able to “get rid” of cards you don’t want, send cards that make it more difficult for the opponent to defend their own cards, or send cards that you are strong at to try and gain further momentum/make it easier to attack the opponent’s side
• can gain a mental advantage by making the opponent feel attacked
• after attacking, it can feel easier to defend your own side

Disadvantages:

• it can be hard to attack if you are down a lot of cards
• it can be hard to attack if the opponent has a difficult layout to memorize or attack on
• it can be hard to attack if the opponent is better at memorization than you and reorders their cards a bunch
• if the opponent’s cards are not read, you may be attacked first and feel that it is hard to gain momentum

Though this is anecdotal, from what I see/hear, offensive karuta appears to be the favored type of karuta these days. It can be seen as “flashier” and “more exciting”, in part because attacking motions can be more exaggerated than defensive motions. It also inherently gives you an “advantage” in that you choose which card to remove from your side, as opposed to having no control over what cards are on your side or not (as with defensive karuta).