Intro
Introduction:
Karuta, specifically Competitive Karuta, is a traditional Japanese card game and sport that involves memorization, strategy, reflexes, speed, and more.
In a typical game of Competitive Karuta, 50 cards from a set of 100 are placed onto a playing field, with 25 cards for each of the 2 players, and each card having an associated poem.
A 3rd party known as the “reader” will recite poems from the set of 100 cards/poems in a random order, while the 2 competitors attempt to remove the cards that are read from the playing field. When 1 player is left without any cards on their side of the playing field, that player is the victor.
Cards can be tapped or swiped off the playing field, and the amazing speed at which cards can be taken is one of the highlights of the sport. Of course, this is just the basic idea behind the game, but if it sounds interesting, you’re in the right place!
Note that Competitive Karuta is just one “form” of Karuta, with others such as Iroha Karuta also existing. Competitive Karuta uses “uta-garuta” (essentially Karuta with poetry on them; “Karuta” can refer to both the playing cards and the game itself), with the standard collection of poems used in Competitive Karuta being the “Hyakunin Isshu”.
Competitive Karuta using the Hyakunin Isshu is the focus of this site, and will henceforth be referenced as just “karuta” for convenience.
Also, please note that this is not an official karuta website and that we encourage you to do your own research to learn more about karuta and its history, which you can get started on using the links below if you wish:
General Links:
“What is Karuta” – http://karuta.game.coocan.jp/karuta-e.html, https://www.tofugu.com/japan/karuta-japanese-cards/, https://www.quora.com/What-is-karuta
“How to Play Karuta” – https://www.wikihow.com/Play-Karuta
“Karuta Project” – https://www.japan21.org/karuta-project/about-karuta/
Wikipedia Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karuta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_karuta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uta-garuta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogura_Hyakunin_Isshu
About this site:
The purpose of this site is to be a consolidation of resources to not only help learn about karuta, but also perhaps even get better at the game, in part because while there are a lot of resources already out there, finding them, understanding them, and deciding what to do with them may be unclear and daunting for newcomers to the game.
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