The History of Karuta's Card
The transition of Kyogi karuta cards
The History of Karuta's Card >> The transition of Kyogi karuta cards

The appearance of Official Karuta

Standard Revised Official Karuta

Standard Revised Official Karuta

 

Standard Revised Official Karuta

Difference between standard and official sizes

 

Standard Revised Official Karuta

On the back of the card is a design of birds
called "Miyakodori"

Standard Revised Official Karuta

In 1925, "Standard Revised Official Karuta" (with the mark of the bird on the back of the card), which was greatly revised by Hideo Kuroiwa, son of Ruiko Kuroiwa (who died in 1920), was released by Tokyo Zuan Printing.

"Instruction Manual for Official Karuta"

Also, Karuta cards appeared in magazine appendix*. Hyakunin Isshu Karuta cards had spread throughout Japan. At that time, in addition to cards for Kyogi karuta, many Karuta distributor produced and sold cards called "practice Karuta cards". Each of the karuta distributor had their own "Teihon" that they relied on. Therefore, the notation was different from that of the cards for Kyogi karuta.

*There is no record of the circulation of the New Year issue of the magazine "Shojo no Tomo" in 1934. However, based on the records of "Shoujo Club," a rival magazine at the time, it probably had a circulation of about 300,000.

Appendix of the New Year issue of the magazine 'Shojo no Tomo'

Appendix of the New Year issue
of the magazine "Shojo no Tomo" in 1934

Karuta in time of war

Misu-gakure karuta

Misu-gakure karuta

 

Aikoku Hyakunin Isshu

Aikoku Hyakunin Isshu

In 1941, it is said that the so-called "Misu-gakure karuta", in which the pictures of the emperor and the imperial family are hidden by a blind, was recommended on the grounds that "it is disrespectful to play with the emperor and the imperial family depicted in the Hyakunin Isshu.

 

Furthermore, after 1942, competition karuta was refrained from because of the many love poems in Hyakunin Isshu.
Instead, they used the "Aikoku Hyakunin Isshu(One Hundred Poems of Patriotism)," which was recommended by the government, and barely continued to compete.

 

When the Kempeitai(the military police) learned that there were Ogura Hyakunin Isshu enthusiasts groups all over Japan, the groups were strongly criticized, saying, "What is the matter with playing with love poems at a time of national emergency? "
Our association had no choice but to think it over, and after much deliberation, we brought the " Aikoku Hyakunin Isshu (selected by the Japan Literature Association for the sake of the nation and approved by the Information Bureau) " to the Kempeitai and submitted it to them with trepidation. Then the Kempeitai were very pleased and told us to spread it around a lot.

The History of Karuta and How to Play

With the encouragement of the Kempeitai our association held the "First Aikoku Hyakunin Isshu Tournament" at the Kashihara Shrine. However, the venue was later destroyed by fire and the players dispersed. For a while, there was no one to look back on the Kogi karuta.

From "The History of Karuta and How to Play"
Written by Hidefumi Ito

Revival of Kyogi karuta

After World War II, the activities of karuta associations began to resume in many places.

And although the exact timing is unknown, Kyogi karuta cards were manufactured by two karuta dealers, "Seibunkan" in Kanto and "Oishi Tengu-do" in Kansai.
The Karuta cards produced by Seibunkan used the same notation as the revised "Kotei-karuta(Standard Revised Official Karuta )". On the other hand, Oishi Tengu-do used the same notation as the "Teihon" created by Mr. Naojiro Nishida, the president of the West Japan Karuta Federation, and his group.

 

In 1946, following a notice from the National Language Council, "Shinsei Karuta" was devised using "Modern kana zukai" and published by Tokyo Zuan Shikohin Co. There were some twists and turns after that, but the karuta cards used in "Kyogi karuta" returned to the traditional Hyakunin- Isshu karuta cards with historical kana notation.

Korin Karuta(Oishi Tengu-do)

made by Kawade Kosan & Oishi Tengu-do

 

Later, Seibunkan (with a pattern of maple on both the front and back of the box, and a staggered pattern on the sides of the box) went out of business, and the Seibunkan business was taken over by Kawade Kosan (with the same specifications as Seibunkan for the box, and a plain back of the card). The Karuta cards produced by Kawade Kosan, perhaps due to the influence of their own "Teihon", had notations that differed from Kotei-karuta in many places.

 

However, Kawade Kosan also went out of business later. Therefore, in order to meet the demands of many karuta players, Oishi Tengu-do started to manufacture and sell cards for Kyogi karuta according to the traditional official karuta notation. Karuta cards manufactured before that or for purposes other than "Kyogi karuta" are written according to the "Teihon", so some Karuta cards are written differently from "Kotei-karuta".

JP
EN
CONTENTS
In 1925, the "Standard Revised Official Karuta" was created to standardize "karuta cards". The following article is an explanation of why standardization was necessary, which was published in the annexed instruction manual of that karuta card.

 

Reasons for revising the Kyogi karuta card

To be fair in the competition, the letters on the Karuta cards must be exactly the same on all cards. Until now, the Karuta cards have been used in a mixture of types that use normal typefaces and types that use "hentai-gana". It was an unfair situation in the competition.

The revised competitive the Karuta cards are based on the standard "Hiragana typeface", and the original version is produced using characters using a brush. In the revised version, the text is slightly larger and bolder than the previous version, making the cards easier for competitors to read and take.

The reason why the backing paper of the card is green is to make the existence of the card clear and to reduce irritation to the eyes. We have also thoroughly studied the original text of the "tanka" (poem) to ensure that there are no errors in notation. This is how we created our club's "Kotei-karuta(Official Karuta cards)".

This is not to say that this Karuta card is perfect. However, it is at least better than the various Karuta cards that have been used in the past.

September 1925 <Tokyo Karuta Kai>

 

Features of the "Kotei-karuta" (Standard Revised Official Karuta)

Make the lyrics accurate

In the past, there have been quite a few errors in the reading of the lyrics and the names of the poets on the "Karuta cards". In this "Karuta card", all those errors have been corrected.
All "kanji" characters in the "Yomifuda(Reading cards)" are marked with "furigana".
In addition, we have made it easier to understand the reading by adding a diacritic mark to the letters that have a voiced sound.

Make the reading cards easier to read

The text displaying the poet's name is smaller than the text in the poem section, making it easier to read the text in the poem section.

We lowered the "Shimonoku" (the last two lines of the poem) by two characters from the "Kaminoku" (the first two lines of the poem). This makes the distinction between the " Shimonoku " and the " Kaminoku " clear.

Make it easy to pick up the "Torifuda"

Characters such as which were previously used as "hiragana" characters, have been unified as "か", "は", and "ゆ". In addition, the "hiragana" character "む," which was previously written as "ん," has been unified.
The font is slightly larger and thicker to make it easier for competitors to read the text on the cards during the competition.

Being elegant

The size of the top and bottom of the card is larger than that of conventional karuta cards, and the color of the edge is green.
On the backing paper of the cards, we put a pattern of the letters of karuta on the bird of Tokyo so that people can imagine "Tokyo Karuta Kai".
The typeface for the cards has been changed from the traditional typeface to a special typeface for this Karuta cards, based on characters written by a calligraphy master.

Being robust

Both the backing paper and the core paper of the cards are made of a special product specially designed for "Kotei-karuta" in cooperation with a paper company. Also, the karuta card packaging is so robust that it will never be broken until the Karuta cards are damaged and can no longer be used.

 

Distributed by Tokyo Zuan Printing Co.

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