"Hanafuda are Japanese playing cards. The
name means "flower cards." They're printed on tiny
pasteboards, about 2-1/2 inches by 1 inch. They have suites with
things like the moon, plum
blossoms, bush clover, and pine
trees. Some of the card designs are quite beautiful, with things
like deer in a maple forest, birds
flying across a full moon, or irises
in the rain. 
We played a game called koi-koi, which is a simple matching game. You
pick up cards on the table by matching them to cards of the same
suite in your hand. You try to get the highest scoring cards, and
simple design changes on the cards, like a colored ribbon as part of
the design, indicate the value of cards. It's mostly luck, or at
least that's what I told myself as Mariko wiped me out in short
order. If I had won, then I would have opined that koi-koi is a game
of skill, of course."
- Ken Tanaka, from The Toyotomi Blades
Viewed as "typically" Japanese,
Hanafuda cards were actually introduced by the Spanish in the 1500's
(just as the "typical" Japanese dish, Tempura, was actually
introduced by the Portuguese!). Just as with Western cards, a variety
of games can be played with the cards. To shuffle them, you place
them face down on a table or floor and scramble them around, although
a skilled player can also shuffle them in his or her hands, as with
Western playing cards. Although Western card games like Poker and
Bridge are very popular in Japan, almost any Japanese and most
Japanese Americans can identify hanafuda cards, even if they don't
know how to play a game with them. 
The pages of this web site use hanafuda cards as a design motif.