Japanese Card Games for Kids

Although it may appear that most Japanese card games for kids require some basic intellect of literature, some simply require a kid's desire to have fun.

Karuta

Karuta is one of the most popular Japanese card games--mostly played by children but also played by adults. The game gets its name from the Portuguese word for card--carta. The basic premise is testing one's knowledge and speed by quickly selecting a card before your opponent from an array of cards that completes or is related to a given topic such as a poem or proverb. There are several versions of Karuta that are often played, but Uta-Garuta (Poem Karuta)--which uses a well-known collection of poems called Hyakuin Isshu (100 Poets 1 Poem)--is among the most popular. The game consists of 100 cards on which the 100 poems are written. The first three lines of a poem are read aloud, and players must quickly grab the last three lines of the poem before their opponent.

Hanafuda is similar to Karuta but with "flower cards." It consists of a deck of 48 cards divided into 12 suits of cards with flowers that represent the 12 months of the year. The goal is to collect cards matching months to obtain the most points.

Dai fu gou (very rich person), also called dai hin min (very poor person), is played with a 52-card deck. In this game the first person to get rid all of his cards successfully by playing stronger cards than his opponent becomes the rich person. And the last person who is unable to get rid of all her cards becomes the poor person.

Menko is a game consisting of cards of various sizes and thickness. The goal of the game is to obtain the most cards by slamming your card down with enough force that it will overturn your opponent's card.

Buta no shippo literately translates as "pig's tail' and is the title for this card game in which the cards are arranged in a circle or ring, referred to as the pig's tail. All players first place their hands on the outside of the ring and then place their hands back inside the ring to take a card from the tail. If that card is an attack card, all the other players place their hands on that card as fast as possible. The player with the hand on top has to take all the cards. The loser is the player with the most cards.

The goal of 2 10 Jack is to gain the most points. It's a card game for two players and points are gained or lost depending which player ends up with the three highest-scoring cards (2 and 10) or lowest-scoring cards (jack).