All aboard the Hanafuda Railroad

[kainhai]

Wow in all the years I’ve been playing hwatu, I had no idea there were custom decks! Super cool

[GandalfPC]

Girls und Panzer Finale Project Hanafuda

An anime franchise as I understand it, this deck seemed less promising than most but was cheap and I was curious…. In the end I was right regarding its promise as it appears at this stage of the war they were down to one plane and one tank and most of their teddy bears had sustained injury. The 4th edition of Girls und Panzers appears to be the deck to go for in this series (though I have not spotted one at anything near a reasonable price)

[GandalfPC]

Kantai Collection KanColle Navy Hanafuda

This deck was sold in 4 season sets - which is about all I know about it - figured the tank girls could use some backup…

[GandalfPC]

Golden Pig Hwatu

A fun find on Amazon…. Solid quality, standard back texture, which is nice.

[GandalfPC]

One of the old decks I had printed over at MPC that has been awaiting pics…. Beautifully hand painted - they don’t make them like that anymore - and a very playable deck with easily recognizable seasons…

[GandalfPC]

The last deck done at MPC - this one could benefit from some gold ink or foil as the originals featured quite a bit.

It’s a playable deck, though a few of the tens take a close eye to discern.

This one was done with a thin border - I have a different deck ready to print with a thick border next which allows for some easier alignment and more even looking borders for varying aspect ratios.

[GandalfPC]

Here is the December season for the next deck to be printed - it wasn’t until I reached December prepping the images that I saw that the card scans were missing the right edge of that season, but liking the deck enough to live with it I did a bit of a color fill using one of the background colors from each and will let it ride…

Also did a bit of rebuild on the round season marks in the upper right for these - which thankfully helps the overall look by sticking into the missing area.

Most of the red border is outside the cut line - these use a thicker border, but its not that thick


I won’t bother showing the rest of the seasons at this time, might as well wait until the cards arrive from MPC and let them make a proper debut (though you can see February on the previous page : viewtopic.php?p=221779#p221779)

[Eric Lee]

Dang, those are some beautiful decks! Really love the top one. You planning on opening your own Etsy store to sell those decks or take pre-orders?

[GandalfPC]

We can always get a group order going to get the price per deck down, but no intention to sell them anywhere. I never heard back from MPC regarding setting up the decks to allow other people to print them - will see if I can figure it out this time around (otherwise I’ll just upload the image sets somewhere)

[wingedpotato]

I would be interested in at least 2 of the decks you've printed (maybe three) if the price was right, so put me down as a tentative group buy.

[GandalfPC]

I figure it should be easy enough to get the first price break at 6 decks - doubt we get enough interest to make the next, so about 12.50 a deck not including shipping is most likely - if we did several decks at once, spread the shipping about - figure 15 bucks a deck in the end at best

They cost a bit over 20 each when printing up just a pair (including shipping from MPC)

[GandalfPC]

Yokai Hanafuda Set by Shishido Creative


Card stock is somewhat like MPC thick tarot stock - nothing special there - but the artwork carries the day…

[GandalfPC]

Shoten Hanafuda

High quality PVC set

“Shōten (笑点) is a Japanese TV comedy program that has been continuously broadcast on Sunday evenings on Nippon TV since 15 May 1966, making it the second-longest running variety TV show in Japan.”

[wingedpotato]

I really like the Yokai set, even though some Yokai really creep me out.

[GandalfPC]

A few nifty bits arrived from Japan today - will get them unboxed shortly….

One item of particular interest is this Nintendo President set as I haven’t been able to find a match for the markings on the side yet. Figuring they are most likely some variety of Kabufuda or Mekuri. They have a tax stamp dating them to 1946.

[Eric Lee]

Is there a story behind why they use Napolean's pic as the branding for the President set? That's just so odd coming from a Japanese company.

[GandalfPC]

The development of France-Japan relations in the 19th century coincided with Japan's opening to the Western world, following two centuries of seclusion under the "Sakoku" system and France's expansionist policy in Asia. The two countries became very important partners from the second half of the 19th century in the military, economic, legal and artistic fields.

And a research article on their liking Napoleon specifically (which states why “From 1812 to today, Napoleon remains the most famous Frenchman in Japan.”):

http://www.gis-reseau-asie.org/index.ph ... -1800-1900

[GandalfPC]

Looking out the left window of the train, before reaching the unboxing of the above Nintendo Presidents…


Moretsu Ataro Hanafuda by Bandai 1990

Another nice find - cards are medium sized and stock seems close to South Korean Hwatu cards with smooth backs. Comes with a playmat and instructions in Japanese, along with plastic score tokens.

From the Wikipedia page for Moretsu Atari: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mōretsu_Atarō

“Mōretsu Atarō (もーれつア太郎, "Fierce Atarō") is a Japanese comedy manga series written by Fujio Akatsuka. It was serialized from 1967 to 1970 in Weekly Shōnen Sunday. Two anime television adaptations were produced by Toei Doga (now known as Toei Animation)”

“The plot revolves around a young edokko named Atarō who lives with his father X-gorō (read as Batsu-gorō) in downtown Tokyo running the family store. After his father's sudden death, Atarō must take care of the store himself and, along with the help of his father's ghost, his friend Dekoppachi, former yakuza leader Butamatsu, and a nutty alley cat named Nyarome, he protects it from the tanuki-faced gang leader Kokoro Boss.“

[GandalfPC]

Nintendo President 1946

This is a Ten Season or “Bug” set, consisting of 40 cards rather than the standard 12 season 48 card decks.

From BoardGameGeek: "insect" or "bug" hanafuda packs. These are packs lacking two suits (i.e. eight cards) and are used for playing a game called mushi (aka "honeymoon hanafuda").

A pleasant surprise - had hoped to get a set old enough to break past the “made by machine” stuff from Nintendo and here it is - paper is different (both front and wrapping paper) and it screams made by hand.

I found this set on the Japanese Playing Card Museum site - pictures at bottom of this post - they confirm the set is hand colored and I am quite sure they are woodblock printed as well from close examination of the variations in the black lines.

Modern ones try to look hand colored by offsetting the colors (coloring outside the lines), but all decks are identical - each hand colored deck is individual with varying offsets and amounts of ink applied.

The paper has a marvelous handmade texture as well - nothing like the modern cards, and some nice older artwork as well. I have included some comparison shots with presidents made a decade or more later…

Set from Japanese Playing Card Museum:

[GandalfPC]

Disney Hanafuda by Angel

There is also a version of this set in “full size” (poker size) which I am not interested in at the moment - this is the hanafuda size set.

Standard hanger box cardboard cards - box itself is quite nice, as is the artwork - would have been nice if the cards were PVC. Certainly these cards wouldn’t hold up to kids playing with them roughly.

[GandalfPC]

Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba Hanafuda

According to the Wiki: “A twenty-six episode anime television series adaptation produced by Ufotable aired in Japan from April to September 2019. A sequel film, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train, was released in October 2020 and became the highest-grossing anime film and Japanese film of all time.“

This set comes spread across a set of 11 DVD’s (one contains 2 sets of cards) with the box as a bonus with the full set. The cards are attached in groups of four and need to be broken apart - made of cardboard best I can tell, around hanger box quality if you don’t count the little nibs left after breaking the cards apart.

They are of unusual size as well, a hair skinnier and a fair bit taller than standard…

Size compared to normal hanafuda:

[wingedpotato]

My daughter cosplays Demon Slayer:

[GandalfPC]

Finally scored a copy of…

Modern Art Hanafuda

Been looking for this one since wingedpotato showed it on page 3 of the railroad

Tarot sized, making them the largest I have seen or heard of. Quality card stock and finish, thinner than thick but thick enough - seems like they will hold up well to play.

12 extra cards show the layout of the seasons with scoring info - instruction book as well.

[jhindenberg]

Great thread, I thought I'd pitch in with two thoughts about some recent topics:

I believe that some of the specific elements of the differing artwork on the mushibana reflects that this was something of a mildly distinct regional pattern in its own right. For example, Tamura Shogundo's mushibana exhibits similar differences when compared to their standard 88 pattern.

Also, in addition to the specific popularity of Napoleon and the general enthusiasm for westernization and militarization in Meiji-era Japan, I have gotten the impression that the early trademark and popularity of Tamada Fukushodo's (later 'Nihon Karuta') 'Daitaicho' (battalion commander) branding may have had some effect leading on to many Japanese card makers having brands with figures in western military attire.

[wingedpotato]

So glad you tracked down a copy, GPC! There is certainly nothing else like it out there.

[GandalfPC]

While on the prowl for more decks I came across these and snapped them up - they sit patiently with a few other goodies awaiting consolidated shipment from Japan:

[GandalfPC]

The hanafuda medals set arrived, they are thick and heavy, appear to be enamel inlay, which is all the info I will likely ever have on them…

[GandalfPC]

金瓠 (kinhyō ‘gold gourd’) by Dai Nippon

Comparison between the red and back decks shows them to be hand colored - which is nice

One thing that is apparent from the hand wrapping is that they are not made by the expert hands that higher end decks are, which is also apparent by the missing card in the black deck - I had wondered why one deck was shorter than the other - never seen that happen before. Luckily these decks include a blank card to fill the void…

[GandalfPC]

Latest find from Japan - will take a little while to get here - ACE Golden chicken Kurohana Set

[hsbc]

The other day I played a game of koi koi, here's a black Nintendo Tengu deck in action