Characters and creatures from the anime masterpiece step into the world of Japan’s traditional card game.

Hanafuda, once you break it down into its linguistic parts, is a fairly straightforward term. Hana is Japanese for “flower,” and fuda means “cards,” so hanafuda are playing cards with pictures of flowers on them.

There are a total of 48 cards in the deck, divided up into 12 groups of four, each representing a month of the year and bearing illustrations of flowers or other plant life associated with that time of the year. But in addition to seasonal flora, the hanafuda we’re looking at today also feature the cast of characters and creatures from Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away.

The original hanafuda artwork needs to still be easily visible, since the type of flowers and other aspects of the design relate to which cards form sets with each other and how many points they’re worth. Because of that, the additional Ghibli elements are incorporated such that they blend into the traditional designs without stealing too much of the spotlight, such as Haku in dragon form flying past the full moon above a field of susuki (pampas grass), soot sprites frolicking among sakura (cherry blossoms)…

…Ootori hanging out in the boughs of an ume (plum blossom) tree…

…or mouse-form Boh alliteratively admiring a botan (peony).

Like with Western playing cards, there are a number of games that can be played with hanafuda, and basic rule explanations are pretty easy to find online. Even if you’re not in the middle of a game, though, the cards themselves are beautiful to look at, especially with this set’s mix of classical and modern Japanese aesthetics.

Hanafuda are also thicker and stiffer than Western-playing cards, making them better suited to decorative display.

The Spirited Away hanafuda deck is being offered by Ghibli specialty shop Donguri Kyowakoku through its online store here, priced at 3,850 yen (US$25). And if you’d rather add some Ghibli style to your games of Uno or karuta, there are ways to do those too.

Source, images: Donguri Kyowakoku
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