Hanafuda for shogi players: the 48-card deck, koi-koi in one paragraph, and how to get a deck from J

Off-topic, but close to home for anyone who likes Japanese board games: hanafuda (花札, "flower cards"). A lot of people first meet it through Nintendo history or an anime scene and then can't find a clear explanation of how it actually plays, so here is the short version.

The deck

48 cards, 12 months x 4 cards. Each month is a plant instead of a number or suit: pine for January, cherry for March, pampas grass and the full moon for August, maple for October, paulownia for December. Every card has a type and a point value: 5 brights (20 points), 9 animal/object cards (10), 10 ribbons (5) and 24 plain cards (1). Those counts come from Nintendo's own points table, which is still published on its Japanese site.

Koi-koi in one paragraph

Two players. 8 cards face up on the table, 8 face down to each player. On your turn you match a card from your hand to a table card of the same month, then flip one from the draw pile and try to match that too. You collect sets called yaku (役): Five Brights is the top one at 10 points, and the red poem ribbons plus the blue ribbons together are also 10. When you make a yaku you choose to stop and score, or call "koi-koi" and keep going for more, at the risk of your opponent scoring first. In Nintendo's rules a match is 12 rounds and a hand worth 7+ points doubles. The stop-or-push decision is where the game lives; it scratches a different itch from shogi, and it's quick between longer games.

A bit of history that surprises people

Nintendo started in Kyoto in 1889 as a hanafuda maker and still sells hanafuda decks today (the Daitoryo deck is the classic). Kyoto's Ohishi Tengudo is the other big name. Standard cards are small and stiff, about 54 x 33.5 mm, which is why a deck feels like a block of wood rather than playing cards.

Getting a deck if you are outside Japan

Search terms that work on Japanese shops: 花札 任天堂 (Nintendo), 花札 大統領 (the Daitoryo deck), 花札 天狗 (Tengudo), マリオ花札 (Mario hanafuda) and 花札 当時物 for vintage decks. On second-hand listings check the maker, the back colour (黒裏 black or 赤裏 red), whether all 48 cards are there and the box condition.

Disclosure: we're the OneMall team, a Japan proxy/forwarding service, so weigh this accordingly. Our fees are ¥300 per item on most marketplaces and from ¥200 per item on Yahoo Auctions and LinkBuy; shipping is charged on the greater of actual and volumetric weight, so a single deck is a small parcel. For US buyers the $800 de minimis exemption no longer applies (since August 29, 2025), so duties and fees apply at any value.

Full guide with the month-by-month card chart, all 13 koi-koi yaku, hana-awase, hachi-hachi, oicho-kabu and hanafuda vs karuta:
blog.onemall.jp/2026/10/28/hanafuda-japanese-flower-cards-koi-koi/?ch=blog_hanafuda_exter

Current Japanese listings for 花札 (prices in yen):
www.onemall.jp/search?q=%E8%8A%B1%E6%9C%AD&ch=blog_hanafuda_exter

Does anyone here play koi-koi online or over the board? Curious whether the "7+ doubles" rule is what people actually use, since house rules vary a lot.