Karuta

There are two types of Karuta:

- The one usually played by children (I don't know the proper name for it) is where short storys/scenarios are read, and then players find the matching card.

- Competitive Karuta, poems are read from the 百人一首 (ひゃくにんいっしゅ), and players find the card with the second verse. 

(I suppose I could've put this under the Japanese Sports section, since competitive karuta is a sport, but I like to think of it more of an art because of its relation to the 百人一首 poems)

Have you heard about karuta or the 百人一首 before?  

This thread is mostly for discussing both types of karuta and the 百人一首 poems (along with discussing Chihayafuru).

Fun fact: Karuta is also romanized as "Caruta".  I think this is due to the fact that the word came from the Portugese word for card or letter (carta).

Over the last 30 years, Nintendo has become a household name around the world, and their Pokemon franchise swept the globe in the 1990s. But did you know that the Nintendo multimedia empire began in 1889 as a small karuta company? That's true, 1889, not 1989. There was a form of Japanese playing cards named or long before Mario and Princess Peach's tumultuous love affair started. Surprisingly, mastering karuta necessitates some of the same abilities as mastering a video game–a mixture of lightning reflexes, memorization, and a lot of wasted time. For Japanese language students, karuta provides the ideal balance between procrastination and efficiency.