Seattle Competitive Karuta Club

It was my pleasure in 2008 to publish a translation, with Emiko Miyashita, of the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu. This 13th-century collection of 100 poems by 100 poets is also the source of karuta, a Japanese poem-matching game traditionally played by family and friends at New Year’s. Competitive karuta is a more complex variation of the game.

In a competitive karuta game, each of two players receives 25 randomly chosen cards from a set of 100, with the remaining 50 set aside and not used in play. Players carefully set out their cards on the mat in front of them, opposite their opponent, and have 15 minutes to meticulously memorize their positions. To play, a reader (or online app) starts reciting the first few words of a waka poem from what is called a yomifuda, or reading card, selected randomly, and the goal is for players to touch the corresponding torifuda, or grabbing card, that contains the ending of the poem. It requires the memorization of all 100 waka poems, especially the start of each poem, and the start of the second part of each poem, all in Japanese. When players arrange cards on a tatami mat, with the players facing each other, it’s also vital to remember the position of each card and to arrange them in a way that’s easier to remember—so players can touch them quickly, or block the other player from touching them. It’s a physically demanding and intense game of memory and quick reflexes, all fundamentally based on an appreciation for classic waka poetry (now known as tanka) dating from 13th-century Japan.

On 4 August 2024 I had the privilege of visiting the Seattle Competitive Karuta Club to witness how they play. They are one of the very few competitive karuta clubs in the United States. Here I present selected photographs from my visit, at which I also showed a copy of my book, 100 Poets: Passions of the Imperial Court (Tokyo: PIE Books, 2008), and shared the waka translation from the book that appeared in 2012 on the back of 150 million U.S. postage stamps.

I was very impressed by the club’s passion and knowledge. As their website says, karuta is “a game of memory, listening, reflex, and strategy.” My gratitude to club members for allowing me to take photographs. See my complete photo album, which shows, as do the photos here, both the New Year game and competitive karuta games. Also read about the uta-garuta card game and karuta.

Competitive karuta is very much a contact sport—they are not kidding when they say to trim your fingernails before playing. But it also looks like a lot of fun.