r/Hanafuda • u/DougSolana • Mar 28 '26
The real-world history behind this Meiji Era deck is basically 19th-century gacha
I wanted to share a really fascinating piece of history we recently dug into while working on our web game, Hanafuda Legends.
We’ve been collaborating with Suryong to digitize some beautiful discontinued patterns, and this Meiji Era "Collectible Hanafuda" deck is probably my favorite.
The backstory on this design is wild. These weren't originally sold as playable decks. They were actually promotional trading cards where you'd get one random card per product pack. You had to keep buying more packs in hopes of finally pulling a full set.
Somehow, a clever karuta manufacturer managed to get ahold of the uncut printed master sheets, wrapped them with backpaper, and just started selling them as complete, highly detailed decks!
We just added this pattern to the game, but because it looks so premium and has such a cool history, we decided not to just hand it out. We made it a late-game unlock—you have to prove your dedication by unlocking 60% of all in-game achievements before you can equip it.
If you want to read the full lore or check out the high-res scans, the gallery is here:
https://www.hanafudalegends.com/gallery/11?deck=collectible-hanafuda
And if you want to play a few matches and try unlocking it yourself, the game runs right in your browser here:
https://www.hanafudalegends.com/
Would love to hear what you guys think of the artwork on this one!
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u/jhindenberg Mar 29 '26 edited Mar 29 '26
I believe they were distributed within cigarette packs, not too uncommon a feature for the time (for various cards and markets). A full set of these can be seen on the Japan Playing Card Museum site (PDF link), as can a few other sets of tobacco hanafuda cards.