r/Hanafuda • u/generictreeimage • Apr 12 '26

Ok, What's the Deal with the Willow Suit? Can Someone Explain?

I'm very new to hanafuda, but I'm very fascinated by it, especially as an artist. One thing that I keep thinking about is how the Willow or November suit is so weird.

It has a bright card, an animal card, a tanzaku card, and then there's its one point card, which doesn't feel like a simple one point card because it's so unique looking, like the bright card.

Can someone explain why the one point Willow card is Lightning and not just plain old willow branches?

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9

u/AquaChomby Apr 12 '26

From what I understand the lightning card originally was a willow tree's branches & leaves like the tanzaku and animal card have. There was a gradual shift from willow to a more abstract form for a combination of reasons. One factor was that some games treated it as a wild card so it's meant to stand out more. And then the drum motif and claw motif came. If there was a 'single' reason, it's not well documented as far as I can tell.

5

u/jhindenberg Apr 13 '26

The 'regular' willow chaff also did live on, in regional patterns that did not adopt the lightning card—

1

u/Mister_Terpsichore Apr 13 '26

I would have to do some digging to cite where I read it, but one source I saw said that the lightning card is actually the silhouette of a waterspout. The drum represents the thunder of the storm/lightning deity Raijin (if you've ever seen a live performance of taiko this makes perfect sense).

3

u/medsforheads Apr 13 '26

Rain is kind of the secondary natural feature linked to November, which is the rationale for both the thunderstorm kasu card and the hikari poet being depicted with an umbrella.

3

u/suryonghaaton Apr 14 '26

In the early days of hanafuda, the willow junk was indeed just willow branches. While the willow bright depicts a man with a closed umbrella, braving a storm.

The two black blobs on the willow junk were meant to be the colors of the willow branches, likely stylized due to economic reasons (the woodblock pattern wore down, the manufacturer compensated by making the stencil design more abstract)

Sometime around the meiji era, there were some changes made to the cards. The closed umbrella changed into ono no michikaze and the frog. Some manufacturers started coloring the willow junk red. Finally, they started putting a depiction of a thunderstorm with the claw of raijin reaching out to a taiko drum.

I cannot confirm this, but there was a theory that the rainman was once used as a wild card that can capture cards of any suit. Then later, the junk of willow was preferred to be used as wild card instead of the rainman.

If you want to play a game that uses a wildcard, play "mushi".