Japanese animation or cartoon leads people to be interested in Japanese culture. There is a popular cartoon called . There are two versions of , the animation and the movie. They are originally based on the cartoon ‘Chihayafuru’.
In Japan, they have two types of cartoons. The one is shonen manga (cartoons targeting for boys), the other is shojo manga (cartoons targeting for girls). is shojo manga but also attracts many boys.
Are you familiar with ‘Hyakunin issu’? Hyakunin isshu is a Japanese traditional card game, Karuta. This is the subject matter for the cartoon . The main character, Ayase Chihaya is a member of club Hyakunin isshu in high school. .If you are Japanese, you might have tried Hyakunin isshu once or more in elementary school or high school. Hykunin means 100 people while isshu means a unit to count waka, a traditional Japanese poem. We call the poem anthology as Hykunin isshu, because 100 people composed the poems. There are two kinds of cards for the game. One consist of whole waka (poem) and a small painting of the poet, whilst the other consist of the latter part of waka only. The latter part of waka, which is called simonoku, is written in hiragana. The rules are simple. You need to choose yomite, a reader.

When the reader reads a card (yomihuda), challengers should find a card in hiragana (torihuda). Winner is the one who collects as many cards as he/she can. If you memorize each waka, you can match it as you hear it faster than anyone, as you can get it while the reader is reading the first part (kaminoku). In , they play Hykunin isshu with the most difficult and intensive game rule, “competitive karuta”. At the real karuta game, challengers match the card as hearing the first syllable of the card. It takes only 0.5 second! It is also called ‘a fighting on dadami’ due to the speed and the intensiveness. The challengers are called senshu (players). Reading , you can indirectly experience the real life of Japanese high school students.

Also, you may wish you were a one of them, becoming their friends and playing Hyakunin isshu together with them. Since the characters are so charming! The 27th of May is the day celebrating Hyakunin isshu. (Hyakunin isshu were brought to completion on the 27th of May in 1235) We recommend you to try to enjoy all the package of the Japanese traditional culture and the new culture-cartoon-!