Tuesday 8 May 2012

Golden Peony Hanafuda (Kin-Botan)


This colourful Hanafuda edition by Windmill, named Kin-Botan (Golden Peony) is a faithful replica of another original deck that once belonged to Itô Hirofumi.

The deck is itself more or less double the size of traditional Hanafuda. Each subject is printed on brown cardstock of  'ordinary' thickness, i.e. similar to the one used for Western cards.

The Hikari, Tane and Tanzaku cards are printed in very bright colours, while the Kasu cards are yellow with a particular background texture.  Only the Kasu card of Yanagi (Willow) maintains its traditional red colour.

These cards are printed following a special technique called Kyôto yuuzen, which is the one traditionally used in Kyoto for printing textures on kimono garments. In most of the cards, the main subject is enriched with details in gold paint, giving the reason for the name of the deck (which is featured on the extra card).
 
'Matsu' - Pine

'Yanagi' (or 'Ame') - Willow (or Rain)

The extra card with the name of the deck



 
 

2 comments:

  1. I've been looking for this deck for some time, but I can hardly find any info at all, even in Japanese, except this: http://www.geocities.jp/xmbwq497/karutataizendata.html (which lists Nippon(Nihon?) Karuta 日本骨牌製造 as the maker (and also Matsui Tengudo? For a limited 3 deck run), not Windmill (but maybe the companies are connected somehow). Where did you find this info on this deck? A book?

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