β¦ last updated:
In the internet era there are now many Hanafuda brands that are produced on a small scale. Most of the production is outsourced to larger firms, and the designs arenβt made by the themselves. Thanks to the rise of crowdfunding, the variety of designs has greatly expanded from the traditional patterns.
Blankβs Art Project
Blankβs Art Project have created several Hwatu decks with custom art: Pebble (2016), Golden Toad (2018 & 2019 editions, crowdfunded on Korean site βwadizβ), and Pebble Film Edition (2019). They have also created custom promotional decks for Jeju beer (2017).
Hanafuda Hawaii
Produces two different decks: Hanafuda Hawaiβi Style (2009), and Hanafuda NΔ Pua Hawaiβi (2016).
Hanafuda Hawaiβi Style recreates the traditional Japanese deck with bold artwork, including scores printed on the cards and with helpful icons to identify scoring combinations on the cards. In the rules given with the deck, there are not β5 Brightsβ, so the β4 Brightsβ are reproduced here:
The cards of November show more of the style of the cards (note the βrain manβ is worth a mere 5 points with the Hawaiian rules):
Hanafuda NΔ Pua Hawaiβi is probably my favourite of all the modern Hanafuda decks. It recontextualizes the game with the flora and fauna native to Hawaiβi, matching visual puns to the bold art of the Hawaiβi Style deck: in the month of March, for example, the cherry blossoms become βiliahi (sandalwood) flowers, and the curtain becomes the traditional kapa cloth.
Indianwolf Studios
Indianwolf have so far produced the Hanami Hanafuda (2018) and Sensu Hanafuda (2019) decks, in poker-sized cards printed by Legends Playing Card Company. Both of these are available in a plain version, or one that has indices to aid new players.
After another successful Kickstarter campaign, Indianwolf also produced the Night Parade deck (2020). The four cards of each month combine to form one wide tetraptych. The deck is themed upon traditional Japanese monsters (yΕkai), and it also comes with rules for a new game called βOrochiβ.
μ맀μμ (jamaistore)
Jamaistore produces ridiculously-cute cat & dog themed hwatu decks. Each of them comes with an additional six joker cards, appropriate to the theme. Both decks were crowdfunded on the Korean site βtumblbugβ.
Modern Hanafuda
Modern Hanafuda (2012) was one of the earliest Kickstarted Hanafuda decks. It was designed by Sarah Thomas, and the cards are decorated with bold flat colours and geometric patterns. The cards are larger and longer than normal playing cards.
NISHIKI ι¦
This redesign by Hanako of estudio artes produced the only 3-way standard/Hanafuda/Kabufuda deck that I know of, which is printed on poker-sized cards. There is also a Hanafuda-only deck, in a traditional format.
μ©μνν¬ Yongjaeng Hwatoo
Yongjaeng Hwatoo produce hwatu decks in three varieties: Classic, Cute, and Style (pictured below). These designs have been produced in several editions over the years.
Cochae
Japanese paper design house Cochae produces Kokoyo (2019), a deck with bold, crisp visuals and faces on everything. The cards are coded by background colour so that Bright cards have a gold background, Tane have silver, etc.
Junior
Junior have produced a ground-up redesign of Hanafuda into a poker format deck, printed by USPCC. The first edition is called the Phoenix deck (2019). Each different type of Hanafuda card has a different background, and all are identified by suit marker indices, which helps to clarify the cards for new players.
To fill out the full 54 cards of a standard poker deck, there are an additional 6 βbambooβ cards including an additional Fuji Bright and second Oni card:These were inspired by the extra cards of the Universal deck.
After the successful completion of the Kickstarter campaign in 2020, two more Junior decks were produced: Dragon and Tiger.
Pixel Hanafuda
Ryan Sartor has produced Pixel Hanafuda, which is currently available from The Game Crafter. The art is inspired by 8- & 16-bit video games, and the cards are designed with a 29Γ44 pixel grid. The full set includes two decks, one each with black and red borders, and an additional 12 cards with βpalette-swappedβ colours, as an homage to the artistic techniques of the era. These additional cards can be used to play or invent new games; the set also includes rules for three original games invented by Ryan.
Tetsufuda
Tetsufuda (ιζ, 2020) is a train-themed deck created by Kotsu Shimbunsha, the publishing arm of the Japan Railways group (JR).
Each month features a real train that runs on a JR line, and the cards show attributes or specialities of the different regions of Japan. The four cards of each month combine to form a tetraptych.
Heroku Hanafuda
Created by Heroku as a promotional item, this deck was designed by Lynn Fisher. The cards feature icons and imagery related to Herokuβs products.
Tuhwa (ν¬ν)
This deck was designed by Korean design firm Utmost, and was first crowdfunded on wadiz. The name is a reversal of the standard Korean name Hwatu (νν¬). There are several editions of the deck availableβββv2 (2018) and v3 (2020) (βv1β appears to have been a small or private printing)βββand each features different art based on traditional Korean art styles. The cards are much larger than those in a standard deck, and are made of plastic like other Korean decks.
Hanafuda Koi-Koi: Deluxe Edition
This deck was Kickstarted in 2023 by Pencil First Games. The art is by Vincent Dutrait.
Brownies Carta de Flor
In 2023, the video game company Brownies (now part of Nintendo itself) produced a deck that was manufactured by Nintendo. The cards are in an art-nouveau style.