Nintendo: The Company and its Founders - Sharyland ISD

NINTENDO
HANAFUDA
Hanafuda playing cards were
the sole source of Nintendo’s
business for nearly 100 years,
and the company still makes
hanafuda today. Hanafuda
come in decks consisting of
12 different suits of four cards
each, for a total of 48 cards
per deck. The suits are named
after the month in which a
particular flower blooms, and
pictures of the flowers are on
each card. Hanafuda cards are
much thicker and smaller than
Western playing cards.
In the early days, making
the cards began with pounding
the bark from a mulberry
tree into a paste. The paste
was mixed with clay and
shaped into layers. The layers
were pushed together to create
the hard back of the card.
When dry and cut, the cards
were painted with color inks.
Then, they were packaged and
sold. Hanafuda means “flower
cards.”
images painted on them. These
symbolic images stood for different
things, such as good fortune or
long life. Hanafuda were used for
playing matching games and more
complicated card games.
When Yamauchi chose the
company name, Nintendo Koppai,
he used kanji characters. These are
a type of Chinese lettering that is
also used in Japanese writing. Each
kanji character in nin-ten-do koppai
has meaning. The company name
means, “Leave luck to heaven.”
Yamauchi’s cards must have
been very well made, because they
became the most popular cards in
Kyoto. Yamauchi’s business was
blossoming, and when the Japanese
mafia, or yakuza, began using
hanafuda in gambling casinos, his
business boomed. Gamblers used
a lot of cards because they started
each game with a brand-new deck.
With the demand for
hanafuda increasing, Yamauchi
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