Karuta are Japanese playing cards with Portuguese origins. They are used in various card games.
Iroha Karuta is a matching game consisting of two decks with corresponding cards, yomifuda (reading cards) and torifuda (taking cards). The torifuda cards are placed face up before the players. A referee draws from the yomifuda deck and calls out their card. The players must compete with each other to take the corresponding torifuda card. Whoever collects the most at the end wins.
Iroha Karuta decks consist of the 47 hiragana characters while other variations of the game may use poems or other art or literature.
