Card Games (Not on Motorcycles)

Obake karuta images from Wikicommons

I did a cultural presentation on 正月　(Japanese New Year celebration) last semester, and found a lot of information on Iroha Karuta, as it's a popular game to play during New Year festivities. It's basically a game of matching the text read from one card to the images on the others. There are 48 cards corresponding to the former ordering of the Japanese syllabary, each character representing a different proverb.
Brief overview of Iroha and related card games
More in-depth explanations

BUT! That's not all, it has evolved into many different forms and you can find all sorts of card games nowadays

. Inubou karuta (犬ぼうかるた） Traditional Iroha game with a proverb on each card (named for the first card: 犬も歩けば棒に当たる/inu mo arukeba bou ni ataru/"Even a dog, walking, will come across a stick") Proverbs here

Youkai or Obake karuta (featuring ghosts, demons and monsters, popular in the Edo period)

Retro katakana karuta

恐竜かるた！

More dinosaurs

(Not Iroha, but "Evolution cards")

ふるさとカルタ　（Historic village?)

Totoro かるた

Toto awase (Tokyo style edition) Match the fish halves (you can find several versions of this game)

Tori awase - match the birds.

お魚かるた　Reissue of a game produced by a Tokyo fish market as a promotional item..?

WHOA!　 いい男...　Hunky Man Iroha?

Evangelion Karuta

Adult Karuta

Action Karuta

京いろはかるた丸　　Circular Iroha cards featuring punny illustrations of kanji

Kanji Trump Visual memory game for learning kanji


Children playing a giant Iroha game in the snow

少年少女 世界の文学

Or "World Literature for Boys and Girls", Volume 6, which features English lit (イギリス）and includes "Peter Pan", "The Reluctant Dragon", "War of the Worlds" and "The Jungle Book". No publishing date is printed anywhere, so I searched:

This site gives a publishing date of 1970, and lists previous volumes and their dates, ranging from 1964 to 1972.
Auction of many volumes (the whole set?)
Google image search brings up a few photos.

That's what I could find out about it right now. I bought for about $5.00. My favorite illustrations are from "The Jungle Book" and signed by Asou Koga. (古賀 亜十夫)

Transcription

apology for random naked lady sketch from math class


Sound Online -- Survive (Ancient Temple)

Everything here is shut down due to snow weather, so this is what I was doing last night and today.


I have a scan of lyrics in the cd booklet, but couldn't find any online translation, so I'm trying to transcribe the original and romajify it, at least. Copy from the jpg, notate furigana, look up new kanji/compounds, figure out onomatopoeia words, then type in IME

Complicated but I'm learning a lot from it.


深き衣を纏った　この身は今はもう
現実と　夢現の＿間で
錆びす、光れず、触れられない我が身　それでも
眠りし闘志を込めた刃を
全て捧げよう　淡き光の元へ
決して果てない、想いこそ　今を生きるそう
（）

ひらひらと舞い＿る桜を　今＿咲かせよう
妖しく＿いた＿に　魅せられた私を

はらはらと落ち行く桜を　誰も汚さぬよう
せめてそのひ瞳開く前に、全て終わらせましょう
蒼き瞳は静かに　赤く砥ぎ澄まされ
現実は夢現と交わる
声も、上げずに、誓ったこの忠誠が為
恐れるものなど無いと微笑む
明日は　＿てよう
＿に居らるのなら

決して

ゆらゆらと羽ばたいた＿に
＿がる青空を
気高き＿色の＿にｃ



Fuwaki koromu wo matotta
kono mi wa ima wa mou
REAL to mugen no _ma de
sabizu, hirezu, furerarenai wagami
soredemo nemurishi chuusei wo kometa yaiba wo

subete sasageyou
awaki hikari no moto e
kesshite, hatenai,
omoi koso
ima wo ikiru sou
(I'M SURVIVE)

hirahira to mai _ru sakura wo
ima _ mo sakaseyou
ayashiku _ita __ ni
miserareta watashi wo

harahara to ochiyuku sakura wo
daremo __sanuyou (?)
semete sono hitomi hiraku mae ni
subete owarasemashou
aoki hitomi wa shizuka ni
akaku togisumasare

REAL wa, mugen to majiwaru
koe mo, agezu ni
chikatta kono chuusei ga tame
osorerumono nado nai to hohoemu
ashita wa, __teyou
soba n iraru no nara
kesshite...

yurayura to habataita chou ni
hirogaru aozora wo
...

Home for Kaiyodos

So, I bought this shelf at Goodwill a couple of weeks ago for $4. It's exactly the right size for Choco-Egg premiums.

My almost-complete Series 3 of Dinotales, 3 Kabayas, and a few small random dinosaurs.

It looks sweet. Oh, small pleasures in life.