Mushi -- a hanafuda, or flower card, game

Mushi, or Osakan Mushi, is one of the hanafuda (it simply means "flower card") games with simplest rules. It is for two players and uses a pack of forty cards, four peony and four bush clover (red beads) cards removed from a standard pack of forty-eight cards. Because it was popular in some parts of the country, specialised shortened packs called mushifuda (mushi cards) were widely available and you may still find some in online shops.

The cards

There are twelve flowers or plants in a pack of forty-eight cards: pine, plum, cherry, wisteria (blue beads), iris, peony, bush clover (red beads), grass, chrysanthemum, maple, willow (rain) and paulownia. The cards belong to one of four classes: bright, animals, ribbons and junk. The five bright cards are the pine with a crane, the cherry with a curtain, the grass with the moon, the rain with a man, and the paulownia with a phoenix. The animals are the plum with a nightingale, the wisteria with a cuckoo, the iris with bridges, the peony with butterflies, the clover with a boar, the grass with geese, the chrysanthemum with a cup, the maple with a deer, and the rain with a swallow. The ribbons are the three red ribbons of pine, plum and cherry; the three blue ribbons of peony, chrysanthemum and maple; and the four plain ribbons of wisteria, iris, clover and rain. The remaining twenty-four cards are junk.

Although many descriptions of the cards go into details of correspondence of the plants and the twelve months of the year, its knowledge is not at all necessary to play most games and can differ from one game or region to another, nor does it make good seasonal sense either because it is in old lunisolar calendar that it roughly one month behind the Gregorian calendar and some plants are placed in very odd time of the year.

Deal

Elder hand is chosen by lot. Elder shuffles a pack of cards well and place them face down in front of the younger hand. Younger, then, either acknowledges the shuffle by touching the pile with his/her finger, or cuts the pile into two. Elder, then, complete the cut and deals, in packet of four, eight cards to each player face down and eight face up cards on the table in the order of younger-elder-table repeated twice, or table-younger-elder-younger-elder-table. Remaining cards are placed face down on the table to form the stock.

If there are four cards of the same flower on the table, or three rain cards but the junk, the hand is thrown in and the elder hand remains to deal the cards again. Some play that the elder hand capture four of a kind on the table and three rain cards on the table go to who takes the junk of rain. If there are four cards of the same flower in a hand of one player, he/she may declare it to cancel the deal just like four of a kind on the table.

Play of the cards

The elder hand plays first. He/she plays a card from his/her hand, placing it face up on the table. If the card matches a card on the table, he/she can capture both. A card matches another if they have same flower. If there are two matching cards, he/she can choose to take either one he/she likes. If there are three matching cards, one card can capture three at once. The played card remains on the table when it cannot capture anything. The player, then, flips the top card of the stock and plays it just like a card from his/her hand. Captured cards are arranged into bright cards, animals, ribbons and junk cards and placed face up for all to see them clearly.

The junk of rain/willow matches anything but the other rain cards or three cards of the same flower on the table. If it is on the table, it cannot be captured by any cards in hand, and it must be captured by a card from the stock even if it matches any other cards on the table. If it is from the stock, it must capture a card that is not rain or a part of three cards of a flower. If it is the last card in the stock, one who plays it (younger hand) takes it. Some play that the junk of rain in the bottom of the stock can capture a rain card on the table.

A hand ends when the hands and the stock are exhausted. Two cards remain on the table, a rain and a card unpaired by the junk of rain. One who takes the other two rain cards takes the remaining rain card and the other is taken by who used the junk of rain.

Scores

If a player captures any of these three combinations, he/she receives points in cards captured by opponent. The combinations and their points are:

• The Three (Crane, Nightingale and Curtain), 25 points
• Four Wisteria, 10 points
• Four Paulownia, 10 points

(Note: five bright cards are of eastern japanese origin and was not part of this game, and none of old rules of the game I've seen make mention of it.)

Then each player counts points in captured cards: a bright card is 20 points, an animal 10, a ribbon 5 and a junk card 1, and scores difference of total card points and 115. One who scores more becomes next elder hand.