Hanetsuki, played by young girls at New Year, resembles badminton. A wooden racket called a hagoita(battledore), on which is painted a beautiful picture, is used to hit a shuttlecock--a small, rounded piece with feathers attached--back and forth. Featuring cloth-embroidered human portraits, some battledores are also popular as beautiful ornaments. The shuttlecock game is played in formal attires, and there is also a rule that one who fails to hit it must have the face marked with India ink by a stroke of a brush. The kimono-clad girl enjoying the shuttlecock game was formerly a part of New Year's scenery. But in recent years one hardly sees this anymore, because places to play have sharply decreased as urbanization has advanced and children's style of playing games has changed with the changing times.
Japanese kites are usually square shaped, made with paper glued on a bamboo frame, and pictures of warriors or Kabuki actors are drawn on the surface together with Japanese writing. Tako-age used to be practiced to celebrate a child's growing up and to pray for the child's happiness in the future, but now it is enjoyed as a traditional New Year's activity. There are regional tako-age tournaments, besides at New Year, where large kites from a few meters to 10 or more in size are flown and even kite-fighting events.
The word karuta is said to have come from the Portuguese carta. Karuta are rectangular, like ordinary playing cards, with pictures or Japanese writing drawn on them. When playing, one player reads out a card for reading (yomi-fuda) and the other players compete to take the picture card (efuda) that matches it; the player who takes the most cards is the winner. As typical Japanese aspects of the game, there are iroha-garuta that contain the Japanese proverbs and poem cards (uta- garuta) on which the poems in 31 syllables known as tanka are written. Nowadays, the game is played principally at New Year.
This generally refers to the poetry anthology entitled "Ogura hyakunin-isshu,"compiled by FUJIWARA no Teika(Sadaie). It gathered 100 waka--the classical Japanese poem, specifically in this case Poem in 31 syllables--one each by the most outstanding poets from the Heian Period(794-1185) and the early years of the Kamakura Period(1185-1333). From the time of the Edo Period(1603-1867), this poetry anthology was widely spread and used as the poem cards. The overwhelming majority--43 selections--are love poems, followed by seasonal poems--32 selections. 79 of the poets are male, 21 female, and they express thoughts of love, nature and the seasons with a refinement unique to the Japanese people. It has become well-known as the representative work of classical Japanese literature. It's one of the essential game of New Year.
One of indoor games in two different forms, Board Sugoroku and Picture Sugoroku. The former is for two players. Each player lines up 15 pieces on a wooden board and throws a pair of dice by turns. Pieces are moved by the count on the dice and the player who put his pieces into the opponent's territory first wins. The latter is for several players using a piece of paper with many sections and pictures drawn on it. Each player advances from the start(furidashi) by the count on a die that he has thrown, and the first one to reach the goal(agari) is the winner.
This is a game that frequently is played at New Year. Pieces of paper cut in the shape of eyebrows, eyes, a nose, a mouth, and ears are to be matched with an outline drawing of a woman's face, known as the homely woman (otafuku); to play, one person is blindfolded and creates a face by placing the eyes, nose and other pieces on the outline. Because one proceeds by instinct, the comical features of the completed picture cause the jovial laughter.
Origami is an amusement and a skill of folding square paper without using paste or scissors to shape things such as birds, goldfish and helmets. It is a traditional Japanese art, and in particular the crane is widely recognized as the masterpiece of origami. 1,000 folded cranes linked together by thread is called senbazuru(One Thousand Cranes) and is made and given to a sick person with the wish for a speedy recovery upon visiting him. In the United States, Oppenheimer's The Friends ORIGAMI of America is well-known, and in the United Kingdom there is the British ORIGAMI Society. There are origami societies also in other countries such as Italy, Belgium, and Holland. Today, origami has come to be widely enjoyed in numerous countries.
Koma for centuries have been one of the most popular playthings for children. Most are round and made of wood and pierced through the middle with a rod that is the axis for rotating. In addition to wood, they are made of other materials like bamboo, shells and iron; they are rotated by hand and string and played with by spinning them separately and by bumping them into other koma. They come in various forms; one with holes in the body even makes a sound when spinning. They are also used in traditional feat, such as sliding them on the string. They originally came from China, by way of Koma in the Korean Peninsula, in the eighth century, and that is the source of the name koma. At first they were a game for court people and the nobility, but in the Edo Period(1603-1867) they became widespread and gradually came to stay as a game for children.
Ayatori is a traditional game for girls. A string tied in a loop is held by the wrists or fingertips of both hands and made into various shapes like a bridge, koto, or river. One person alone can play by manipulating the fingers of both hands, and two persons can change the shapes by passing them back and forth to each other in various styles of holding the string. Games similar to ayatori can be seen in many parts of the world.
Takeuma is a set of two bamboo(take) poles with footrests attached which children use as playthings by climbing on them as on a horse(uma), grasping the top part of the bamboo poles and walking around. In the past, they would cut leafy bamboo to an appropriate length, tie a string to the roots in place of reins and play by mounting this as if it were a horse. After some modifications, this became takeuma. It's rarely seen in these days, but there are schools which incorporate takeuma into their curriculum for the purpose of cultivating the children's sense of balance. In addition, as an event for the summer solstice in Northern Europe, there is a game with a wooden horse similar to takeuma.