What Are the 12 Months of Hanafuda? All 48 Flower Cards by Month, Explained (2026)

What Is Hanafuda?

Hanafuda ("flower cards") is a Japanese card deck from the Edo period, descended from the Portuguese playing cards that reached Japan in the 1500s. Instead of numbers and suits like hearts or spades, it uses twelve months, each drawn as a plant in season (or tied to that month by poetry and custom). Nintendo began in 1889 as a maker of these cards, and still sells them. The same deck is played in Korea as hwatu and in Hawaii, where a favorite game played with it is called Sakura.

The cards carry no numbers or letters, so you identify each one by two things: its flower (which tells you the month) and its picture (which tells you its type). The most common game, Koi-Koi, is about matching cards of the same month.

What Are the Four Types of Hanafuda Cards?

Every month has four cards, and each is one of four types. The point values below are the traditional ones; individual games score differently.

• Brights (hikari), 20 points. Five cards, the most valuable in the deck: the crane, the curtain, the moon, the rain man and the phoenix.
• Animals (tane), 10 points. Nine cards showing a bird, an animal or an object: the warbler, cuckoo, bridge, butterflies, boar, geese, sake cup, deer and swallow.
• Ribbons (tanzaku), 5 points. Ten cards with a strip of paper on the plant. Three are red with writing (poetry ribbons), three are blue, and four are plain red.
• Chaff (kasu), 1 point. Twenty-four cards with the plant alone. Most months have two.

That is 5 + 9 + 10 + 24 = 48. Not every month has one of each type, which is why some months feel "richer" than others.

All 48 Hanafuda Cards, Month by Month

Month	Flower	Special card	Ribbon	Chaff
January	Pine	Crane and Sun (Bright)	Red poetry	2
February	Plum blossom	Bush warbler (Animal)	Red poetry	2
March	Cherry blossom	Curtain (Bright)	Red poetry	2
April	Wisteria	Cuckoo (Animal)	Plain red	2
May	Iris	Eight-plank bridge (Animal)	Plain red	2
June	Peony	Butterflies (Animal)	Blue	2
July	Bush clover	Boar (Animal)	Plain red	2
August	Susuki grass	Full Moon (Bright) and Geese (Animal)	None	2
September	Chrysanthemum	Sake cup (Animal)	Blue	2
October	Maple	Deer (Animal)	Blue	2
November	Willow	Rain Man (Bright) and Swallow (Animal)	Plain red	1 (lightning)
December	Paulownia	Phoenix (Bright)	None	3

January: Pine

The pine stays green through winter, so it opens the year. Its Bright shows a crane under a red sun, two symbols of long life and the New Year. It also has a red poetry ribbon and two chaff.

February: Plum Blossom

Plum flowers before any other tree, in late winter. Its Animal is the bush warbler (uguisu), whose song is the classic sign that spring is coming. Red poetry ribbon, two chaff.

March: Cherry Blossom

The curtain on March's Bright is the kind hung around a cherry-blossom viewing party. Red poetry ribbon, two chaff. Together, January, February and March hold all three poetry ribbons.

April: Wisteria

Hanging purple wisteria, with a cuckoo (hototogisu) as its Animal, a bird of early summer poetry. Plain red ribbon, two chaff.

May: Iris

The Animal here is not an animal at all: it is the eight-plank bridge (yatsuhashi), a zigzag footbridge through an iris marsh, from a famous scene in classical literature. Plain red ribbon, two chaff.

June: Peony

Large peony blooms with a pair of butterflies as the Animal. June starts the blue ribbons. Two chaff.

July: Bush Clover

Hagi, a shrub with small red-purple flowers that marks the start of autumn in Japanese poetry. Its Animal is the boar. Plain red ribbon, two chaff.

August: Susuki Grass

The easiest month to recognize: a black hill under a red sky. Its Bright is the full moon, and its Animal is geese in flight. It has no ribbon. Susuki is the grass set out for the harvest moon, which is why this card is tied to moon viewing; our guide to Tsukimi, Japan's moon-viewing festival explains the custom.

September: Chrysanthemum

The chrysanthemum's Animal is a sake cup, from the old custom of floating petals in sake at the Chrysanthemum Festival. Many games let it count as either an Animal or a Chaff. Blue ribbon, two chaff.

October: Maple

Red maple leaves and a deer, a pairing from autumn poetry. Blue ribbon, two chaff. If you are reading this in November, the real maples are still turning in much of Japan; see our autumn leaf forecast for Japan.

November: Willow

The strangest month, and the one people most often ask about. November is about rain: its Bright is the Rain Man, a poet with an umbrella beside a frog, and its other cards are a swallow (Animal), a plain red ribbon, and a single chaff that shows lightning or a drum, depending on the deck. It is the only month whose four cards are all different types.

December: Paulownia

The paulownia (kiri) is an emblem tree, and its Bright is the phoenix said to rest only in it. December has no Animal and no ribbon: the phoenix plus three chaff, one of which is often printed in a different color.

Why Do Some Months Not Match the Seasons?

Ten of the twelve flowers line up with the season you would expect. Willow and paulownia fit least neatly: willow is a spring tree in Japan, and paulownia flowers in early summer. The usual advice is not to fight it. Learn November by its rain and December by its phoenix, and the season stops mattering.

How Do You Learn the Hanafuda Cards Fast?

Players who learn the deck quickly do it in three passes:

1. The twelve flowers. Say the months out loud while you deal the deck into twelve piles. Pine, plum, cherry is the year's first three; maple, willow, paulownia the last three.
2. The one picture in each month. Crane, warbler, curtain, cuckoo, bridge, butterflies, boar, moon and geese, sake cup, deer, rain man and swallow, phoenix. These are the cards that score.
3. The ribbons. Red with writing is January to March. Blue is June, September, October. Plain red is April, May, July, November.

After that, handling the cards does the rest. The more often you see a card next to its month's other three, the faster you stop reading the picture and start just knowing it.

That is the idea behind the game we made. In Hanafuda Flip!!, a one-thumb surfing game set inside a painted hanafuda card, every run earns packs of the 48 flower cards, and you fill a book month by month: complete the deck's eight traditional sets and earn each month's hanko seal. Your 14 riders follow the deck too, from January's Crane to December's Phoenix. It does not teach you to play Koi-Koi; it makes the cards familiar by having you collect them.

What Are Hanafuda Sets (Yaku)?

In Koi-Koi and similar games, you score by capturing particular groups of cards, called yaku. Point values vary by house rules, but the best-known sets are:

• Goko, Shiko, Sanko: five, four or three Brights. With the Rain Man, four Brights is usually scored lower (Ame-shiko).
• Inoshikacho: the boar, deer and butterflies.
• Akatan: the three red poetry ribbons. Aotan: the three blue ribbons.
• Tsukimi-zake: the moon and the sake cup. Hanami-zake: the cherry curtain and the sake cup.
• Tane, Tan, Kasu: five Animals, five Ribbons, or ten Chaff.

If you want to play the card game itself, Koi-Koi is in Nintendo's Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics on Switch, and Koi-Koi Japan on Steam has a tutorial for first-time players. A physical deck costs a few dollars and is the best teacher of all.

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