On September 23, 1889, Nintendo Koppai was founded to manufacture playing cards for the Japanese game Hanafuda. Fusajiro Yamauchi, the founder and sole card-maker at the outset, started the business to service the growing Japanese playing card market, which was flourishing due to a drawdown in the government restrictions against card games.
Westerners first introduced playing cards, and with them gambling, to Japan in the 16th century. The less devout sailors on the crew of a missionary ship brought Portuguese cards and games to the island nation. The games quickly spread, but when Japan enacted a policy of isolation from the rest of the world, the cards were banned from use. Much like the prohibition of alcohol in the United States, the ban on playing cards did nothing to reduce popular interest and drove the industry underground. For over two centuries the government chased card makers, banning the newest iteration of playing cards, to which the creative card makers would respond with yet another variation. This cycle continued until the government relaxed their enforcement in the late 19th century when the card makers developed the latest version of the game: Hanafuda.
Hanafuda cards aren’t all that different from the playing cards we use in the west. They are arranged into sets of fours, and instead of using numbers or names like jack and queen, they use the months of the year. Each month is comprised of two normal cards, each bearing a similar illustration, and two specials, typically a variation on the illustration of the normal cards with a ribbon or animal depicted. For example, the February cards have two with plum blossoms, another with a ribbon in a plum blossom, and the final card in the set with a warbler bird sitting on a plum blossom branch. The game is played by matching these cards together and achieving a higher point total than your opponent by match the special cards.
Nintendo Koppai was very successful in manufacturing Hanafuda cards for over 60 years. The company was handed down through the family and would remain a playing card company until the 1960’s. Hiroshi Yamauchi, great-grandson of founder Fusajiro Yamauchi and current president of the company, decided to diversify the company’s activities. There are two possible explanations for his decision, neither of which excludes the other. One story describes a trip Hiroshi took to America to strike a deal with the United States Playing Card Company. He found that the largest playing card company in America was a fairly small operation and realized there was only so much blue sky in the playing card business. The other explanation is that the playing card market in Japan took a nosedive. Regardless, Hiroshi led the company to new frontiers and experimented in a number of different industries, including taxi-cabs, hotels, and food service, before settling on toy making. By the 1970’s, the Nintendo Playing Card Company, now known as just the Nintendo Company, was wading into the brand new area of television gaming. The rest, as they say, is history.
