Topic summary
Face cards
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Face card.
History
There are two Japanese playing card decks that did not face the same restrictions as kabufuda: Uta-garuta and Unsun karuta. Uta-garuta was found to be of literary merit as the cards all feature waka poems. Half the deck is called yomifuda ("reading cards") and often feature a portrait of the poet who wrote it. With 100 poems, this results in 100 face cards. Unsun karuta feature the face cards derived from Portuguese-suited playing cards: female knaves, knights, and kings. Portuguese cards featured dragons on their aces, which were separated into their own rank. Additionally, two more face cards were added: Un and Sun. This results in six face cards per suit.