D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-duel

I received the deck of Hanafuda cards from Club Nintendo, which are a type of Japanese playing cards. The cards we're used to has numbered and face cards (13 total) divided via four suits. The hanafuda cards are instead separated via the twelve months instead of numbers and face cards, with each month represented by a certain type of plant, and also containing four cards.

However, the four cards of each month aren't just separated into one of four suits, but into a more complicated configuration. Some of the months are unique from the others. Each month has at least one Special card, which features another element like an animal. The Nintendo deck slightly redesigned most of the Special cards to feature Nintendo characters. Pretty nifty. :)

The Special cards from the hanafuda deck. Some months have more than one Special card so there are more than 12 in total.

There are also Ribbon cards which have a ribbon shown in the picture. Of these there are red, purple, and poetry ribbons. The poetry ribbons look like red ribbons but have writing on it. (see the Jan-Mar cards) The remaining cards are considered Normal cards.

The full deck of Club Nintendo's hanafuda deck. The left column from top to bottom is Jan-Jun, the right column is Jul-Dec.
January: Pine [Matsu (松)]
February: Plum Blossom [Ume (梅)]
March: Cherry Blossom [Sakura (桜)]
April: Wisteria [Fuji (藤)]
May: Iris [Ayame (菖蒲)]
June: Peony [Botan (牡丹)]
July: Bush Clover [Hagi (萩)]
August: Chinese silver grass [Susuki (薄)] (Nintendo has it as Pampas grass)
September: Chrysanthemum [Kiku (菊)]
October: Maple [Momiji (紅葉)]
November: Willow [Yanagi (柳)]
December: Paulownia [Kiri (桐)]



Case the hanafuda cards came in.

They do look much nicer than regular playing cards, and it requires you to familiarize with the deck to remember which cards belong to which month. I'm still trying to learn the rules of the game Koi-Koi so I might be able to get someone to play these cards with. :D