Sparrow Hanafuda Bicycle Playing Cards

This was my first purchase, this deck really caught my eye. The colors are bright and beautiful, I love looking at them!

I love the design and the feel of these babies. As some others have also noted, it is not technically a fusion card deck, as it lacks some key indicators for Hanafuda. This would totally be a five star review if they had said, inspired by Hanafuda instead of fusion playing cards.

This is a really beautiful deck, it looks great and feels good. Unfortunately, it missed a great opportunity. The sparrows are a nice artistic touch, but since they are on every card, they make playing traditional hanafuda games like koi-koi a bit challenging. Also the lack of poetry scrolls means that you really need to have memorized the hanafuda cards to be able to play it effectively. For playing western games, this deck works just fine since the indices look no different than a standard deck when you are holding a fanned hand. .

I'd love to see a second edition that cleans the cards up a bit to make them equally friendly to western and hanafuda games. Maybe add additional indices to help newcomers to hanafuda, like the sensu fusion cards do.

Personally, I'd really like to see a version that somehow combines the western deck with hanafuda and dominoes, since I enjoy playing all 3 and would love to have a single deck that plays them all. It would be great for travel, especially if they were made of plastic.

This deck of cards is absolutely gorgeous, but there are a few oversights that compel me to remove a star.

Firstly, the unfortunate lack of kanji on three of the red ribbon cards (A, 2, 3 of Hearts), which are important for games of hanafuda. Secondly, it can be somewhat difficult to differentiate between animal cards and non-animal cards due to the sparrow theme.

If you're looking for an easier way of shuffling your hanafuda cards or simply like the idea of two-in-one decks, this deck is perfect. However, if you're new to hanafuda, you could easily be confused by this deck.

These are beautiful, and I think for magic or cardistry they're an excellent choice. They're okay if you are looking to play western card games, and very hit or miss for eastern games like Koi Koi. The biggest perk is how much larger the faces are (so the beautiful art can shine) and how much easier they are to shuffle than Hanafuda cards.

This is a great deck to own, but not for what I was hoping to do with them.