Background Pictures of KURENAI

Hi! Today, I would like to talk about the background pictures of KURENAI in more detail.　

Hanafuda and Background Pictures of KURENAI 

<The Differences>
Let’s compare the backgrounds of KURENAI with the actual Hanafuda.

・The darkness
　　In KURENAI, they seem to be painted on gold folding screens at first 　　glance. Gold folding screen is a traditional screen often used for various 　　ceremonies and festive occasions such as seasonal festivals. It’s beautiful 　　because the lights are reflected on the gold. However, in KURENAI, they 　　look a bit dark. This is because the sun doesn’t exist in the world of 　　KURENAI and people live by candlelight.

・The lines and touches
　　As the setting for KURENAI, the Hanafuda backgrounds are supposed to
       be painted by various artists to pass down the scenery of a time when the
　　sun and the four seasons still existed. So, the founder used different 　　touches and lines in the pictures.

・The canvass
　　Again, as the setting for KURENAI, the backgrounds are not actually 
       painted on the screen but on the wall. They are just using gold folding
       screen painting style. So if you look closely, we can see patterns which
       look like tiles. Also, the fragments of the wall that the demons are
       breaking down show that the painting was done on a thick, concrete-like
       wall. What is this wall for? Is it some kind of boundary? KURENAI makes
       our imagination wild, doesn’t it?

<The Utilities>
・Five Brights or“Gokou”
　　Among the announced utilities for KURENAI, Five Brights or “Gokou” is 　　the only meld or “yaku” that actually exists in Hanafuda game. To achieve 　　Five Brights, we need to collect the following five cards: "Pine and Crane" 　　for January, "Cherry Blossom and Curtain" for March, "Susuki Grass and 　　Moon" for August, "Willow and Dofu ( Dofu is a name of a prominent 　　calligrapher in Heian period (794-1185 A.D.)" for November, and 　　"Paulownia and Phoenix" for December.(In red boxes in above pic ) It is 　　the most valuable and hardest combination to get. We have not yet got 　　any official announcement about what the benefits will be, but isn’t it 　　exciting?

Thanks for reading！
In the next article, I am going to talk about the melds that are unique to KURENAI!