Fusajiro Yamauchi - Early Years

Early Years

The Japanese government had banned all foreign playing cards and games in 1633, trying to deter illegal gambling. For the next 250 years the government continued doing the same thing with every new card game that appeared. A couple of years after, the government accepted a new card game “Hanafuda”, which used illustrations instead of numbers. Even though it was something new, the constant banning of these games had taken a toll on the public, reducing the games´ popularity, until a young entrepreneur Fusajiro Yamauchi came up with a new approach to save this game and increase its popularity. His new approach was to use hand crafted artwork instead of general illustrations. This was something totally new for the Japanese culture and significantly increased the games popularity.