These 100 Japanese poems were carefully selected by teika FUJIWARA, who is a court noble as well as a poet, in the beginning of Kamakura period (from 1185 to 1333).

As you see, I gave this app the name of 100 poems though; these 100 Japanese poems (WAKA) are known as 百人一首(Hyaku ninn issyu) in Japan. This anthology of these poems are also known as 小倉百人一首 (Ogura Hyaku ninn issyu), because he has been known to compile these poems at his cottage that was located in the mountain called Mt. OGURA.

These poems basically depict a natural landscape through a change of four seasons or a romantic interest that swings subtly between joy and sadness, which has been said to manifest a Japanese aesthetic feeling. The wording of these poems is not that easy even for people in Japan today though; I hope that you might be interested in Japanese poem by reading or writing phrases through this app.

Japanese people not only enjoy reading 100 poems but also enjoy playing with these poems using KARUTA that is a Japanese playing card on which these poems are written.

The KARUTA card consists of two kinds of cards. The upper phrase is written on the one card and the lower phrase is written on the other card. To play KARUTA game, the first thing to do is put 100 cards, on which lower phrase is written, on a floor at random. And competitors sit around these cards. Then, the reader, who sits out a game, reads an upper phrase at first and then reads a lower phrase. The upper phrase is supposed to be read one time, the lower phrase is supposed to be read two times. During these phrase are read, competitors try to find the card the reader has just read, on which the lower phrase is written.

When it comes to the official KARUTA competition, each competitor is given 25 cards randomly at first, then you arrange them on the floor so that you could get whenever its poem is read.

As you imagine, in order to find the right one faster than anyone, you must not only recall a lower phrase but also know where the right card is put on the floor as soon as an upper phrase is read by the reader. The winner is decided on how many cards you get. If you got a wrong card, you would be taken away one point.

I hope that the app may help you to memorize 100 poems, so that you would be able to immerse yourself in Japanese literature and enjoy KARUTA game as well.

Lastly, I would like you to feel like having a bit of Hiragana letters and poems up your Apple Watch, as the saying goes, "have something up one's sleeve."