Their name comes from a traditional Japanese card game.

Their name comes from a traditional Japanese card game.

Oichu-Kabu is a simple card game where a player draws three cards to achieve a sum of 9.

If the total of the cards is exactly 10, the score becomes zero.

A score of eight, nine, and three gives the player a score of 20, which also becomes zero – as it is a combination of two tens.

This specific hand is called Ya-Ku-Za (eight-nine-three) and is the worst hand possible.

It’s from this that the Yakuza’s name draws its meaning.

 Nintendo has been a household name in the world over for the last 30 years, and their Pokemon franchise took the world by storm in the 90s. But did you know that the multimedia Nintendo empire started out as a humble karuta company in 1889? That's right, not 1989, 1889. Long before Mario and Princess Peach's torrid love affair began, there was a type of Japanese playing cards called  Oddly enough, mastering karuta requires some of the same skills as mastering your average video game–a combination of lightning reflexes, memorization, and lots of time to waste. And for the Japanese language learner, karuta also offers the perfect blend of procrastination and productivity, a way to work and play at same time.