Japan's first playing cards, known as "tensho karuta" and patterned after trumps that were introduced by the Portuguese in the 16th century, have been reproduced by a pioneer karuta shop in this city.

"Tensho Karuta," the first domestically playing cards in Japan, have been reproduced by a karuta shop in Kyoto.

"At last, it has been fulfilled," said Hidetoshi Horita, 48, a self-confessed karuta lover, in reference to a promise he made some 30 years ago to the late shopkeeper of Oishi Tengudo to reproduce the country's first domestically produced cards.

According to Horita, a Nagasaki Prefecture native who has since been a regular customer of the shop in Kyoto's Fushimi Ward, he first suggested reprinting the historic playing cards to the late storekeeper Masafumi Maeda. Maeda consented to the project, but it was not carried out at the time due to lack of funds. Horita said he again took up the idea in fall 1999, after he learned of Maeda's death a year earlier.