October’s Hanafuda suit is maple. Its four cards are the deer, a blue ribbon and two chaff cards, all set among red autumn leaves.

Nintendo Museum describes Hanafuda as 48 cards arranged across twelve months, with four cards for each month. October is the maple month in that calendar.

The Deer

Card 36 is an animal card. In the current Koi-Koi ruleset, it joins July’s boar and June’s butterflies to form Inoshikacho.

The deer and maple pairing also appears beyond the deck. Japan National Tourism Organization identifies it as a familiar combination in Japanese autumn imagery.

The Blue Ribbon

Card 37 is a blue ribbon. The blue ribbons in June, September and October form Aotan. Each card also counts toward the broader ribbon total used for Tanzaku.

Two Chaff Cards

Cards 38 and 39 are chaff. They count toward Kasu, the yaku made by collecting enough chaff cards.

How We Know

The deck structure and October’s maple assignment come from Nintendo Museum. Card classes and scoring combinations come from the current Koi-Koi rules documentation. Cultural context for the deer-and-maple pairing comes from Japan National Tourism Organization. Where rules can vary, this page describes the linked app’s defaults.

Sources

  1. Try Playing Hanafuda!, Nintendo Museum. Accessed 2026-09-01. Used for the 48-card, 12-month Hanafuda structure and Nintendo Museum workshop context.
  2. History & Culture of Koyo, Japan National Tourism Organization. Accessed 2026-09-30. Used for the history of autumn-leaf viewing and the deer-and-maple pairing in Japanese visual culture.
  3. Koi-Koi - Rules & Variants, Koi-Koi repository. Accessed 2026-09-01. Used for the current Koi-Koi ruleset and house-rule disclosure.
  4. Cultural Reference - Hanafuda & the Twelve Months, Koi-Koi repository. Accessed 2026-09-01. Internal topic map only; not treated as external factual authority.