Hanafuda (JP), which means "Flower cards" in English, are playing cards of Japanese origin that are used to play a variety of different games. Fusajiro Yamauchi had established Nintendo with the purpose of printing and selling Hanafuda cards.

Nintendo's Hanafuda cards became so well known across Japan that Nintendo eventually started to develop other classic Japanese and Western card games. Their experience in creating card games led them to the toy business and ultimately the video game industry. Today they still produce a few Hanafuda card decks including the popular Daitouryou variant, which features the portrait of Napoleon.