Oishi Tengudo (大石天狗堂) is a Kyoto-based Japanese manufacturer of playing cards and other traditional games, including go, hanafuda, and other karuta.
[1] The company itself states they were founded under the name Minatoya in 1800 by an Oishi Kuranosuke, during the Edo period, when both selling and using hanafuda and many other karuta for gambling was illegal.
[3] The "gwang" (or "hikari") marks seen on modern Korean hanafuda ("hwatu") stem from an innovation by Oishi Tengudo according to the 7th head Masafumi Maeda.
[5] Oishi Tengudo were one of few traditional playing card manufacturers able to survive thanks to a "silent boom" in their hyakunin isshu karuta sales.
Though the company is small, it held half the market in terms of hyakunin isshu sales in 2000,[6] largely due to being the official manufacturer for competitive karuta.