Character Hanafuda キャラクター花札 [きゃらくたあはなふだ, kyarakutaa hanafuda] are a subgenre of hanafuda patterns that generally feature characters and imagery from popular television, manga, or video game franchises. Alternatively, they may follow some other theme, often specific to a particular region or hobby.
As they tend to have additional subjects depicted on every card, the designs of these decks often make it more difficult to differentiate between certain cards and card types. For that reason, along with the generally lower construction quality of these cards, they tend to be more collectable than they are play-worthy. That said, many of them come with rule leaflets, and almost all of them should be usable to play any hanafuda game, provided enough attention to detail and/or familiarity with the specific deck.
The character hanafuda decks manufactured by Angel are printed on soft rough cardboard, with exposed sides. As such, they can be considered to be of very low quality - they are more for collecting than for playing.
The character hanafuda decks manufactured for Beverly are made of stiffer cardboard than those of Angel, but are still not backpapered, meaning the sides of the cards are exposed.
The character hanafuda decks manufactured by Nintendo are unlike most character hanafuda decks; they are properly backpapered like traditional karuta and come in reusable plastic cases. However, the print quality may not be quite as good as their main lines of hanafuda, with the exception of Mario Hanafuda (which had the highest quality print and finish).
Just like Nintendo, the character hanafuda decks manufactured by Oishi Tengudo are properly backpapered like traditional karuta and also tend to be of the same quality as their traditional hanafuda decks.
The character hanafuda decks manufactured for Yanoman are generally considered to be of high quality, but are still not backpapered. Their sides are black to match the borders and backs, rather than bare cardboard. The only exception is the Deluxe Collector’s Edition of Yokai Hana Asobi, which were properly backpasted like traditional karuta.
These hanafuda are known to exist but have simply yet to be categorized by publisher.