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This is a bad Iyashikei imo. A soulless adaptation of a great manga. The music and backgrounds are nice, but the way they're used is very uninspired, and every other aspect of this show, especially the direction, feels completely flat and lifeless.

This flatness is especially present in the camerawork, with pointless manga-like panels, flowery borders and movement suggested by zooming backgrounds. All of these, combined with mediocre (on-model but unexpressive) animation and fake-looking computer-generated scratchy lines, put this show a long way from the eyecandy that is the manga.

You'd think that the main appeal of this show would be its small scale. However, the ... staff of this show have completely neglected to capitalize on this. The flames look like normal-sized flames. The water flows like normal. pots shatter like normal. All of the sound effects are just seemingly stock, the same you'd find in a normal-sized anime. But worst of all, there are sources of drama in this show that are COMPLETELY unbelievable because of this neglect of physics. There are at least 2 such scenes where a character falls from a great height, except that in reality, a creature as small as these girls would barely even FEEL a fall like that. In the manga, these scenes were present, but didn't really bother me that much. In the adaptation, where they're significantly more dramatized, they stand out like a sore thumb.

Watching the first trailer, OP and ED feels like watching what this show could have been. 3/10.

By the way, I think there's plenty of things to like about this show, and that the nitpickiness of my review is partly based on the fact that the first trailer gave me really high expectations. I am not trying to disagree with the positive reviews on this page, just highlighting the elements that made it hard to watch for me.

A shortish, stunningly illustrated, full-colour hentai manga that easily transcends the hentai genre.

Rather than use any of it's pornographic imagery for titillation, Hanafuda uses it to tell its tragic story with no holds barred.
the plot feels kind of Shakespearian (if Shakespeare had been a pervert), it's complex, fast-paced and dramatic. There's identity theft, murder, kidnapping, forced prostitution, beastiality, rape, even pedophelia (presented without holding back visually, so don't even think about reading this if those things offend you). All of it takes place in a fantasy/folklore, Edo period-esque setting with absolutely incredible art (probably the best I've ever seen in manga). More ... specifically, its use of colour and pre-drawn patterns makes for some beautiful costumes and deeply immersive backgrounds that evoke both the Edo period and the well-known card game this manga is named after.

This is the only work of fiction without music that ever managed to get a tear out of me, and I highly recommend it to fellow lovers of aesthetic storytelling.

There is a digital licensed version available in English from FAKKU books, and that's the way I recommend you read it.