Sunday Night / Nichiyoubi no Yoru

Published April 12, 2025 Updated April 14, 2025

An irreverent, avant-garde deck unofficially titled "Nichiyoubi no Yoru" (Sunday Night), designed by Teruhiko Yumura.

1970 JapanArt & DesignEroticaTeruhiko YumuraDainippon

Cards are from an irreverent, avant-garde deck unofficially titled "Nichiyoubi no Yoru" (Sunday Night), designed by Teruhiko Yumura, who pioneered a distinctive art technique that intentionally looks poorly drawn. The cards feature grotesque erotic illustrations rendered in a cartoony black-and-white ink style. The Japanese texts on each card are dark, satirical fortune-telling poems related to the imagery.

Nichiyoubi no Yoru (Sunday Night) playing cards designed by Teruhiko Yumura, published by Dainippon Playing Cards, c.1970s Nichiyoubi no Yoru (Sunday Night) playing cards designed by Teruhiko Yumura, published by Dainippon Playing Cards, c.1970s Nichiyoubi no Yoru (Sunday Night) playing cards designed by Teruhiko Yumura, published by Dainippon Playing Cards, c.1970s Nichiyoubi no Yoru (Sunday Night) playing cards designed by Teruhiko Yumura, published by Dainippon Playing Cards, c.1970s
Nichiyoubi no Yoru (Sunday Night) playing cards designed by Teruhiko Yumura, published by Dainippon Playing Cards, c.1970s

Above: Nichiyoubi no Yoru (Sunday Night) playing cards designed by Teruhiko Yumura, published by Dainippon Playing Cards, c.1970s.

Regarding the nickname “Sunday Night”, the Japanese text on the Joker card is:

次の日曜日までに魔女があなたをねらいます。
誘惑の甘い言葉に気をつけてください。

Which translates as "By next Sunday, a witch will target you. Beware of sweet words of temptation."

Like many underground or novelty decks from 1970s–80s Japan, it wasn’t always given a formal or widely publicized commercial title beyond being a limited or novelty release. It may simply have been issued as an art deck or collector’s deck under Dainippon’s umbrella.

See the back design

References

Wikipedia : Teruhiko Yumura

MDPI : Understanding the Characteristics of the Heta-Uma Illustration Works in the 1980s: A Case Study of Teruhiko Yumura and Yosuke Kawamura

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By Jon Randall

Australia • Member since May 28, 2020

From 6 or 7 years of age I enjoyed playing cards with my family, and still enjoy a variety of games today with various groups and individuals. I contribute my competitive nature to enjoying games … it’s not that I like to win, I dislike losing! I was barely 10 years old when my great Uncle left me a small collection of playing cards and that was the starting point of my collecting. The competitive streak in me helped develop me into a competitive swimmer that sent me to various places around the world, including a 6 year stint in the US, where for much of that time I was at university. I’ve always enjoyed car boots flea markets, yard sales, charity shops etc., and my eye would never miss a pack of playing cards. Even after my swimming career finished I coached at a high level for many years and continued enjoying the discovery of some great finds around the world. For decades my collection continued to grow, despite selling a portion of it via eBay over the years. It wasn’t until post 2010 that I realised, mostly due to correspondence with Australian friends, that there were so many single playing card collectors. This intrigued me. I had so many packs of cards at home that I made the bold decision to share a good number with singles collectors, and subsequently listed around 7000 for sale on eBay. That did make a dent in my collection, but there’s still around 30,000 packs taking up quite a bit of space at home. Crazy? Yes, but I’ve seen bigger hoards a few times! There’s so many I surprise myself finding packs I forgot I had when I look in a box I’d not seen in a while.

My eBay IDs if you’d like to look are “worldwide_playing_cards” & “playing_cards_world

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