It's one of the essential games of New Year. Victory is decided with stone breaking scissors, scissors cutting paper, or paper covering stone. When everybody puts forward the same things, or when all the three kinds of shape is put forward, it's a tie. They go on playing until the winner is decided. This is an instrument for calculation that came from China to Japan.
Several poles have five or seven round pieces.
The round pieces move. Today, students learn this at private schools. There is a license examination. This is an event on November 15, when parents pray for children's growth. The odd numbered years of this are important period of a child's growth - that is, the ages of three and five for boys, three and seven for girls.