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Various kens were created, such as willow-ken, tail-up ken, deep-river ken, strip ken, circular ken, hand-up ken, follow-me ken, blindfold ken, and fists-together ken. What is called Janken comes from the guu, choki, paa or rock, scissors, paper sansukumi way of thinking. Sansukumi is expounded in the book called the Kan'inshi, which describes how the snake fears the slug, the slug fears the frog, and the frog fears the snake. Each of the three animals holds the others in check, so that the three cannot move, the same relationship as between rock, paper, and scissors. When this idea propagated to the honken and other ken (hand) games, games like Janken resulted. The jankens of the Edo period included Shouyaken and Mushiken.

Shouyaken, also called village-headman ken or fox-ken, was played with the village-headman, musket, and fox symbols. Village-headman was indicated by sitting in a dignified manner, as if on the seat of honor. Musket was represented by mimicking carrying a musket in both hands. Fox was indicated by holding up both fists at an angle. All the gestures were made using the whole body. The rules were that the headman beat the gun, the gun beat the fox, and the fox beat the headman.

Mushiken was played with the snake, frog, and slug symbols. Snake (thumb) beat frog (index finger), which beat slug (ring finger), and slug beat snake. Mushiken was a children's game, whereas Shouyaken was played by adults.

After these, many other variations of jankens appeared.

Korean Game

Traditional Rock, Paper, Scissors, also called Gawi-Bawi-Bo and pronounced Kai-Bai-Bo, where kai is scissors, bai is rock, and bo is cloth or paper, is popular among Koreans. The rules are the same as in the traditional Japanese game. A popular related game is Muk-Chi-Ba.

Martial Art Connection

In the game, no single hand shape (weapon) is superior since each has a strength and a weakness. In each hand presentation, one side will win, and one side will lose. Although the outcome would seem random, which side wins and which side loses depends upon the mental strategy used by the presenters and the ability of each presenter to read the intentions of the other.

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