Shiritori — the endless word chain

Shiritori means "taking the rear end." One player says a word; the next must say a word starting with the last kana of the previous one. さくら (sakura) → らくだ (rakuda, camel) → だるま (daruma)… and on it goes. One rule ends everything: never say a word ending in ん (n). No Japanese word begins with ん, so the chain dies and you lose. Suddenly every player is doing frantic mental kana-spelling — which is exactly why teachers love it. It's the perfect car game, and secretly one of the best hiragana drills ever invented: you can't play it without hearing words as chains of kana.