Gary Hinze
David F. Jue, "Chinese Kites, How to Make and Fly Them", 1967, page 38, calls it "Octagon Kite" and shows how to make two versions with 24" squares, both with spars along all four sides of both squares, one with the center pole running across the diagonal of one square and an alternate form with the pole running between opposite points where square sides intersect. The pole extends below the face of the kite in both. The illustration of the former on page 39 shows two bridle points.
Tadao Saito, "High Fliers, Colorful Kites from Japan", 1969, page 58, calls it "The Hakkaku Kite" and shows your exact kite, silver lame octagon and all. The photo shows a three leg bridle. The sparring diagram shows a spine and spreader running along the diagonals of the diamond square and spars along the left and right sides of the box square. There is also a rectangle in the center of two spars running parallel with the wingtip spars, connected at the bottom and top by short sticks, forming a rigid rectangle in the center. The spine extends below the kite face. The caption says "The central stick can be removed and the kite folded for storage." It is not evident in either the picture or the diagram how this could be done, unless "central stick" refers to the lateral spreader. The sparring diagram shows six bridle points, two on either end of the top short connector, three across the lateral spreader where it crosses the spine and the wingtip spars and one at the crossing of the spine and the lower short connector.
Wyatt Brummitt, "Kites", 1971, shows several pictures of this kite. An illustration on page 7 shows it being flown in China with a two leg bridle and three tails attached to the three aft corners, the spine does not extend. The diagram on page 47 shows the alternate orientation and calls it "Double Diamond". the spine extends both above and below the face. An illustration on page 69 is labeled "Chinese" and shows a single tail at the end of the spine, which extends below the face. The first and third kites have different color patterns. The third has a circle in the center.
Tsutomu Hiroi, "Kites" (Japanese), 1971, (big blue book in slipcase, published by Mainichi Newspapers) has a large photo on page 65 that shows the details of your kite well. The points are colored dark blue, green, red and yellow. The silver foil octagon is present. There is a spine, a spreader and two wingtip spars, but the top edge of the box square has what looks like a bow stick extending beyond the wingtip spars. There is no corresponding stick along the bottom edge of the box square. The texture of the paper shows that the central rectangle is present, as shown by the diagram in Sato. Four bridle lines are tied to the corners of this rectangle. The spine continues below the point and has two strings dangling from it. It looks like the lateral spreader may be tied on in a way that allows it to be removed. With the removal of the spreader and bow stick, the kite could be folded. Note the similar circle pattern on the kite shown on page 38.
L. S. Newman and J. H. Newman, "Kite Craft, The History and Processes of Kitemaking Throughout the World", 1974, page 151, calls it the Yatuhana kite from the north of Japan. The B&W photo shows colored corners with Kintaro painted on the central octagon. There appear to be spars around all four sides of each square and a spreader and spine. There is a diagram illustrating this sparring arrangement, as well as one illustrating that seen in Hiroi's picture, without the top bow stick. There is no indication of bridle or tails, but the spine extends well below the point.
Tal Streeter, "The Art of the Japanese Kite", 1974, portfolio following page 80, kite number 77, shows your exact kite, just like Hiroi's picture, but the red corners appears more orange and it doesn't have the leading edge bow stick. There is no indication of bridle. The note for this kite on page 115 says "A hakkaku, or octagonal, kite with Bull's eye pattern. From Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture."
Tsutomu Hiroi, "Kites Sculpting the Sky, A Practical and Aesthetic Guide to Making Kites", 1978, page 31, reproduces the earlier color picture in B&W and much smaller size. The caption says "Hakkaku octagonal (Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture)"
"Kite" (Japanese), >1982, page 141 shows a version of the kite with four spars, along each diagonal of each square, and one bowstick extending beyond the wingtips at the top of the box square. The spine extends below the point. The points are colored orange and green in alternation, the central octagon is outlined in black, colored red except for the circle pattern and half a flower on each lateral side. Page 160 shows a completely different color pattern, red points with a green circle in each and a green central octagon. This kite seems to have five vertical and five horizontal spars or battens. The top horizontal spar is deeply bowed. There are cords hanging from the bottom corners of the box square. There could be seven or eight bridle points; tips and center (?) of top bow, centerline 1/4 down octagon, center of octagon and three along spar 3/4 down octagon where the lateral spar crosses the three central spars..
"Kite Flying, Love Expressing, The Treasured Album of China Weifang's Kite Culture", >1989, page 4, shows a variation of this kite on a stamp. There are eight smaller kites surrounding a large central kite, with spinners on interconnecting spars and two tassel tails. Page 5 shows it again. Pages 9 and 10 show it again, with another stamp. The kite pictured on the stamp differs from the illustrations in that the perimeter stars are joined at two corners, not separate.
"The Kite Culture and Art of Weifang, China", came in the same box as the above, page 8 shows a photo of the kite illustrated on the stamp in the previous work. Some bridle string is evident, but it is not clear where it attaches to the kite, it is too fine to see clearly.
Dr. Paul Eubel, "Bilder fur den Himmel, Kunstdrachen", 1989, in German and Japanese. There are no page numbers, so you get to thumb through this big, wonderful book. In the section that describes the seven types of kites used in the project, "Der Hakkaku-Drachen" describes the kite and illustrates it with a perspective drawing. The kites in this project were fairly large. The diagram shows a hummer bow at the ends of outriggers projecting forward of the leading edge at the forward point. The lateral spars at the top and bottom of the box square are bowed. The spine extends quite a bit below the face and has two cords attached at the bottom. It has eight bridle legs. The bridle point appears to be incorrectly drawn, I don't think the kite would fly with the bridle point below the center of the face. At the end of the description of the Project is a diagram illustration all seven project kites and their outside dimensions. This shows an even more impossible bridle for this kite number 3, Hakkaku. David Nash was the only artist to use this form. There is text and a full page picture of his kite "Flying Tree", 200x200 cm (78x78 in). The kite has spars on all square sides and diagonals. It has the hummer bow and a long extension of the spine below the face with cord wrapped along it's entire length. In the section "Vernissage am Himmel" at the back is a picture of this kite being carried out to the flying field, showing the back of the kite. There is a bowstring on the central lateral, but not the top and bottoms edges of the box square. The glue lines joining the sheets of paper are evident. There are seven or eight bridle lines at the bridle plate. Two cord tails extend down from the bottom corner along the spine extension. At the end of the book is a Kite Map showing where each of a dozen kite forms comes from in Japan. Hakkaku comes from Okinawa.
Ha Kuiming and Ha Yiqi, "Chinese Artistic Kites", 1990, page 13 includes a sketch of this kite in an illustration of traditional Chinese kites. Page 64 shows a photo of a 40 inch "Eight Trigrams" kite. The name refers to the eight fortune telling binary bar figures generated by three binary bar digits that are painted on the face. This pattern was also shown in the Weifang books above. Each triangular point contains two spinning eyes. It is hard to tell exactly how many spars are behind this kite, but there appear to be at least four diagonals and top leading edge lateral. Probably all sides of all squares are present. There are strings of pom-pom tails attached to the lower outside points. The three leg bridle is attached at each outside end of the top triangular point and to the spine just below the center circle, above the bottom points of the side triangular points. Page 136 describes the Eight Trigram(s) kite. This appears to suffer severely from translation problems in both text and diagram. The text and the diagram do not correspond, even the text seems to be confusing two framing patterns. I leave it to you to find your own interpretation(s) out of this chaos. None of the other depictions shows any evidence of bowing, but the diagram shows a "towline" attached to one end of the spreader and a note "end of string looped here" at the other end. This rigid structure would be difficult to bow and the kite with the tails could be flown unbowed with an aft bridle. Page 157 shows this kite belonging to the wind force of 3 to 4, with the pop-pom tails forming a loop.
Dr. Paul Eubel, "Arte en el cielo, Art Kites, Cometas artisticas", 1991, is substantially the same book as the above by the same author, but in English and Spanish and under different sponsorship. The illustrations are the same. Here I quote only the text that describes the kite. The caption to the first diagram says "Hakkaku. This eight-sided kite (so its name) can be found in many corners of Japan from Okinawa to Shikoku to Aichi. (In Kanagawa Prefecture it is called Yatsubana, which means eight flowers".) The bamboo framework is formed by overlaying two rectangles and then rotating one slightly, while the painted designs are generally geometric patterns. Very often a humming string is attached to the upper part. In Okinawa the tips of the stars are characteristically painted red with a small white circle."
Franz Arz, "Asiatische Drachen, Kampfdrachen und andere Fesseldrachen selber bauen", 1992, pages 36 and 37 have a large color photo, dimensioned plan and construction instructions for a 610 mm (24") version of this kite, named "Chinesischer Achteckdrachen". It shows spars on all four sides of each square and the vertical and horizontal diagonals which do not extend beyond the points. It has pom-pom string tails on the three lower corners. The three leg bridle ties to the ends of the top triangular point and to the intersection of the spine with the lower horizontal. The three horizontal spars are bowed. The photo has the top of the kite to the right.
Scott Skinner and Ali Fujino, editors, "Kites, Paper Wings Over japan", 1997, page 36 shows a form of this kite called mattaku coming from Okinawa.
Buteo Huang, "Wings of Dream, the Stories of Kites", in Chinese, 2001, page 22, map shows an 85x85 cm (33x33 in) kite coming from Taiwan. Pages 40-41 show a diagram and color photo of the kite. It looks like four sides and two diagonals of each square are sparred. There is a single multistrand tail and a six leg bridle, flown unbowed. Three bridle lines go to the top horizontal spar, are approximately perpendicular to the kite face and about equal to the length of a square side. The other three go to the lateral spreader. There are circular holes in the center of each triangular tip.
The Drachen Foundation, "Paper Kite Workshop", 2003, page 22 shows a diagram for this kite, 19. Hakkaku, as one suggested for students to make. Page 25 says that Luca was given this design, but there are no pictures of the kite.
"The Kong Family of Beijing", in Chinese, 2004, page 89 shows another version this kite with spinning eyes at the inside vertices, a three leg bridle and a pom-pom loop tail.