A reviewer of "Shion no ou" played Hamshogi and found shogi hard.

I would like to introduce a blog which specializes in reviewing Anime programms and it mentions to each Episode of Shion no Ou below;

Star Crossed Anime Blog :: Shion no Ou

In the review of the Episode 8, the reviewer wrote he tried Hamshogi and found shogi is a harder game than it looked. Interesting!

Hamshogi is a webtop human-to-machine type computer shogi software which you do not need to download to play. I posted how to use Hamshogi in English to shogi-l this June. If you need it for the use of Hamushogi linked above, here is the link to my post.

Comments

[Clement]

Shion no Ou was actually what got my wife and I into playing shogi. Yes, it's hard, but it's a fun and exciting challenge! I hope that more people will come to enjoy shogi through this anime.

[takodori]

Hello Clement,

Thanks for your comment. I'm happy to know the Anime let you and your wife start to play shogi. Click "takodori" after "Posted by:" below, then you will my social bookmark page linked to many problems for shogi beginners' practice in www.shogitown.com which is one of the best shogi site in Japanese. No Japanese knowledge except identifying shogi pieces will be needed to enjoy those pages. If you are interested, please give it a try.

[mauro]

I'm "rosachinensis" and i'm actually playing with Takodori on Brainking.. I'm a little imbarassed in admitting it.. but i also started playing shogi after i watched a couple of episodes of "Shion" and now i'm a seven-days player.. Well, i knew shogi before, but i thought that it was not such an interesting game. "Shion" shows shogi as a very dignified game, so it's hard not to be fascinated by it. I would like to thank Takodori for his dedication in helping people to learn shogi; I hope I'll become a decent player.
All the best, mauro (rosachinensis)
Italy.

[takodori]

Hello mauro,
Nice to meet here as well. I don't think you feel a little embarassed. Before shion no ou, I know several anime-fans started to play shogi since they saw Shikamaru's shogi scene in Naruto.

[mauro]

hello!
well, i know that some people dedicate their life to play good shogi, so i think that it's hard to them to see someone that wants to learn shogi only because he has seen it in an anime; i'm embarassed because i think it's a little disrespectful..

I have tried "hamshogi" too. i played without handicaps and the best result i was able to score is a "draw" by move repetition. It's the best AI shogi program i have played with until today: western shogi games are very weak.. It's a good sparring partner for a beginner like me.

[Linkuei]

Hi
I like your site takodori keep up the good work. Is there anybody who could beat Hamshogi with a king and pawns? i guess its impossible:S
didnt know where to write this so i will do it here, you should make a forum too...;)

[takodori]

> Mauro
If you get to be able to beat Hamshogi, then you may be interestied in something more like Spear etc..,

[takodori]

> Linkuei

Hello, thanks for your comment. I cannot beat hamshogi in such a condition. Forum? Maybe it's an idea to start my Twitter instead of Forum. But I do not guarantee to do so:-).

[mauro]

yes now i can win against hamshogi half the times.
is "spear" stronger than "hamshogi"? i thought it was quite weak.. Someone told me that "bonanza" is a strong opponent, but i haven't verified the information yet.

[takodori]

> mauro

Really? I think spear is stronger but I have not played against it for many years,,,.