Takodori's Entrance to Shogi World

New shogi manga titled "March comes in like a lion(Sangatsu no Lion)" started

Chica Umino, who is famous as the author of "Honey and Clover(Hachimitsu to Clover) started her new series of romance story centering the shogi world last Friday. It's on Young Animal magazine which is to be published twice a month. You can also refer to the news titled Chika Umino, Kazuhiro Kumagai, Shokotan's Newest Manga on Anime News Network.

According to Chapter 1, The name of the main character is Rei Kiriyama. He is seventeen year old and a professional shogi player who belongs to C1 class of Juni-sen. He gets up in his room near Sumida River in tokyo and leaves for Sendagaya where Shogi Kaikan(hall) is located in order to play a professional game. The date seems on June 8 since there is a scene that the date in the calender is circled. Rei wins the game. You may see the resignation diagram of the game here.

The position of resignation is identical to the position of the 8th game of 34th Meijin-sen between Meijin Nakahara and Challenger Ouchi(8 dan, at that time) held in 1975.

Seventeen years old in C1 class means he becomes a professional players very early. I think Rei Kiriyama will be a big player later in the story like Hifumi Kato, Koji Tanigawa, Yoshiharu Habu and Akira Watanabe who became professional players before they graduated junior high school.

One more trivial thing. Nakahara took Meijin from Oyama on June 8 1972. What a coincidence!

A blog entry on Shogi by an Australian author

Here is the entry titled "Games that are not chess-Shogi. I think it's an effect of Clubhouse Games on DS which offers 42 kinds of board/card games including shogi.

The article mentions to Habu who is one of the top shogi players and plays chess as well. As many of readers of this blog is already aware, Meijin Moriuchi also plays chess very well. Here is the latest news in the shogi-l about Moriuchi's chess trip to France.

Harem Anime "Nagasarete Airantou" has shogi scenes

In this April, Harem Anime "Nagasarete Airantou" started in Japan. One of main female characters, Suzu, is set to be good at boardgames such as shogi, chess, go and so on. The episode 10 of the anime has shogi scenes. You may watch it with English subtitle through this page.

For those who are more interested in the anime, I'm collecting the following links;

Nagasarete Airantou(Wikipedia)

Nagasarete Airantou (Anime News Network Encyclopedia)

Nagasarete Airantou - 10 (Random Curiosity)

Nagawarete Airantou 10 (Tenka Seiha)

Nagasarete Airantou - 10 (Subculture Anime Blog)

Nagasarete Airantou Episode Guide

Nagasarete Airantou - Episode 10 (spoilers)(Otaku no Ken)

Shogi is a lucky item for Gemini on June 20

I usually do not believe in horoscope. But I would like to introduce a horoscope site since it says that shogi is a lucky item for Gemini on June 20. Shogi is so popular to horoscope fans, isn't it? It might be interesting for you to read;

Daily Horoscope of Gemini 2007 June 20 Wednesday

Updates of To spread Shogi Over the world

The captioned blog has now two entries in this June.

Mori Ogai Memorial Hall in Berlin

I found the following press release in Netherlands Corporate News.

Toshiba International Foundation geeft financiele ondersteuning aan Japanse studies van Mori Ogai Memorial Hall in Berlijn

The following sentense is included in the above release;

Mori Ogai Memorial Hall has exhibitions of Mori Ogai's works and related books, collects artifacts associated with him, plans and holds events, and offers Japanese cultural programs on such subjects as ikebana, the tea ceremony, and shogi.

If you happen to visit Berlin, it may worth while thinking about dropping on at Mori Ogai Memorial Hall. I hear there is shogi gathering every Friday although I'm not sure in details.

Forum discussions about shogi

It might be interesting for you to read and/or participate in the following discussions recently generated at BoardGameGeek.com.

Which is better?

Chess, Shogi, or Go?

A quality shogi board was delivered from Japan!

I can easily imagine how the author felt when the goods were delivered. Congratulation!

The New Japanese Chess Board Is Here! (Let the Finder Beware)

Shion no Ou is announced to be in Anime.

Here are the links to the contents which appeared in Anime News Network(ANN) regarding Shion no Ou. It is a manga written by Masaru Katori(Naoko Hayashiba who used be a lady shogi proffesional player) and drawn by Jiro Ando

Shion no O Anime Announced

Shion no O (manga)

I think this will be fan-dubbed into English and some other language somewhere when it start to be on air in Japan.

A successful fund manager plays shogi

I was a little surprized to read a Bloomberg.com's article including the word "shogi". The title of  the article is "Arcus's Pearson Sells Japan's Winners, Buys Losers in Top Fund" It is about Mark Pearson who is a founding-partner of Arcus Investment Ltd. There is a following sentense in the bottom part of the article;

Pearson draws on his skill at playing shogi, the Japanese version of chess, to come up with investment strategies.

If you have friends who are investors and have not known shogi yet,  please  let  them know the article. Learning and playing shogi could be useful for them to come up with investment strategies.