Takodori's Entrance to Shogi World

I've started social-bookmarking pages for shogi fans.

I've started social-bookmarking pages for shogi fans who can read English. It is titled

Entries incl. 'shogi' or 'Japanese chess' bookmarked by ShogiUpdates

Didn't you heard about Social-bookmarking? It's a a web based service, where shared lists of user-created Internet bookmarks are displayed. For further explanation about Social-bookmarking, please refer to the relevant Wikipedia page.

The purpose of the social-bookmarking pages is to provide a contemporary share about what contents are coming related shogi on Internet among shogi fans who can read English worldwide..

I would like to briefly explain how the social-bookmark runs. Almost every day, I collect a lots of Internet contents which includes the words 'shogi' or 'Japanese chess' by using Google Alert, Technorati, some aggregator applications and so on. Some of the collected contents are written in Japanese or other languages. So I'm picking up the contents written in English only and putting them on the social-bookmark pages. It's a manual process and some trifle contents are not to be bookmarked even if they are written in English. Yes, I'm playing an editorial role.

The social-bookmark generates RSS feed so you can get an update notification timely if you use a RSS reader to register the bookmark to receive its RSS feed. For more information about RSS feed and RSS reader, please refer to the page of aggregator in Wikipedia. I think it is a very useful tool which is worth giving it a try.

I hope this small trial will work successfully and the similar endeavor will take place in your local language in the near future.

Game Evening in London on November 29

According to ASIA HOUSE which is a non-profit organization to promote appreciation and understanding of Aian countries, it will hold an event called Game Evening on November 29 in London. Segawa 4 dan and three female professional players will be there to give workshop and matches. Sake and Sushi will be served in the reception. I'm not sure if the ticket is still available, but if you are interested in the event, please visit the following page for further information,

Game Evening - The art of shogi

Event of Cosplay Shogi in Youmacon 2006

This weekend, Cosplay Shogi will be held in YOUMACON 2006, a conference of Anime, Manga, Video games, J-Music or so in Detroit, USA. If you are interested in the event, please refer to the page of featured events the conference.

There was alredy a cosplay shogi event last year in YOUMACON 2005. You can see a lot of funny photo about the event from this page of YOUMACON 2005.

Minishogi become available at Brainking.com

According to the Brainking.info of Octorber 2, www.brainking.com has added Minishogi to its wide variety of boardgame line.

Minishogi is a minimized shogi variant which used 5x5 board. For further details about Minishogi, please refer to the Wikipedia about Minishogi.

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Five shogi images were added to Boardgamegeek.com

Five shogi images were added to Boardgamegeek.com. Through that page, you can see the enlarged image if you click any of the various images there.

I found an interesting photo. Here is the link to it captioned German FX Schmid Edition:"tranlated" tiles, front.

I think making shogi pieces in ones own design is one of the good ways to enjoy shogi.

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"Shogi" in verious WIkipedia Languages

I just tried to input "shogi" in the search field of various Wikipedia Languages with more than 25,000 articles which is found in the Mainpage of Wikipedia(English) and hit the Return key. Here is the result. "Shogi" can be found in many languages as below;

・ Deutsch ・ Espanol ・  Francais ・ Italiano ・ Nederlands ・ Norsk bokmal ・ Polski ・ Portugues ・ Suomi ・ Svenska ・ Česky ・ Dansk ・ Magyar ・ Română

Since the result above comes from the alphabetical keyword, it's not applicable well for Wikipedia non-alphabetical languages. If you know the existence of the shogi article in any Wikipedia non-alphabetical languages other than 中文 and 日本語, please let me know by writing in the comment field of this entry.

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Human Shogi in Colmar in France(Photos of ESC2006 are available on the Net)

According to the announcement of shogi-l by an organizer, the photos of ESC2006 are now available to see on the Net. You can watch them through this page. There are approximately 600 pictures there. If you live in Europe and have not participated in ESC yet, you must see how the biggest European shogi event was organized. And I would recommend you to take part in the ESC2007 to be held in Pardubice, Czech Republic.

Different from the years up to last year, there were not only tournaments but also an attraction of Human Shogi which was held for the first time in Europe. Forty people play a role of pieces of shogi with wattle hats on their head and plain sticks grasped by their hands. Do not miss to see the photos of this interesting event. You can click "Next>>"there in order to see the next photos. There are 70 shots or so about Human Shogi there.

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Links to interesting articles in English

This is just an entry of links to interesting articles in English about Shogi Super-Brain Research Society.

The clarification of the mechanism of shogi players' brains is worth a Nobel Prize

Researchers study shogi players unravel brain's mystery.

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How to care for your quality shogi pieces

Recently I had a question about how to care for quality shogi pieces from one of my friends during playing a turn-based shogi game in Brainking.com. The sets were gifted to him but the presenter did not tell him how to do every-day care for it. I think my answer to him will be useful as well for those who have quality shogi piece sets in their own. My reply excluding the personal part was as following;

Many piece sellers recommend users to wipe wooden quality pieces by a dry, soft cotton cloth each time you put them in the piece pond or box after playing in order to prevent a piece from getting dirty. If it gets dirty, then they recommend to wipe it in a soft cotton cloth with just a tiny drop of camellia oil.

I hope this will help if you have quality shogi piece sets.

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Animation Movie:SHOGI HOUR

On May 3, the 18th Computer Graphics Animation Contest(in Japanese) was held in Tokyo Osaka and SHOGI HOUR created by Jun Aoki was awarded. The movie is funny and amusing. It is one of the hottest topic among the shogi fans who acquire shogi news and information through the Net in Japan.

The movie is a parody of NHK shogi tournament TV program. You can see it as the followings if you have Media Player or Quick Time installed on your PC;

Go to MOVIE in aokijun.net

Click either button of Windows Media Player or Macintosh Quick Time of the 8th movie from the top(3 ones from the bottom). It may take considerable time since the length of it is approx. 8 minutes.

I think you will feel funny and amusing in spite that the narration is in Japanese. It's easy for a shogi fan to imagine what's going on to the characters' minds during their play.

Jun Aoki is an animation creator born in 1981 in Okinawa prefecture. He wrote. "I never intended to make fool of the TV program and shogi. I created the movie to express my devotion to shogi. Shogi is splendid! I love shogi!(translation done by takodori)".

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