Do
any of you like chess? I don’t. To play, I need brain power that I don’t have
*sigh*. However, if you do like chess
you might be interested in Shogi. That’s pronounced sho- and ‘gi’ like ‘geese’.
In the Yamagata prefecture of Japan, you will find Tendo City or the “Town of
Shogi Pieces”. Yes, the “town” because
it used to be a town but now it’s a city.
This city is famous for creating the most beautiful Shogi pieces since the Edo period. Oda Nobumichi lived in Yamagata and encouraged samurai to build Shogi pieces so the town could be financially “brought back from the dead.” Oda Nobumichi was a descendent of Oda Nobunaga who (almost) conquered all of Japan. Nobunaga loved to play Shogi and thought of it as a way to become better at planning strategy (a good trait in the samurai arsenal) for battle. Nobumichi used Nobunaga’s fame and told samurai to make Shogi pieces (normally a lowly job) calling it an honor. Around the year of 1912, the making of Shogi pieces became industrialized with machines cutting the wood and stamp printing of the kanji (that’s the confusing squiggles) onto the pieces.
Tendo City has courses on making Shogi pieces and many other Shogi related events in hopes of spreading the game’s popularity. One such event is the annual Ningen Shogi match. Ningen Shogi is played with human pieces and a life-sized board. The people are dressed in real looking samurai armor and get chairs to sit since a game usually takes up to an hour.
A few differences between Shogi and chess are listed as follows. A player can “drop” or put an enemies captured piece back into the game, all pieces can be promoted so that they can move differently, and pieces in Shogi move differently than in chess. For example, a “pawn” in chess can move forward or diagonally but in Shogi it can only move forward. There are also several pieces in Shogi that aren’t in Western chess. In Shogi there is no queen but a silver and gold general. For more information on how to play you can see the link below. :)
This city is famous for creating the most beautiful Shogi pieces since the Edo period. Oda Nobumichi lived in Yamagata and encouraged samurai to build Shogi pieces so the town could be financially “brought back from the dead.” Oda Nobumichi was a descendent of Oda Nobunaga who (almost) conquered all of Japan. Nobunaga loved to play Shogi and thought of it as a way to become better at planning strategy (a good trait in the samurai arsenal) for battle. Nobumichi used Nobunaga’s fame and told samurai to make Shogi pieces (normally a lowly job) calling it an honor. Around the year of 1912, the making of Shogi pieces became industrialized with machines cutting the wood and stamp printing of the kanji (that’s the confusing squiggles) onto the pieces.
Tendo City has courses on making Shogi pieces and many other Shogi related events in hopes of spreading the game’s popularity. One such event is the annual Ningen Shogi match. Ningen Shogi is played with human pieces and a life-sized board. The people are dressed in real looking samurai armor and get chairs to sit since a game usually takes up to an hour.
A few differences between Shogi and chess are listed as follows. A player can “drop” or put an enemies captured piece back into the game, all pieces can be promoted so that they can move differently, and pieces in Shogi move differently than in chess. For example, a “pawn” in chess can move forward or diagonally but in Shogi it can only move forward. There are also several pieces in Shogi that aren’t in Western chess. In Shogi there is no queen but a silver and gold general. For more information on how to play you can see the link below. :)
(363 words)
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| Ningen Shogi |
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| Oda Nobunaga |
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| Shogi, shogi, and more shogi |
Sources:
Tendo City Shogi Info
Tendo City Shogi History
Hey mousy, guess who finally found your blog. I gotta say this is really fascinating. I am not one for chess personally, but the idea of actors playing the pieces intrigues me. When you take a piece in the game do they mock fight each other, or simply exit the board?
ReplyDeleteThe actual actors in the game just leave the board. However, before or after a game there is a demonstration of either a ninja (japanese assassin) or samurai fight between games. There's also what's called a wadaiko gassen which is a japanese drum fight where drummers play traditional music meant to describe a past battle.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever gotten to see a game being played? How about a life-sized game? Where and how did you learn about Shogi? Have you been to this place and seen some of the game pieces and how they are made?
ReplyDeleteI've always wanted to learn how to play chess. I'm wondering which game came first, and are they related (one derived from the other, or no?)?