はじめに―「指さない将棋ファン」宣言／Preface - 'Non-playing Shogi Fan' Declaration 

 

Shogi is a culture, deeply rooted in Japanese society and souls. It has fascinated and excited many students?/children?/people?, especially when they are in their elementary and middle school years. However, as they grew up, those, who had been big fan of shogi, tended to spend less and less on it and eventually ended up being away from it, because they just became too busy with their own careers - which is what normally happens when we grow up. I myself was one of them, and I guess many others must be the same.

 

Here, let me describe how I get in touch with Shogi world. Over the last 25 years, I have not really been following Shogi as closely as I had been before, because of time constraint due to pressing requirement to develop academic/professional expertise, an increasing familiy obligation and a long-term transfer or change in residence from Japan to Silicon Valley for business reasons.  Still, as a pastime for relieving the stress from day-to-day business, I have been an avid reader of various Shogi-related books including "The World of Shogi", a monthly magazine specialized in Shogi which I subscribe from Silicon Valley. This makes it possible for me to keep in touch with Shogi overall as well as the latest information of individual professional players, albeit physically far from Silicon Valley. 

 

While I was not able to find any time at all for "playing" Shogi myself, not to mention being good at it, I still continued to be engaged with Shogi through "observing it" combined with "perusing review on it", in which I sometimes come across something valuable that I can apply to everyday life. For instance, one of my favorite Shogi books, almost a bible for me, is "A Study on 'Game' Played by Humans" ('82, Shoden-sha), a masterpiece by Kunio Yonenaga Eisei-Kisei (an incumbent chairman of the Japan Shogi Association), released when I was in college. I can not tell how many times the precious lesssons I drew from the book helped me make important decisions in my career as a business person. Also, the books by late 9th-dan player Kingoro Kaneko - you will see him referred to several times in this book - are not just my favorites, but something that influenced me in many respects - like my writing style. It is no exaggeration that Kaneko, the way he lived his life, is a role model for the rest of my life.

 

Even for all the time I spent on shogi, as I got further away from playing, it felt as if I was not permitted to say outloud that I liked shogi or that shogi was my hobby. That is, to me, the atmosphere surrounding shogi was measuring one's likeness towards Shogi by how good of a player one is. What a very high threshold needed to get over to join the shogi world, I thought. So I continued on loving Shogi alone, silently.

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Getting into my 40's, as I was able to afford more time on my own, I started murmuring about shogi, my favorite, on my blog. 

 

Surprisingly, there was great response to it. There were many people in Japan who had to step away from shogi for a long while, but kept on loving shogi unconsciously.

 

When I met a friend of mine from elementary school, who ended up becoming a surgeon, for the first time in thirty years, we had this lively conversation triggered by what I had written previously on my blog.

"Umeda, you too did love shogi when you were a kid didn't you? I wasn't a good player myself either but I did like it. But as I got into medical school, I couldn't find the time at all to play. But guess what, my 8th grade son's in a shogi club and I enjoy watching the shogi program, broadcasted on NHK every Sunday, with him."

"So you're a big shogi fan!"

"No. I still don't have time to play, nor am I a good player either."

"You like watching shogi, isn't that a one good hobby? Just like me. The professional shogi players are just totally amazing."

"Five to six years from now, I'd probably be too old to operate surgeries so then I'd be able to spare some time on my own. Then I would love to watch more shogi."

Time flew by as we were talking about shogi, and I felt as if I was time-slipping to childhood.

 

Also, after a candid discussion, during a commercialization conference of new technologies, I had with ten top-class engineers of company-S, one of the software-engineers, who I had never met before, came up to talk with me. A top class engineer, in his 30's, who has gotten the knack for his job.

"Umeda-san, you like shogi right?"

"Yeah."

"I enjoy reading your entries on shogi on your blog."

"I'm happy to hear that. It's great to be able to have this kind of conversation after work."

"I had the skills of about a 1st-dan player when I was in high school, but as I entered college I threw in all my time on software, and I wasn't left with the time at all to play anymore. But I do sometimes watch shogi on magazines, TV, or on the internet, thrilled by it too. It's really fun. There are people just absorbed in shogi from when they're in school, right? Those who become major amateur players. There are people of that kind in my workplace, but looking at them makes me feel as if I'm not qualified to say outloud that I'm a shogi fan."

"Well, that isn't so. You can be a 'non-playing shogi fan' or say that 'my hobby is to watch shogi'!

I say myself that my hobby is 'watching shogi' not 'shogi'. "

And at another occasion, when I joined company-K's board meeting as an observer, I had this conversation with its president.

"Well, I regularly read Habu-san's book to help me with managing the company. I'd love to meet him once in my lifetime. I was working in America for over ten years, working tirelessly, nobody to play shogi with, but I did read magazines on shogi throughout my stay. Even after appointed to the board and coming back to Japan, I still had to fly around the world, so I read magazines on the plane. No time at all to play myself."

"You're a big shogi fan!"

"No no. I'm no good at it. I was playing all the time when I was a kid, but now i can't invest time in improving my shogi skills. Now that the computer's gotten so good at playing shogi, I figured that it would be best for me to watch Habu-san active, from far away, silently, rather than trying to improve myself."

"Would you want to go watch a large-board commentary of a title-match sometime with me?"

"That sounds fun."  "The shogi world produces perfect people doesn't it? Koji Tanigawa. When he came out, it came to me that this is the very man, the perfect human. And after a while Yasuharu Habu coming out next. Ten years passes, another perfect human comes out. How is it so? The shogi world's such an incredible place. This is a reason why shogi has attracted me so much. But again I'm not a player. Since I'm no good, I silently watch from the outside."

There's a lot of them throughout the world, 'Non-playing Shogi Fans', yet hidden.

 

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When writing about shogi on my blog, at first I was doing it very timidly. I thought that when the good shogi players read it, they'd think that "what's this guy that doesn't know much about shogi and doesn't even play it writing?"

 

However the unexpected responses from all the hidden shogi fans made me realize that I could play my part of the role of contributing to the shogi world, and began to think the concept 'Non-playing Shogi Fan' is very important by means that it would spread and enrich the variety of fans. These standpoints also reinforce the concept: As the number of kids playing shogi is increasing these days, shogi should be spread to their parents; Moreover, toward the global growth of shogi, which is increasingly more important from now on.

 

Also, getting close with the professional shogi players such as Habu-san, Sato-san, Fukaura-san, and Watanabe-san, they all encouraged me greatly because I realized that all these people were also having the same concerns as myself, and that they were hoping for 'Non-playing Shogi Fans' and 'I Enjoy Watching Shogi Fans' to increase.

 

There's no requirement needed for you to watch shogi and to enjoy it.

Anyone can become a 'Non-playing Shogi Fan' starting right now.

Those that stepped away from shogi but still think of the shogi world, those that for some reason can't stop loving shogi but themselves aren't good players, those that have never played shogi before but are somehow attracted to the brilliance of the players and therefore pay close attention to shogi...

To those I will write this book. That you can feel the amusement of shogi without playing, that you can feel the amusement of the fabulous players, that you would want to start watching shogi for a change... Wishing for these to become true, I will get on going with this book.