Official News Release

The annually-presented "Prize and Game Money Ranking" of 2015 resulted in the 10 top players listed below

2015 Total Prize and Game Money, 10 Top Players

Notes

※ The statistics period is January 1st 2015 ~ December 31st 2015
※ The number between the braces is from 2014. The Unit of the numbers is 10,000 yen. Numbers are only estimation.
※ Habu has been ranked 1st for 2 consecutive years, and 21 times in total.
※ In Ladies Professional, Kana Satomi (Ladies Meijin, Ladies Ou-i, Ladies Oushou, and Kurashiki Wisteria) was ranked 1st for 5 consecutive years.

Satoshi Murayama was called a "genius shogi player", and died in the age of 29. The original of the planned film is a novel dealing with Satoshi's sublime life fully dedicated to shogi despite his incurable disease, and it receives 5 stars at Amazon with many comments of praise.
Murayama, called the "big and strong kid" was often compared with Habu with the saying "Habu on the East, Murayama on the West", but died of an intractable kidney nephrosis in the middle of the way towards his dream. He suffered from the incurable disease from his childhood when he was hospitalized many times. One day he happened to start being strongly attracted to shogi, when his father showed it to him in the hospital. Ever since then he kept going for his determined goal of taking the Meijin title.
　The leading actor who plays Satoshi Murayama is the famed actor Ken-ichi Matsuyama. Despite being under the heavy pressure of playing the role of a genius shogi player who dedicated all his life to shogi, Matsuyama repeatedly visited Shogi-kaikan, trying to approach Satoshi Murayama closely both in mental and physical way.

Leading actor

Ken-ichi Matsuyama

Original author

Yoshio Osaki

Director

Yoshitaka Mori

Scenario

Kousuke Mukai

Release

Autumn, 2016

On Monday, January 18th, 28th Ryu-ou Title Acquisition Ceremony for Ryu-ou Akira Watanabe was held at the Imperial Hotel in Chiyoda-ward, Tokyo, attended by 150 guests including shogi fans and related parties. Winners of the Ryu-ou Ranking Tournaments also received medals on the same day.

Presentation of Ryu-ou Recommendation Letter (On the right is JSA Chairman Koji Tanigawa)

Presentation of Ryu-ou Cup (On the right is Shouichi Oikawa, Supreme Advisor of Yomiuri Newspaper Group)

Presentation of medals to the winner of each class of Ranking Tournament
　
Left: Class-1 winner: Meijin Yoshiharu Habu
Right: Class-2 winner: 7-Dan Akira Inaba
　
Left: Class-4 winner 6-Dan Takuya Nagase
Right: Class-5 winner 6-Dan Shintarou Saitou

Class-6 winner 5-Dan Shouta Chida

Congratulatory speech by the guest of honor (Katsunori Aoki, Mayor of Katsushika-ward, Tokyo)

Presentation of bouquet (by students of Children's Shogi School "Kiyu-kan")

Speech of thanks by Ryu-ou
I always wanted to become the Ryu-ou again, hearing people still calling me "Ryu-ou" even when I had lost it. I didn't think I would get a chance this early. This time I had a special feeling about playing against Ryu-ou Itodani in that I play a title match against a younger opponent than me for the first time. Because of that, I was so tense, thinking that I must not lose this match. The 5th game, which became the deciding game, happened to be a king-entering game by the opponent, and just ended all of a sudden, so I couldn't feel it was real. But now that I've gone through this Acquisition Ceremony, I'm feeling the reality of becoming the Ryu-ou again, and I am very happy. The next year I will be on the side to defend the title. I will try to defend it for as many terms as possible.

On January 18th, the Japan Shogi Association approved the mobile app of 81Dojo, owned by Tomohide Kawasaki and known for its contribution to international shogi promotion, following the approval of its desktop gaming site.

81Dojo is an international online shogi playing site having a multilingual system, and was first approved by the JSA on December 12th 2013.
This time the mobile apps for iOS and Android released in Autumn 2015 have been additionally approved.
The first non-Japanese Ladies Professional 3-kyu Karolina Styczynska improved her skill on this site before.
The JSA will keep to support the site and mobile apps of 81Dojo.

News rlease of the first approval of 81Dojo on December 12th 2013
JSA grants patronage to the international online shogi site "81Dojo"

URL: http://81dojo.com/
iOS app: https://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/id1030985569
Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.air.A81DojoMobile

A non-profit site allowing completely free-of-charge use
(Note) To play rated games on the mobile app, a user registration on the desktop website followed by 5 rated games on the desktop app is required.

Comment by 81Dojo owner Tomohide Kawasaki:
We are happy to announce the release of our new mobile apps, responding to the requests by the desktop site users. We would like to thank JSA for granting us the approval following the desktop app version. We hope the 81Dojo users will experience the fun and joy of teaching and learning shogi together with many shogi fans around the world.

9-Dan Shouji Kenmochi (81 years old) died of heart failure on Thursday, January 7th 2016 in a hospital in Nishi-Tokyo city, Tokyo.
We hereby address our deepest condolences.

The foreign guest player to the 6th Ricoh Cup Women's "Ouza" Shogi Championship Tournament will be decided with an online preliminary tournament as described below. The winner will be invited to Japan to participate in the 1st Qualify Round of the 6th Ricoh Cup Women's "Ouza" Shogi Championship Tournament held on May 22nd. The travel and hotel expenses of the guest player will be borne by the organizer.

Selection method

One guest player will be selected in an online tournament held on "81Dojo", the international online shogi site popular with foreign players. For the details of the rules and regulations, please refer to the separate document.

Requirements for participation

A female player, who:
（１） has a non-Japanese nationality
（２） resides outside Japan (Residents of Japan are requested to apply for the Amateur Preliminary.)
（３） can, as the winner, travel to Japan to participate in the 1st Qualify Round of the Women's "Ouza" Championship (If the winner is younger than 18, one guardian may accompany her. The organizer will bear the travel and hotel expenses of the guardian as well.)
（４） can play online at 81Dojo

How to register

For the registration, a recommendation by a shogi association/federation is required. Please fill out the application form and send it to a foreign branch of the Japan Shogi Association or a major shogi organization of the country. Up to 3 players can participate from a country. For more details, please refer to the separate document.

Deadline for registration

February 13th

Schedule

February 27th ~ March 13th Online Preliminary, 1st Round
March 26th ~ March 27th　Online Preliminary, Finals
May 22nd The 6th Ricoh Cup Women's "Ouza" Championship, 1st Qualify

Contact

info@81dojo.com (Executive office of the Online Preliminary, the 6th Ricoh Cup Women's "Ouza" Shogi Championship Tournament.)

URL

「Points of Entry」
http://81dojo.com/event/RicohCup2016/Points_of_Registration_en.pdf
「Application Form」
http://81dojo.com/event/RicohCup2016/Application_Form_en.doc
「Tournament Regulations」
http://81dojo.com/event/RicohCup2016/Regulations_en.pdf

On January 5th, 2016, the regular new year's event "Shogi-do Prayer Ceremony" was held at Hatonomori Hachiman Shrine in Sendagaya, Tokyo.

"New Year's First Game Ceremony" was also held at Shogi-Kaikan in Tokyo and Osaka, where many professional players and related parties attended.

2016 Shogi-do Prayer Ceremony

2016 New Year's First Game Ceremony

Shogi-kaikan, Tokyo
　

A student from the Shogi-kaikan Children's Class

　
Ryu-ou Akira Watanabe and Ou-shou Masataka Gouda attended as well

Shogi-kaikan, Osaka
　
　
New Year's First Game was played also in Kansai Shogi-kaikan (Osaka)

Happy New Year.
First I would like to express my wish that 2016 will be a wonderful year for all shogi fans.

Ei-ou Tournament, newly started last year, was won by 8-Dan Takayuki Yamasaki. You could expect exciting games in the Den-nou 2-game Match in spring.
Japan Series Children's Shogi Tournament gathered more than 10,000 participants for the first time as a sum of 11 locations. This is entirely thanks to the continued efforts by the shogi fans, members of JSA branches, and official trainers. I would like to express my gratitude once again to all of you.

Last year we saw a trend that more and more people are starting to be familiarized with shogi, seeing Ms. Karin Itou of Nogizaka 46 being the presenter of Shogi Focus on NHK, as well as figure skater Mr. Yuzuru Hanyu talking about shogi in his interview.
And this year, "March comes in like a lion" and "Satoshi-no-seishun" (Satoshi's Youth) are going to be made into films. We hope to be able to provide many new pleasant topics for the shogi fans.
We would like to thank you in advance for your continued support.

January 2016
Chairman Koji Tanigawa