Shogi Pieces

Overview

In the summer of 2021, I was deeply obsessed with shogi. I spent hours every day playing and studying. Unlike chess and go, shogi is a very insular game that is vary rarely played outside of Japan. But even though everyone I played with was online, eventually I got it into my head that I wanted a physical shogi set.

And not just any shogi set. I had to go overboard.

Let me provide some context on what it means for a shogi set to be nice. Fundamentally there are only a few variables you can play with: material, construction, and font.

Material

There are really only two commonly used materials: plastic and wood. Shogi is an old-school, traditional game, and obviously no self respecting player would use plastic.

However, while even within the category of wood there is a lot of variation. Sets costing upwards of $100 will use unspecific wood from unspecified trees, but as you move into the $200 price range you will begin to see expensive, tight-grained hardwood, with the most expensive sets costing thousands of dollars.

Construction

After the base material, there are various options for how the characters are applied to the pieces.

• Printed: The cheapest is to simply print the characters on the pieces in a factory.
• Stamped: Slightly better is to stamp the characters into the wood and paint over the stamp. This will last longer and might look better.
• Painted: Although not as durable as stamping, a more premium option is to have a craftsman hand paint or lacquer the characters.
• Carved: Hand carving is a huge step up. Some old japanese dude will literally carve every stroke of every letter with a tiny knife.
• Lacquered: If you really want to go big, the carved characters can be painstaking filled with lacquer, layer by layer, in a process that takes weeks or even months to complete.

image from kurokigoishiten.com

This image shows the steps involved in the carved and lacquered variants.

Font

Where chess can have interesting designs for the exact shape of the pieces, shogi has a large variety in fonts. If you want to read a little more in depth, I stumbled across this site which covers 9 different fonts.

unknown lacquered font by 武山

Kinki (錦旗) by 香松

Ryoko (菱湖) by 山上

I don’t know if this is a hard rule, but I’ve noticed that many lacquered and painted sets use a bold and fast font similar to the first image, which is an affordable set from Kurokigoishiten. Personally, I hate it, but there must be a market out there for it, because it adorns countless inexpensive sets, and is often characterized as bold and powerful.

The second image shows what is probably the most popular competition font, Kinki. It’s a balanced and pleasing font that I wouldn’t mind owning.

The third image is my personal set (and personal favorite font) Ryōko, which was popularized by calligrapher Maki Ryōko (1777-1843). To my eye, it manages to be elegant and flowing and aggressive all at once, and I adore it.

It should be noted that all these fonts are fairly stylized, especially the promoted pieces. The cold hard computer font renders them as 角行/龍馬 on the top row and 飛車/龍竜 bottom row. Characters like 角 and 飛 are retained almost intact, but 馬 and 竜 are stylized to an almost unrecognizable extent.

click me...

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I mentioned super expensive sets earlier, so here’s a particularly gorgeous example. Carved by the modern master Fugetsu, this mori-age set in Satsuma-hon-tsuge Himawari-moku wood featuring the Minase script will set you back a cool $3,325, even at today’s generous exchange rates.

Beginner Set

So, enough background, what about my sets?

Well, one big reason to own a physical set is to play with friends and family, and as my friend group is not exactly overflowing with people who can read kanji, I needed to find a set with westernized markings. There are actually quite a few beginner-oriented sets on the market, ranging from the doubutsu animal sets for kids to the chess-inspired sets that have chess imagery stamped on the pieces.

However, after a lot of searching, I found a clear winner in the Shogi Cz beginner set. I bought this set on June 9, 2021, and it is amazing.

comparison of Yamashita and shogi cz

Here you can see it alongside my hand carved japanese set, and the difference is stark. Although the Yamashita set is certainly beautiful, the shogi cz set is a much better tool for learning and teaching. The directional arrows are perfect for learning the rules, the font used for the kanji is clear and readable, and the quality is excellent for the price. The markings are not only colored, but also stamped into the wooden pieces, so I expect them to never wear off. Mine are still holding up years after my purchase. They’ve even considered the smallest details, such as writing on the promoted side the symbol of the piece which was promoted.

I also bought a board and an adorable piece bag from the same company. Right now this is my only full size board, and although I would certainly like a thick, traditional board, this one has suited me well so far.

Intermediate Set

I don’t have the money for one of those insane lacquered sets, but back in 2021, kurokigoishi, which mostly sells super expensive stuff, also sold three “affordable” hand carved sets in Kinki, Ryoko, and Minase scripts for 12,000 yen each.

The exchange rate back then was .009, so on July 2, 2021 I paid $108 for the set plus $22 shipping from Japan. That same set would only cost $74 at today’s exchange rates, but sadly, they are no longer offered on the site.

I had to dig around a little bit on the way back machine, but my set was originally marketed as, 将棋駒 楓 山上作 特上彫 菱湖書.

The wood the pieces are made of is honestly not that amazing; it’s very lightweight a bit plain, but the carvings are beautiful.

rook

promoted rook

king

Underneath each king, you can read 山上作 (crafted by Yamashita) and 菱湖書 (Ryoko Script).

One interesting feature of shogi is the pieces are different sizes depending on their rank.

Piece	Bottom Width	Top Width	Total Height	Max Thickness	Min Thickness	Total Pieces
Pawn	21.44	14.53	26.99	6.93	3.61	18
Lance	22.22	15.09	28.22	7.85	4.28	4
Knight	23.89	17.00	28.03	7.75	4.01	4
Silver/Gold	25.21	17.77	29.60	8.22	4.30	8
Bishop/Rook	26.31	18.72	30.54	8.60	4.11	4
King	26.99	19.04	31.70	8.94	4.34	2

beautifully wrapped

in the paulownia box

I’ve bought a fair amount of things from Japan either directly or through ebay, and it is not uncommon to see purchases wrapped in pretty paper. This paulownia box is also standard for shogi sets, coming with even the cheapest wooden sets.

Mini Set

My very first shogi set was altogether less practical. I had been spending hours on ebay, looking at the large, small-coffee-table-sized, wooden sets that would be used in a professional shogi match. The selection on ebay was honestly not that great; I basically had the choice between clapped out junk for hundreds of dollars or pristine luxury sets for thousands.

And then, when using some off-the-wall search terms, I came across the most beautiful set I had ever seen. It was for a weirdly good price from a seller with too few ratings, and I was immediately suspicious. When I searched the maker of the board, I found other, similar sets for over $500. But ultimately, I couldn’t help myself. I triple checked ebay’s buyer protection, logged into my PayPal for extra security, and on May 30, 2021 I bought it, for the cool price of $200.

As I looked at some of the other listings, I realized that what I had thought was a full-sized board was actually a miniature. I was initially crestfallen, but now that it’s actually been in my apartment for the past 3 years, I am so delighted by the size.

It’s stunningly beautiful, just big enough to play a novelty game with a friend, and small enough to display as the centerpiece on a shelf or table. Sadly, it arrived damaged, with a broken corner, but the seller was kind enough to refund me $50 on the purchase price.

“Yanagiyama Vintage Japanese Shogi Wooden Game Board with Legs from Japan”

closeup of the mini board’s lacquer

I’m not sure the process by which the lacquer is applied, whether it is done by hand or printed in some way, but it is stunning. There are several layers of lacquer that build up in a subtle texture on top of the richly flaked black substrate. You can see the makers mark in the bottom right corner

Recommendations

I love my carved set, but if you could only have one, then I would recommend the shogi cz set. It’s a great tool for learning and teaching, and the quality is excellent for the price.

If your budget is really constrained, unfortunately there aren’t many quality options in the American market. There are plenty on Japanese sites, but you’ll be paying $25 of shipping, which often defeats the purpose. Unlike with chess or go, I would recommend avoiding most sets on Amazon. They are either low quality, overpriced, or have hideous fonts. If you simply must buy on Amazon, I would recommend something like the Koma Shogi Set over the Yellow Mountain Imports set.

If you do want to go the Japanese route, I have a section on supplies in my post on Shogi Resources.