History of Shogi - Changes in The Shogi Population

Changes in The Shogi Population

According to the "Leisure White Paper" (レジャー白書?) by the Japanese Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development (財団法人社会経済生産性本部?), the "shogi population" (the number of people of 15 years or over who play at least one game of shogi a year) fell from 16.8 million in 1985 to 9 million in 2004, and 8.4 million in 2006, and is continuing to fall gradually.

During the above period, in which the shogi population fell by a half, shogi has often appeared in the general media, for example Yoshiharu Habu's achievement of taking all seven titles in one year (1996), the airing of the NHK TV novel Futarikko (ふたりっ子?) (1996), the reporting of the affair between Makoto Nakahara (中原誠?) and Naoko Hayashiba (林葉直子?), Shōji Segawa taking the professional entrance exam (2005), and the debate about the management of the meijin-sen being passed to a different body (2006). However, none of these led to the birth of a "shogi boom", and in some cases unfavourable media reports accelerated the decline in the number of shogi fans.

The number of 10 to 19 year olds playing go is said in the "Leisure White Paper" above to have increased due to the story "Hikaru no Go", serialised in Weekly Shōnen Jump. (The overall go population is decreasing.) However, the 2006 Leisure White Paper reports that go is most popular among those in their 60's, while shogi is most popular between those aged 10 to 19.

From around 1996, internet shogi programs such as Java Shogi (Java将棋?) and The Great Shogi (ザ・グレート将棋?), which allow users to play games over the internet without the need for an actual shogi set, grew to be widely used. At present, many games are played using services such as Shogi Club 24 (将棋倶楽部24?), Kindai Shogi Dojo (近代将棋道場?) and Yahoo! Japan Games.