Let's catch the lion
"We women are not interested in war and do not look at Shogi as a war game"
DIESEN ARTIKEL IN DEUTSCH LESEN 
It has become a real blockbuster in the history of boardgames in Japan comparable to the boom of "Monopoly" in the 1980's: "Let's Catch The Lion" that has been created by the female professional Shogi players Madoka Kitao (29) and Maiko Fujita (36). Since its release in September 2009, that scaled-down Shogi variant of 8 pieces on 12 squares has been a hot seller at toy stores on the isles of Nippon. The intriguing novelty of "Dobutsu Shogi" as it is called in Japan: pieces do not depict Kanji but animals such as lion and chicken. German journalist René Gralla has found out more on the occasion of an interview with Tokyo-based MAIKO FUJITA who has done the innovative design.
MAIKO FUJITA, image: private
RENÉ GRALLA: There is a big boom of "Let's Catch The Lion" in Japan, comparable to the boom of "Monopoly" in the 80's. Are you surprised?
MAIKO FUJITA: I was surprised to see such a big boom. I believe there are still more opportunities to increase the popularity in Japan. Children should learn to appreciate the good points of board games.
R.GRALLA: Can you explain that phenomenon to us? How come that boom?
MAIKO FUJITA: Newspaper reports helped us. The fact that professional Shogi players designed "Let's Catch The Lion"added value. Parents were waiting for some intellectual games that stimulate communication rather than the electronic and individual games and toys. It is believed that it is a rare boom for an analog game in such a severe economy.
R.GRALLA:Since "Let's Catch The Lion" is called in Japan "Dobutsu Shogi", the latter indicates that "Let's Catch The Lion" is supposed to be a variant of "normal" Shogi having radically been scaled down.
MAIKO FUJITA: It usually takes a while to master all the complicated Shogi rules such as the capture, re-use aka "drop" and checkmate of pieces. The Shogi board is too large for a beginner to checkmate the opponent's king. Dobutsu Shogi or "Let's Catch The Lion" is a simple variant of Shogi for a beginner to experience the key strategies of Shogi on a compact board with twelve, that is to say, 3x4 squares.
R.GRALLA: At what age have you started to learn Shogi?
MAIKO FUJITA: I started to play Shogi at the age of 21, when I was an university student. This was a late start for a professional player, as professionals normally start to play Shogi in childhood. I used to play Go as a child, but stopped playing as I didn't like the tactics in it. It is a handicap to have started Shogi as an adult, but I was very much into Shogi as I easily became a strong player.
R.GRALLA: Your current rating?
MAIKO FUJITA: I am a professional Woman Shogi player and I have reached the level of 1-kyu. As you might already know, the dan and kyu system of women professional Shogi players is different from the men’s system. Females start from 2-kyu as professional Women Shogi players, and they will be promoted to 1-kyu, 1-dan, 2-dan, 3-dan and so on. The highest dan now is 6-dan. I do not have a major women’s title yet. I got the second prize in the 1 Day LPSA tournament in December 2009, and I won the first prize in the LPSA pair Shogi tournament in January 2010.
R.GRALLA: Together with Ms Madoka Kitao, 1-dan, you have had the idea to create Dobutsu Shogi. How come that you have got that idea?
MAIKO FUJITA: Increasing female Shogi fans, called "the Girls’ Shogi Project", is one of the purposes of establishing the LPSA, "The Ladies Professional Shogi-players' Association of Japan". Both of us, Madoka Kitao and I, we were working on the project as members of LPSA, though Madoka left the association last year. We were trying in many ways to draw more woman towards Shogi. I was preparing a new board design and pieces for beginners, showing zones with colours and possible movements of pieces with arrows.
R.GRALLA: You have chosen to illustrate the pieces with pictures of animals - and not with Kanji letters. Why?
MAIKO FUJITA: My first idea was to use both Kanji and the alphabet on pieces such as 飛車, namely "hisha". Looking at these new coloured pieces I made up my mind to drop the Kanji, which led me to a completely new design of Shogi pieces with animal pictures. My first idea was fruit, vehicles and cartoon characters that were my - at that time - one year old son's favourites. One night in bed I suddenly came up with the idea of using a chick as a pawn and a hen when it was promoted.
R.GRALLA: Why have you chosen animal pictures rather than human types? One example: the chicken moves like the pawn in Shogi, so why you have chosen to call that piece differently - namely “chicken” - rather than calling it “pawn” and illustrating that like a “pawn”?!
MAIKO FUJITA:
The sweetness of the chick going step by step forward is suitable for a pawn. A promoted pawn, the "tokin", is as reliable as a hen. Japan is a peaceful nation now. We have the belief that warriors belong to the past. We women are not interested in war and do not look at Shogi as a war game. Pawns do not mean warriors to me. Instead, I wanted them to be animals that my son would be interested in playing with.
With colourful and attractive images of animals on the wood blocks, babies and mothers can play with them as building blocks, talking about the animals and colours. Shogi is different from chess where the point is to protect the king. One of the goals of Shogi is to capture treasures such as beads (玉), gold (金), silver（銀）, Katsura (桂, Japanese Judas tree) and incense (香).
At one sitting I designed all the 8 kinds of Shogi pieces with animal pictures. Big animals such as elephants and giraffes represent the so-called big pieces, and dogs represent “gold” as the king’s guard. Cats represent “silver” that stays around the king and also goes out to attack the opponent. Lions are used for the king as it is called the king of the animals. Playing with these pieces, we found out that even with cute pieces, 40 are still too many for beginners because Shogi rules are complicated. Meanwhile, Madoka Kitao was looking for a miniature Shogi variant for beginners: 3x4 squares, in total: twelve, 5x5 squares, in total: twenty-five (5x5), or just 3x3 squares, in total: nine, were the options for the miniatiure Shogi board. Both of us found each other’s ideas and design very attractive. We combined our ideas, and that was when Dobutsu Shogi was born.
At one sitting I designed all the 8 kinds of Shogi pieces with animal pictures. Big animals such as elephants and giraffes represent the so-called big pieces, and dogs represent “gold” as the king’s guard. Cats represent “silver” that stays around the king and also goes out to attack the opponent. Lions are used for the king as it is called the king of the animals. Playing with these pieces, we found out that even with cute pieces, 40 are still too many for beginners because Shogi rules are complicated. Meanwhile, Madoka Kitao was looking for a miniature Shogi variant for beginners: 3x4 squares, in total: twelve, 5x5 squares, in total: twenty-five (5x5), or just 3x3 squares, in total: nine, were the options for the miniatiure Shogi board. Both of us found each other’s ideas and design very attractive. We combined our ideas, and that was when Dobutsu Shogi was born.
R.GRALLA: There already exist some variants of Shogi en miniature, such as "Micro Shogi". Have you been inspired by those variants?
MAIKO FUJITA: I did not have other miniature Shogi variants in mind, neither did I consider the reasons they were created. Our purpose is to attract women and children, which makes our Dobutsu Shogi quite different and unique from other games. And I wanted to create cute Shogi pieces that women would enjoy.
R.GRALLA: So let me get back to your main purpose to draw more girls and women to Shogi. Why do more boys than girls take up Shogi today? What has that to do with the traditional design of pieces?! But the traditional pieces are the same for both boys and girls, and boys, as long as they take up Shogi, they take up Shogi anyway no matter the up-to-now traditional design of pieces. So why do girls react differently?
MAIKO FUJITA: This is only my personal opinion. Women are not always willing to stay with strongly competitive games. Japanese women tend to avoid losing games. Another important point is that women are not interested in battles. Boys start to have an interest in war simulation games when they are only three years old. Girls do not show much interest. Women also like to spend their time with their female friends and they are not willing to be the only female in a group. Fewer women in Shogi society makes Shogi even less attractive to them. The last point is that girls are strongly influenced by the traditional image of Shogi. The traditional Shogi pieces would surely remind women of the prejudice that "it is a game for men," and "it is difficult to play". I designed Shogi pieces with animals to attract women. Women were attracted by the appearance of the pieces, setting aside the real difficulty of Shogi. Women make up less than 2 per cent of Japanese Shogi players. Of those who bought Dobutsu Shogi 90 per cent were women. Isn't that a big turnaround?
MAIKO FUJITA, image: private
R.GRALLA: Maybe all those girls who love modern kawaii stuff think that those old-fashioned Kanji pieces are boring - whereas boys do not care - , so girls prefer colourful pictograms? And that’s why girls love Dobutsu Shogi?!
MAIKO FUJITA: Females do not find Shogi boring but get the impression that Shogi might be too complicated to win easily.
R.GRALLA: The result of the fact that girls are not motivated by the old-fashioned design of traditional Shogi leads to the fact that Shogi is dominated by males in Japan?!
MAIKO FUJITA:
Not only the appearance of the Shogi pieces kept women away from Shogi, but also the fact that women usually try to avoid losing a game.
Women seem to have an impression that Shogi should be a serious and difficult game, and they hesitate to start learning Shogi. Shogi is well known in Japan, but it is thought to be a game for men, a game for intelligent people that is difficult to learn. I realized the necessity for a new Shogi variant for women and children. In Japan, mothers take care of their children while fathers are at work. Mothers choose the toys for their children. The Shogi sections in toy shops were small, and all the Shogi pieces I found were dark coloured. I thought there ought to be cute decorative Shogi sets that children enjoy playing with. Mothers could choose a set with an idea of the type of personality they wanted their children to develop. Otherwise, there would be fewer and fewer children playing Shogi.
R.GRALLA: On the other hand, we see many attractive young women being the anchor women of Shogi in television or being referees. At least women seem to play an important role in the promotion of Shogi?!
MAIKO FUJITA: There used to be a local community where grandparents and the elderly were able to teach all kinds of games, including Shogi, to the younger generation. The population is gravitating toward cities, social connections are getting weaker, and families are smaller these days. There are no elderly near children to teach Shogi, and mothers are taking care of their children in a small family. Under these circumstances, women must play a key role in bringing about the popularity of Shogi.
R.GRALLA: By the way: Your pieces look very nice. We assume that you have studied design and arts!
MAIKO FUJITA: I am self-taught. I learned to make posters and advertisements while working on the PC doing web design. My strong point compared to other designers is my love of Shogi, and my strong desire to make Shogi more attractive.
R.GRALLA: With regard to optics your scaled-down version of Shogi seems to have its focus on the kids of the "Manga Generation" who are heavily influenced by the modern optics of MTV pp. and who prefer colourful pictograms and optics to reading.
MAIKO FUJITA: I made Dobutsu Shogi only to make my son happy. It is for children and women to get an easy introduction to Shogi. I am so surprised to find that it has become so widely accepted.
R.GRALLA: One could argue that the pop revolution has hit Japan, as it has hit the rest of the world. That seems to have consequences for the Shogi scene too - and your Dobutsu Shogi is a kind of reflex to that!
MAIKO FUJITA: I do not know whether Dobutsu Shogi is a part of westernization. Before I have started to play Shogi, I spent a lot of time listening to music, watching performing arts and reading literature. I also spent time looking for cute goods. I knew that it was more difficult to find something cute - in Japanese language: "kawaii" - related to Shogi than in other fields.
R.GRALLA: The dominance of optics and pictograms with regard to letters which is the result of the current dominance of Anglo-American culture: Is that a deplorable development, from the cultural point of view?
MAIKO FUJITA: I think we can not yet declare that the optics and pictograms are so dominant over letters. Traditional Shogi items are basically more popular than Dobutsu Shogi in Japan. The reason that Dobutsu Shogi has favourably been accepted in the traditional Shogi community is the fact that it is a different game with different rules from Shogi.
R.GRALLA: People with an attitude of cultural pessimism could argue that your "Let's Catch The Lion"-Shogi is one more step closer to saying "sayonara" to the culture of old Japan, that traditional Japan of letters and calligraphie and - yes! - playing Shogi with pieces that are marked with letters rather than pictures! Doesn't that development of the intrusion of Western pop culture make you a little bit sad?
MAIKO FUJITA:No, I don't think that will be the situation. Living in Japan we do not notice what is from the West and what is from Japanese culture. Western culture has been integrated into the Japanese culture. Japanese traditional cultural goods are more expensive. The issue is economy and convenience. Japanese today might not be able to discover the real appeal of expensive handcrafted kimonos only by looking at inexpensive ones. It is a pity that we have fewer and fewer opportunities to come in contact with the traditional crafts of Japan. A culture will always develop with both classical high-end expensive goods as well as popular pop items. Traditional expensive Shogi items have their own good points, and cheap handy sets have their strengths, too. Neither type affects the development of the other. It would not be good if we only had expensive items and could not find convenient low-priced goods. It would also be unfavourable if the creators of handy inexpensive items tried to copy the high-grade goods and interrupt the development of high-class items. Popular inexpensive goods have their own strong points. There are a lot of goods made by Japanese traditional craftsmen. Expensive Shogi boards are so nice to use that it is thrilling for the player. But you have to spend a lot of money and purchase many boards until you can judge what a good board is. Up to now we only had cheap Shogi items copying high quality goods, and no popular cute goods were available. I tried to make a popular and reasonably priced Shogi set. They will never jeopardize the existence of high quality items.
R.GRALLA: Now let's have a closer look at the rules of Dobutsu Shogi. Each player has 4 pieces that maneuver on a board of 12 squares. Their goal: to check-mate the "King" - that is to say, the "Lion"?!
MAIKO FUJITA: You win the match if you capture your opponent's lion, almost the same way as ordinary Shogi. You also win a game when you move your lion to your opponent’s area, which is called “a try”.
image: Gralla (Toy Museum Tokyo - MADOKA KITAO in blue kimono)
R.GRALLA: Is there a drop-rule in "Let's Ctach The Lion"?
MAIKO FUJITA: Yes, you can “drop” or re-use a captured piece as your own team member. This is the big difference between Western chess and Japanese Shogi.
R.GRALLA: Have you ever thought of expanding your concept of design to Shogi in general? So that you create whole sets of Shogi that are inspired by the optics of Dobutsu Shogi?
MAIKO FUJITA: As I have mentioned above, I started with the design of a full set of Shogi pieces. We combined the pieces with Madoka Kitao's new rules and that was the start of Dobutsu Shogi.
R.GRALLA: When can one buy that expanded set of Shogi "Let's Catch The Lion"-style?
MAIKO FUJITA:We hope that the full set of Dobutsu Shogi pieces will be available in the near future.
R.GRALLA: Now you want to release Dobutsu Shogi in Europe and world-wide?! That's why you have demonstrated that game at the fair of Essen in October 2009?
MAIKO FUJITA: Madoka Kitao is planning to prepare for the release of Dobutsu Shogi in Europe.
R.GRALLA: How was the reaction of the public in Essen?
MAIKO FUJITA: I have been told that people in Essen were happy to see the set and said "Oh, funny!" looking at the chicken. People are not used to re-using the pieces they have captured from their opponent. Dark blue colours and artistic pictures are common on German board games. French people were attracted to the simple pastel-coloured Dobutsu Shogi.
R.GRALLA: When can we buy "Let's Catch The Lion"-Dobutsu Shogi in Germany?
MAIKO FUJITA: We do not know yet.
R.GRALLA: If it is that difficult to make modern kids in Japan interested in Shogi due to the old-fashioned design with Kanji, so it is even more difficult to make people in the West interested in Shogi due to the classic design. Could your new design of Dobutsu Shogi be the solution?
MAIKO FUJITA: Though I was planning to concentrate on the prevalence of Dobutsu Shogi in Japan, people have recommended that I notice the possibility of an overseas market. I studied science in university because all scientific theories are universal. Universal rules attract me as they go beyond the difference of language or culture. I'll be very happy to see Dobutsu Shogi played around the world.
More information with regard to "Let's Catch The Lion"-Dobutsu Shogi:
http://japonbrand.gamers-jp.com