Shogi (Japanese Chess)

I've recently been playing a good deal of Shogi, but so far there really aren't very many good apps/websites available for online play against other humans (plenty for puzzles and AI play). We've got Crazyhouse and Bughouse Chess on Chess.com, which are similar in that you can drop pieces that you capture. Why not Shogi? 

Shogi is very similar to chess (hence being called Japanese Chess) in that each side has pawns, knights, a King, a bishop and a rook. There are some slight movement differences, but most of the aspects for these pieces remain the same. 

The main differences are:

1.) you can drop a captured piece back into the game with few restrictions instead of moving a piece already on the board,

2.) seeing as the board is 9X9 instead of 8X8, the "promotion squares" are the opponents back three ranks instead of just the back-most rank and most of your pieces can "promote," not just pawns. There are a couple of rules regarding this, too, but nothing difficult, and

3.) in addition to the familiar pieces, there are lances (like a forward-only rook), silver generals (or silvers) and gold generals (or golds) which each have king-like movement with some subtle (but crucial) differences.

Traditionally, there are Japanese characters written on the pieces to indicate which piece is which, but I've seen plenty of "International" pieces that look just like their Staunton counter-parts, and even Staunton-esque representations for the gold, silver and lance pieces. 

I think it would be really cool of Chess.com to include Shogi as a possible variant to play here since this site has the BEST systems in place for evaluating ratings, the MOST user-friendly computer/mobile platforms for new and old players alike, and the LARGEST community of players, many of which I'm sure would love yet another variant to play. 

I invite others to weigh in here and I hope that the site managers will consider this awesome proposition to expand the chess community!

 As much as I like the idea of having as many chess variants as possible available here on Chess.com, I'd like to limit the scope of this thread to Shogi, since it's probably easier to develop variants one at a time rather than many at once. 

Fair enough will_n. Perhaps I should have waited until daytime in Japan to post/update this thread to see more support.

I'd love it if Shogi was available here, or at some (hypothetical) comparable sister site.

brainking.com

 Evert823, I've looked into brainking and it is so far the best for correspondence, but it still pales in comparison to chess.com concerning mobile-friendliness, user base and navigability. Chess.com really makes it easy for people to play on any platform, especially mobile, and I'd like that level of effortlessness for shogi games, too.

I enjoyed the game when I played (mostly in the 80's). I would like to see it added.

I had written off the possibility of the site ever hosting historical/regional variants, but with the sudden addition of other variants, my hope is renewed a little bit.

I've always thought playing with Japanese characters (And Chinese with XiangQi, Korean with Janggi, etc.) was part of the charm, and I think the resistance to learning them is more psychological than anything. Learning the characters isn't any different conceptually than learning the shapes of chess pieces, since both are abstractions. Both should definitely be offered, though.

81dojo is a good website to play shogi

81dojo is a very good one but it has no correspondence game only online.

Why American customizes other country's culture to what they like?

飛車 is not rook, 桂馬　is not knight.

We use kanji for pieces, not emoji.

Not only Americans. I have no problem with kanji but I like calling it a Rook / Knight.

I would prefer the Kanji, to stay as close as possible to the original (I am American). Furthermore, I would like to learn shogi (I know relatively little, but I mean to really learn it - not just moving pieces). Chess.com adding shogi as a variant would be a nice addition; I'd gladly learn it and play

japonés llorón, yo creo que los japoneses tienen miedo de ser superados por el hombre blanco en su propio juego, ¿por qué no se puede aprender el shogi con dibujitos de ajedrez?

por qué no poner una variante con imágenes como éstas?

a mí me gustaría poder jugar al shogi en algún sitio con dibujitos de ajedrez

antes de morirme, por supuesto :'v

hagan algo por favor!

I myself find it easier to learn Kanji than to learn Spanish 

This is what he said:

"Weeping Japanese, I think the Japanese are afraid of being overtaken by the white man in their own game, why can not you learn the shogi with chess drawings?

why not put a variant with images like these?
I would like to be able to play shogi somewhere with chess drawings

 before dying, of course :'v  

Do something please!"