Shogi (Japanese Chess)

Observation: also 99% of the Western Shogi players have no whatsoever issue with kanji 

I definitely agree that learning Kanji was barely an issue when I first started out, and in fact quickly became second nature.

That being said, I don't see why it couldn't be an option to use whichever one you want. Similar to how we can customize our chess boards with pieces that look however we want them to, I imagine it'd be pretty simple to allow the shogi pieces to be customized to be Kanji, western-style, or whatever.

Ultimately, I'd just love to see shogi added as a variant, regardless of how they make the pieces look.

KBToys7 bien dichos amigo 

Nothing new really. I find it sad how, particularly on social media, everybody needs to know every little bit of US culture but it's so rare to see americans make any effort in getting to know other cultures, let alone respect it. 

Depends. There are many people from the U.S.A. who are very interested in other cultures. Personally, I kind of think of the "fake cultures" like a cheesy-tourist. If someone travels to somewhere well known ("tourist traps"), then there are two options at least. The first is to stay in the "tourist trap" areas and relish in the "fake culture" (which may be fun, but nothing truly authentic). The second option is to travel to where the locals visit and try to assimilate to their culture and customs - this is the "authentic culture" experience. 

Similar may apply here. Okay, emojis are not the real names for chess pieces (as Kanji is used for this case), but this is the "tourist trap" version of it. I'm sure the authentically interested Americans (or any traveling/learning country for that matter) know the difference and learn the actual Kanji. 

p.s. A friend of mine is learning Japanese, so I knew about the Kanji for the chess/shogi pieces before this post.  

Shogi is much complicated than crazyhouse chess in terms of hidden rule, but still it is the closest one to be practice and I found it helpful👍

I know right, 飛車= Castle? I wonder how they'll interpret for 龍王 hahaha 

I feel sorry for westerners who find hard to get used to 漢字，also I doubt that chess.com will put other kind of board games in their website🤔

But I personally don't mind if Xiangqi(Chinese Chess) is being modified like the western style chess, I think it's creative and can be mind blowing, make it more excited to learn to play! 😄

I support you opinion. This should be a chess variant in chess.com!

There is nothing wrong with Americans here . As others already linked, on 81dojo Hidetchi itself offers his graphic pieces. Chinese do the same as well. Read https://www.xiangqiportal.com/

Shogi is just another board game after all. If you know the rules, you can play it without Kanji in your head. If you like kanji pieces use them. If others like internationalized pieces let they use them.

If you want to read great Hungarian poems, I will never expect you to learn Hungarian language.

There are Japanese translations made by great Japanese people! I appreciate their work a lot

the bishop design is a sh#t xD

I learned Chinese Chess as a kid after visiting Taiwan.  Learning the characters was part of the interest.  But I will admit that the set you have with pieces looks attractive and an easier sell to Westeners.

Of course learning a few characters is not difficult.  It is funny why would someone interested in learning a game as complicated as Shogi or Xiangqi be daunted by a few characters??  

: )

In lishogi.org you can play shogi

b i s h o p