From: Jochen Drechsler <drjochum <at> NIKOCITY <dot> DE>
Date: 16 mar 2001
Subject: Re: About the name of the pieces

> I have watched the discussion about Shogi pieces with interest. For what it
> is worth, my view is that Shogi can never achieve mass popularity outside of
> Japan without some kind of representational piece being standard. Pieces
> with move diagrams on them look technical and boring. My preferred solution
> would be to use color-coded pieces: gold for gold, silver for silver, red
> for rook, blue for bishop, etc. Promoted pieces would have a gold spot on
> the reverse -- most of them become golds anyway. Such a set would certainly
> be attactive as well as non-threatening for people who have no familiarity
> with kanji.

The use of color-coded pieces does not reduce the number of pieces you have to
learn if you are new to shogi. It might not put of some people in the west. But
on the other side I know quite a lot people who were actually attracted by the
kanji (including myself). And that was one reason they investigated shogi
further.

Jochen.