The race to replace Iyama as Japan's number one is heating up. For the longest time Ichiriki was the number one in waiting but he doesn't have the fun hairstyles that Iyama donned in the past. However, it now appears Iyama has a protégé as it appears Kansai Kiin hero player Murakawa Daisuke has changed his hairstyle on no other than Iyama's own advice!

It's for sure this guy owns a guitar



The original news from the Nihon Kiin, probably misrepresented by myself with the help of Google Translate.

Ha! I was surprised that it was in the Nihon Kiin news at first but it is actually an "extra" from the Tsuru-Rin "yojijukugo" 四字熟語 column. I thought you were joking about Iyama, and then I laughed again when Tsuruyama joked about Iyama, but to see that Murakawa really did talk with Iyama -- It is too much! What?! He's in his 30s... I guess not late 30s yet... Despite what Murakawa said (which I think might be a joke), maybe it's Rin that is more on track -- he wanted to do it while he still had time.

Ok, so, if they can still be joking about Iyama 10 years later (or when was that? 15 years ago?), then what were people saying at the time. I'd have to go back and find that picture of Iyama but I think it was one of his first Honinbo title wins. I'd like to find an article from back then about Iyama's hair.

Who's next? I'd love to see Shibano but he seems too tame. If we are taking predictions maybe Tsuruyama himself will feel the need to hop in before it's too late.

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John Fairbairn explained what these 4-character idioms are somewhere on here. But I believe they are all of Chinese origin and like most idioms they are not always plain to see, especially going from Chinese to Japanese.

I think the Tsururin yojijukogo columns are still appearing in Go Weekly but I don't get the digital edition anymore. If you have an Amazon Kindle Unlimited subscription (Japan or U.S., and maybe world wide) you can see past issues of Go Weekly (and Go World) once they become outdated. Kindle has a text-highlighting feature but last I checked it doesn't work on these magazines so you can't copy/paste the text.

It is a humorous article, even if I can only enjoy the google translate version it still comes cross as funny. I am sure the translation isn't accurate at times but I found this part funny.


I think what he wrote on the card might start with 玄, the second one could be almost anything to my eyes but 玄妙 is a Taoist concept of mystery. Profound black mystery like his hair.

It might actually be the case. See https://ryohkei.com/kanji-gen-cursive-4-41492.html for an example of 玄 in cursive and 妙 is 女 and 少 which is like this https://ryohkei.com/kanji-jo-cursive-18196.html and https://ryohkei.com/kanji-shou-cursive-2-18332.html.

Well, I wonder... https://www.nihonkiin.or.jp/player/htm/ki000365.html

Cheers,
Vesa

That's right! I missed that. I guess I wasn't paying attention back when he had that hair. I tried to look through his "SNS" and old newspaper articles but I couldn't find any old enough where Tsuruyama had awesome hair. Maybe he feels too old to return?

Digging through Tsuruyama's twitter and seeing pictures of him and Shibano makes me feel even more than Shibano would not go for it -- but maybe that is all the more reason for him to do it? It could be a thing! Also, cool that these guys all camp and cook together.

https://twitter.com/igo_mokkosu/status/ ... 73/photo/1

The Tsururin pair responsible for the article have an active youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6EaS0C1EaxZg8as9MXNTBA

It is all in Japanese but some of it has lot of variations. There is investigations into trick moves, even regular commentary on Honinbo league matches, interview with the daemon of Tsumego and other interesting things. However, as mentioned above, Tsuru doesn't have that hairstyle anymore.

In the same way Lee Sedol said Park Jungwhan might not have been able to catch up to him due to not having enough style, maybe Shibano Toramanu can't catch up to Iyama due to having a crazy enough hairstyle.

I respect there's a popular show where making their hair go whacky makes them power up! A 1980's show, Dragonball I think. So it predates Iyama Yuta, but not the OG himself Cho Chikun. Before even him, Albert Einstein also used this technique.

You have to see this in cultural terms.

I remember once walking with a companion to the shogi HQ past the Meiji Jingu Stadium in Tokyo, just as THOUSANDS of schoolchildren came out from some huge event. They were all going in our direction, towards a station, so we saw just the backs of heads. And they were all black. They all wore the same uniforms, which accentuated the effect. We were engulfed, but being taller we felt like ships carried along on a sea of black waves.

When you see something like that, you begin to understand why Japanese youngsters pine after trying to express some individual identity. Hair is a major problem for them in that regard. Hence, in the 1990s, the chapatsu (hair dyed to a brown "tea" colour became fashionable among youths. It was trebly rebellious: coloured hair plus brown western tea with milk instead of green tea!

As chapatsu became mainstream - as all rebellions do - spiky hair became an alternative, mainly among boys of course, under the influence of manga. In general, signs of rebellion are nothing new but tend to be muted compared to western fashions, but even muted demonstrations stand out in so-uniform Japan. One thing I noticed on my last trip to Japan was a surge in the number of young men wearing yukata (usually brown) on the streets, so was this a case of rebelling by going back to tradition!?

A far better way of standing out is by being subtle, as Murakawa demonstrates, I think. The card he is holding, and which he had written, has the characters genmyo 玄妙. (The left side of 妙 in the handwritten form is just the hiragana letter め, which is the "hira" form of 女). Genmyo just means "abstruse", which even in exotic Japan is a pretty peculiar thing to write on its own. But Murakawa is an intellectual type of guy, and is from the Kansai Ki-in. What I think he is doing, therefore, is hinting subtly and so humbly at the longer four-character phrase 玄妙入神. 入神 (entering into the realms of the divine) is the top grade in the old Chinese system of 1 to 9-dan. It is an allusion to the Book of Changes, and all the other grades have similarly fanciful names. This register is still rather popular within the Kansai Ki-in. What I think Murakawa is saying is that he is aiming to be a 入神, that is a Meijin, by going through the stage of comprehending the "difficult to comprehend", i.e. 玄妙. Sooooooooooooo much better than just being "cool", don't you agree?

COuld Murakawa be referring to the well-known motto yuugen (幽玄) which is part of the calligraphy scroll by Kuwabata that is hanging in the Yuugen no Ma at the Nihon Ki-in?

We have to wait until the middle of next year for the next appearance in the Meijin preliminaries. He has been killing the preliminaries in the last couple of years but didn't make it to the final tournament, this time he was eliminated in the final preliminary just two weeks ago. I posted his win in the game before that (against another Kansai hero) in my pet thread. It is a fascinating game.

If it has anything to do with winning the Meijin tournament then that really is abstruse, the earliest chance of becoming the Meijin is in 2024. It is six game to make it back to the league. He dropped out of the league in 2020 and has gone 11 - 3 in the preliminaries since then. Next year he needs the hairstyle to make a difference. Though, I doubt it is related to that with someone that writes on their Kansai Kiin profile that their goal is to become a little bit stronger, but optimism is a Sagittarius trait and so is spontaneity like changing hairstyle.