Gunjin Shogi

Katsutoshi Seki wrote in an email about the game the following:

It is a shogi variant, but it is very different from shogi. I think shogi and chess is much closer than shogi and Gunjin shogi is.

Gunjin shogi is similar to shogi in that it uses board and pentagonal pieces, fight between two players. It differs from shogi in many ways. For example, you place pieces backward so that you can't read the character written on the pieces. Before the game begins, each players put their pieces as they like, and how they place the pieces is an important tactics. When the pieces of each side meet togather, the stronger piece wins. The strength of the piece cannot be perfectly ordered, that is, Taisho wins Chusho, Chusho wins Spi, and Spi wins Taisho (just an example.) The game requires a judge who judges which side wins. However, some people play without a judge, and in that case the attacker confirms which side won by seeing the type of opponent piece.

There are sixteen kinds of pieces, and I found a table which shows the strength of pieces on the web.

http://www.mito.ne.jp/~utas/kaiko/980427-0.html (Link appears to be broken)

Of course you can't read the Japanese characters, but you can see a table with blue and pink squres. Blue means win and pink means loss.

Based upon the information, it seems that Gunjin Shogi is in the family of hierarchical games, and is comparable to the game Stratego, that is popular in Europe and North-America.

• http://www.db-soft.co.jp/products/gsyogi/. Gunjin Shogi (Link appears to be broken).