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The story
Yahoo News reports that reigning shogi Ryuo and Meijin title holder Sota Fujii raised a pointed question at the Japan Shogi Association’s general meeting, asking, “Is there really a guarantee of skill level for female professional players?” Seated in the front row, close to new chairman Shimizu and former chairman Habu, he reportedly voiced his doubts in a calm, level tone. At issue is how to evaluate the standards behind the “women’s quota,” which opens a path to the 4-dan professional rank for female players, along with the special entrance exam tied to it. On 5ch, opinions split over whether any guarantee really exists, with posters citing the difficulty of the entrance exam, how the “Free Class” demotion system is run, and the match records of top female players against male professionals.
“Everyone at the general meeting was stunned that Fujii had raised his hand to speak. On top of that, he was sitting in the front row, in the seat closest to new chairman Shimizu, former chairman Habu, and the board members. As tension spread through the room, Fujii asked things like, ‘Is there really a guarantee of skill level?’ His tone was as flat and composed as it usually is in TV interviews, and his expression stayed calm the whole time” (the same source said).
According to another attendee:
“Sitting right behind Fujii were the two dominant players who split the women’s titles between them, but he didn’t seem to hold back at all in raising his doubts. The board members in charge just kept repeating the same boilerplate explanation in response. Right to the end, Fujii never looked convinced.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / original article here
What people said
Yeah, but they'll still roast his lunch order (a running 5ch joke about nitpicking Fujii's meal choices during matches).
He already has.
Is it actually a problem if some rando like you dislikes them?
It's a company on a level where the general public isn't even really their customer base anyway.
I mean, it's basically like a developmental/minor-league contract in baseball.
Honestly the whole system of turning people pro who can never climb out of Free Class is pointless to begin with.
Not just for the women's route — the entrance exam should be made tougher across the board.
I want the examiner to be B1-class (a solid mid-upper rank in the pro league ladder).
new 4-dans > top female players (Nishiyama, Fukuma) > lower-tier male pros (Free Class)
so in Free Class they should actually beat pretty much everyone except Moriuchi.
So could they realistically clear even one of these within 10 years?
• In one year (April–March): win at least [tournaments entered + 8] games with a win rate of 60%+
• Best-stretch rule: a 65%+ win rate over any 30+ consecutive games (can span fiscal years)
• Play at least [(tournaments entered + 1) × 3] games in a year (April–March)
• Win, or reach a title match in, an all-pro tournament
Free Class isn't run as a league, you know.
It's just not a game suited to team competition, so that'd be tough.
Though it could be fun if the top players ended up split across different teams.
And you'd get some risqué ones in the mix too, huh.
What are you even trying to say.
The first 29 pros he beat before his first loss (referencing his famous unbeaten debut streak).
If a title holder like Fujii doesn't count as having real skill, then who on earth does.
Don't ask something that obvious.
That's exactly why there's a promotion path set up from the women's quota — nothing strange about that at all.
"Is it really guaranteed?" (meaning: "obviously not, you idiots")
That's what this objection actually means.
New 4-dans are already above the average pro's skill level anyway.
If the entrance exam were easier than clearing the 3-dan league, everybody would just quit and go that route instead.
The whole reason they force players out at 24 is to judge future growth potential —
yet they make an exception to let in someone over 30 who barely manages a winning record against new 4-dans.
I genuinely question the point of forcibly manufacturing a pro who's projected to just barely scrape into C2 and is only technically not the bottom of the barrel.
The entrance exam has had 8 people take it so far and 5 pass — it's lenient enough that of course a woman can pass this thing.
Rating-wise that's "stuck in Free Class, gone within 10 years" territory.
If she were in her teens or twenties you could expect growth from here, but she's already in her thirties.
And honestly none of it matters unless she drops the Ranging Rook (furibisha) style altogether.
That might've been true 7 years ago, but these days… not so much.
Just being a new 4-dan honestly already puts you around mid-tier pro level.
The real bottom of the barrel is the guys who turned pro and then just stayed irrelevant into their 50s and 60s.
And Nishiyama is the one who's been losing to those exact irrelevant old guys lately.
That's true on average, but some of them just keep grinding out death matches in C2 forever, so individual skill runs the full gamut.
Honestly, that's not even the real issue here.
Both Nishiyama and Fukuma have an actual track record of holding their own against men.
The real question is what happens once these two are gone.
The current No. 3, Naka, has a career-best 3-dan league record of just 10 wins and 8 losses.
If she wins the Hakurei title five times and rides that into Free Class, there's no "guarantee" left to speak of.
No way she gets five title reigns.
Skill-wise, if Nishiyama and Fukuma weren't around, Naka could easily rack up five reigns — there's no other strong female player left, and the current crop of middle/high-school-age female players hasn't developed into anything yet.
Naka's fine, honestly.
She's also a rare Static Rook (ibisha) specialist among the women.
But doesn't Nishiyama still compete in the women's tournaments too?
Background and the Key Issue
The standard road to becoming a professional shogi player is the narrow gate of the 3-dan league, which amateur hopefuls must fight their way through. For women only, there’s a separate path: a special entrance exam open to active female professional players. The suspicion that this exam’s bar is lower than clearing the league has circulated among shogi fans for a while, and Ryuo Fujii’s remark ties directly into that long-running institutional debate. Where the thread split was over how to weigh the fact that the top female players currently eligible for the exam already have a solid track record against male pros. Some argue that, given those results, the skill level is indeed guaranteed; others worry about how the standard would hold up if a player from the next tier down were to enter through this route instead. Reporting doesn’t make clear whether Fujii meant his remark as a criticism of the system or simply as a question asked in good faith — either way, it lands as part of the shogi world’s long-standing debate over the status of female players.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (NanJ) thread “[Breaking] Fujii Sota: “Is There Really a Guarantee of Skill for Female Shogi Players?”“
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