Wooden Shogi Japanese Chess Pieces

The Yellow Mountain Imports Wooden Shogi Japanese Chess Game is like entering a whole new dimension of chess warfare! I mean, who needs regular chess when you can engage in epic battles with Japanese samurai and ninjas on a wooden battlefield? These koma pieces are like little warriors with serious attitude, and my living room has turned into a dojo of strategic combat. The paper shogiban is like the battleground map for my mini army. I feel like I'm the general of a top-secret chess ninja clan. Yellow Mountain Imports, you've transformed my board game nights into epic adventures, and I'm considering donning a kimono just to get into the spirit! 🗡️🎎🏯🏴‍☠️

I had previously bought a shogi board that was magnetic for easy play. But I was slight disappointed that the pieces were not traditionally wooden and the board was smaller than expected. Since the game set was met for travelling use, it makes sense, but I prefer the regular size. This shogi set made up for it. The pieces were made of wood and the perfect size for me so I can read the characters better, and I can play the boardgame mat on top of my Go boardgame. Makes everything better.

I just started getting into the game of Shogi and with the lack of quality online interfaces for studying/playing, I opted to get my own set. Even though I'm new to the game, I really wanted to avoid the cheap, low quality magnetic and plastic sets while also not breaking the bank.I bought this wooden folding board (see my review for that board as well) which didn't come with pieces thus necessitating the need for a piece set. Shogi pieces (known as "Koma" in Japan) like Shogi boards are hard to find outside of Japan due to the level of craftsmanship required to make them combined with the relative obscurity of Shogi in the western world. Most good, wooden piece sets are available only through importing from Japan which can be costly and time-consuming (delivery times are usually weeks if you don't want to pay 2-3 times the set price in shipping costs).Due to these factors, my initial plan was to get this cheap, $12 set of wooden pieces while I wait for a nicer set to be imported from Japan. Upon getting this delivered, however, I canceled my other order because these pieces are actually a decent quality for the price. Given that I'm relatively new to studying this game, it wouldn't make sense to really go all-in on a nicer set anyways.The wooden pieces are a good weight with a solid, authentic feel to them. The calligraphy is decent, however, I'm not a huge fan of how the characters extend all the way to sides of the piece. Generally, the characters are supposed to be fully contained within the piece and have some padding from the edges. The King piece featured in the product picture is a good example of what I'm referring too.The pieces utilize the 2-character format for their names. These Chinese characters (not Japanse) are heavily stylized and written in cursive. This gives the set a very authentic feel but can be hard to decipher for newer players. Even so, most casual players tend to prefer the simpler 1-character variations that use only the top half character and aren't as stylized. So if you're buying this as a beginner or for someone else who is a beginner, do be aware of this prior to making this purchase as it may take some getting used too.TL;DRPros:- Cheapest wooden pieces that are widely available- Solid wood feel- Decent caligraphy for the priceCons:- Some characters are too big for the piece and extend to the sides- Slight ink bleed on some characters which makes them look sort of "fuzzy"- Uses a complicated character set which isn't beginner/westerner friendly

I've been wanting a shogi set for a while so when I saw these, I snapped them up.I don't know enough about the traditional sets to know if they're regulation or not but they're light and they feel nice.It comes in a really sturdy box for storage and a zip top bag for the pieces. The included pamphlet has some general information like the rules for how each piece moves and general game play.The paper gameboard to get started is even a nice touch.I'm pretty happy with it.

The board is a piece of paper. I get that that's is probably my fault and I should have read deeper, but damn that's cheap. I got this beautiful magnetic go board for travel that is all in one perfect it's really not that hard or unexpected to believe there was some sort of sturdy solid object to affix the wood pieces too? I mean id accept plastic pieces if it meant I got a game board lets to be real. Theres a picture of the board i want on the box and in the picture....i mean million dollar idea make the game box the packaging if your so cheep your gonna fold up a printed piece of paper and pretend thats a game board. Look its just a suggestion is all. The wood pieces are quite beautiful

Very good purchase

It looks like wood but too light and smell like MDF. The ink was smudge on the other side and had a dent.I paied $23 with tax, 30% less now in the day I received the delivery.I will refund this right away.very disappointed.made in china by the way...

The wooden pieces are nicely made for the price. The characters are printed on, not incised. The "board" is folded paper. I plan to flatten it out and have it laminated, as I did with my xiangqi paper board. Laminating a paper board makes it much more pleasant to play on.I've had a western-style shogi set for decades, and decided I wanted to learn to recognize the Japanese characters. It only took me a few hours and some imagination (the Gold General is wearing a pointy hat, etc.) to do so, partly because I had previously made the effort with the Chinse xiangqi set, and some of the characters are very similar. The more valuable pieces are larger; there are three sizes, which also helps with recognition.