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Board games

9-square Shogi great way to enter the convoluted world of Japanese chess

Brush up on your flying chariot versus incense chariot tactics with this close-quarters version of the complex Japanese relative of chess.
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Japanese company releases sleek, traditional arts & crafts version of Monopoly【Pics】

Nakagawa Masashichi Shoten, knows that despite being in business for 300 years, you haven’t really made it until you own Boardwalk, Mayfair, or in this case Kyoto’s Nishijin Textile Center.

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Competitive zen garden-building board game looks awesome, despite conflicting themes

The Zen garden is probably just as important a Japanese cultural export as geisha and sumo. While Zen gardens are certainly less conspicuous than the other two – the whole point of them being to encourage relaxation and personal reflection and all – they’ve arguably had a bigger cultural impact abroad. A lot of major cities, like Chicago, feature carefully curated Zen gardens, after all, but when’s the last time you saw the local sumo club practicing in Central Park?

Westerners appreciate the more subdued, meditative qualities of “old Japan” culture, even though they wish they could find some way to appreciate it while also earning bragging rights by kicking their friends asses’ in a game of wits. That’s why we can’t wait to get our hands on this strange but awesome-looking competitive Zen garden-building board game.

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