Koichi Masukawa (1930-2021)
u.sch...@museedujeu.ch
It has come to our knowledge that Koichi Masukawa, the most prominent and prolific games historian in Japan, has passed away of pancreatic cancer on July 11 at the age of 91.
He was born on January 14, 1930, in Nagasaki. Based in Itami City, Hyogo Prefecture, he dedicated his life to the history of board games such as shogi and chess. He was the long-time president of the Japanese Academic Society for the History of Games, established in 1988. He also participated in some of the early Board Game Studies Colloquia.
His numerous books include a ”History of Japanese Chess Shogi” (1977, 5th ed. 1997; vol. 2 1985), “World History of Board Games (2010), “History of Japanese Games (2012), Sugoroku 1 and 2 about the history of race games (1995) and of course his new “History of Shogi (2013). He also edited the annual journal “Yugishi kenkyu”, the title of which he also gave in German “Die Forschung der Geschichte der Spiele”, and which he only gave up in 2016 after 28 issues. His last book about the Ohashi Shogi family was published only a few months before his death.
Most of his writings he published in Japanese, which is one reason why his findings are not well known in countries outside Japan. Only a few articles and chapters by his hand were published in a Western language. Among these publications I mention several articles in “Informazione Scacchi” and “Variant Chess”, his article on the history of backgammon in Japan in Board Games Studies Journal vol. 3, 2000, several chapters in “Asian Games” (ed. by Colin Mackenzie and Irving Finkel, 2006) as well as his chapter about traditional Asian and Japanese games in “Jeux de l’Humanité” (ed. by Ulrich Schädler, 2007)”. However, when he sent his books to colleagues and friends, he always added a summary written in German, the one foreign language he had taught himself.
In 2018, he generously donated big part of his collection of Asian games to the Swiss Museum of Games.
His lasting merit is to have brought Japanese games and their history to the Japanese public as an object of research and a cultural heritage. Whether he will find worthy successors in his home country is unfortunately doubtful. We will miss him and always honour his memory.
Ulrich Schädler, Swiss Museum of Games
August 2021
Myron Samsin
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Dr V. Balambal
Dear Ulrich,