Shogi Anime and Manga: Every Series Worth Watching

The best-known shogi anime are March Comes In Like a Lion and The Ryuo’s Work Is Never Done!, both built around professional players. If you want romance with a shogi board in the middle, start with When Will Ayumu Make His Move? Several more shogi stories exist only as manga, and shogi also turns up in big mainstream series like Naruto.

Below is every series we could confirm, what role shogi plays in each, and whether watching it will teach you anything about the game itself.

Shogi anime and manga at a glance

Years are as of October 2026. None of these replace a rules lesson. If a show gets you curious, our how to play shogi guide takes about an hour to work through.

March Comes In Like a Lion

Chica Umino’s manga began in Hakusensha’s Young Animal in 2007 and has 18 volumes so far. Rei Kiriyama is 17 at the start and already a professional at 5-dan. He lives on his own after losing his family, and the story follows his games and the people who slowly pull him back into ordinary life.

Studio Shaft adapted it as two anime seasons of 22 episodes each, running from October 2016 to March 2018. A two-part live-action film came out in 2017. The manga won the Kodansha Manga Award in 2011 and the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Grand Prize in 2014.

This is the one to watch if you want to understand what pro shogi feels like. Professional player Manabu Senzaki has advised on the shogi since the manga began, and the books include his short columns on shogi rules and culture. The show spends its time on pressure, preparation, rivalries and the rank system rather than on explaining individual moves.

The Ryuo’s Work Is Never Done!

Shirow Shiratori’s light novels started in 2015 under SB Creative’s GA Bunko imprint and reached 21 volumes by July 2026. A manga ran in Square Enix’s Young Gangan from 2015 to 2019, and Project No.9 made a 12-episode anime that aired from January to March 2018.

The premise: Yaichi Kuzuryū is 16 and holds the Ryūō title. A nine-year-old girl, Ai Hinatsuru, turns up asking to become his disciple, and he ends up training her.

The title is a real one. Ryūō (竜王, “dragon king”) is one of the eight major professional titles, first contested in 1988. Along with the Meijin, it is one of the two most prestigious, and its winner’s prize is the largest in shogi. A real Ryūō title match gives each player 8 hours and runs over two days; our page on how long a shogi game lasts explains how that works.

Like most shogi anime, it assumes you can follow a game. Knowing how the pieces move first makes the board scenes far easier to read.

When Will Ayumu Make His Move?

Sōichirō Yamamoto’s romantic comedy ran in Weekly Shōnen Magazine from 2019 to 2023 (17 volumes). Silver Link’s 12-episode anime aired from July to September 2022.

First-year Ayumu Tanaka joins his school’s shogi club because he likes his senior, Urushi Yaotome. He has promised himself he will confess only after he beats her at shogi. He is a beginner, so he loses every time.

The shogi is a backdrop, not a lesson. It does show something true about learning the game: you will lose a lot of games to a stronger player before you start winning, and that is normal. If you are in Ayumu’s position, playing the computer at an easy level is a quicker way to start winning games.

Shion no Ō

Written by Masaru Katori and drawn by Jiro Ando, this manga ran in Kodansha’s Afternoon from 2004 to 2008. Studio Deen’s 22-episode anime aired from October 2007 to March 2008.

As a small child, Shion witnessed the murder of her parents and lost the ability to speak. The killer took a shogi piece from her father’s board. Raised by a professional player and his wife, she becomes a strong player herself, partly in the hope of finding out who did it. The series mixes a mystery plot with the world of women’s professional shogi.

Manga-only shogi stories

These have no anime as of October 2026.

• 81diver (Yokusaru Shibata, Weekly Young Jump, 2006 to 2014, 35 volumes). Kentarō Sugata gave up on going pro after failing to reach 4-dan, the rank where a player becomes professional. Meeting a strong player named Soyo Nakashizu brings back his drive. The title is his nickname: he was told to “dive” into the 81 squares of the board. Fuji TV made an 11-episode live-action drama in 2008.
• Ryū to Ichigo (Mitsuharu Yanamoto, Weekly Shōnen Sunday, May 2020 to June 2026, 29 volumes). Fourteen-year-old Ichigo Aida is introduced to shogi by a school counselor after a fight, turns out to be a natural, and sets her sights on a rematch with a professional who beat her.
• Orion’s Board (Naoshi Arakawa, Weekly Shōnen Magazine, 2024 to present, 11 volumes as of September 2026). Yuuhi Ninomiya, a prodigy on a losing streak, meets Tsuki Kayamori, whose unusual style keeps working.
• Ban-Ō (written by Toshiya Watabiki, drawn by Garaku Akinai, Shōnen Jump+, 2022 to 2024, 8 volumes). A vampire tired of immortality discovers shogi and spends 300 years getting good at it.

Shogi also has a supporting role in Dealing with Mikadono Sisters Is a Breeze (Aya Hirakawa, Weekly Shōnen Sunday, 2021 to present; P.A. Works anime, July to September 2025). The youngest sister, Miwa, is an academic genius who has won shogi, go and chess tournaments.

Shogi in Naruto: Shikamaru and Asuma

Naruto is not a shogi anime, but shogi is part of who Shikamaru Nara is. He is lazy on the surface and a strategist underneath; his teacher, Asuma Sarutobi, works out that his IQ is over 200. The two of them play shogi together, and Shikamaru often thinks through battle plans in shogi terms.

Over one game, Asuma uses the board as a metaphor. The king is the piece you protect at any cost, and every other piece can be sacrificed for it. He asks Shikamaru who the “king” is in their village. Shikamaru guesses the Hokage, the village leader. Asuma says no and leaves it there. The real answer comes much later in the story, and we won’t spoil it.

Shikamaru also plays his father, Shikaku, in Naruto Shippuden episode 82. That long, quiet scene is expanded in the anime: in the manga, Shikamaru plays alone while his father watches.

How it maps to real shogi: Asuma’s point is accurate. In real shogi the game ends only when a king is checkmated, so every other piece, even a rook, is expendable if giving it up wins the race to mate. The king itself is weak; it moves one square at a time and needs a defensive wall around it.

Shogi in Hunter x Hunter: it’s actually Gungi

The board game in the Chimera Ant arc of Hunter x Hunter is not shogi. It is Gungi (軍儀), a fictional game Yoshihiro Togashi invented for the story. It looks like shogi and plays something like it, which is why people search for “shogi in Hunter x Hunter.”

Meruem, the Chimera Ant King, beats national board game champions with ease until he meets Komugi, a blind girl who is the world Gungi champion. He cannot beat her, and their games become central to his story.

How Gungi compares to real shogi:

Gungi was not playable in real life until Universal Music Japan released an official set in 2022, with rules filling in what the manga never showed. If you want to play the real game Gungi is modelled on, you can play shogi online here for free.

How shogi in anime maps to real shogi

Every anime above except Hunter x Hunter uses the real game. When a show cuts to the board, you are looking at a standard shogi position:

A few things from the shows that are real:

• Titles and ranks. Ryūō and Meijin are real titles. Professional status starts at 4-dan, and apprentices who don’t reach it by age 26 have to leave the training system. That rule is the backstory of 81diver.
• Women’s professionals. Shion no Ō is set in women’s professional shogi, which really is a separate system from the regular professional ranks.
• Pieces changing sides. When a character drops a captured piece onto the board, that’s the drop rule, the biggest difference between shogi and chess.
• Pieces flipping over. A piece turned over to show red writing has been promoted. Our promotion guide explains which pieces flip and what they become.
• Small-board puzzles. Serious players train on tsume shogi, checkmate puzzles where every move must be check.

If you have never played, what is shogi is a short overview, and the full shogi rules page covers everything the anime skips over. Shogi turns up in video games too: see Persona 5 shogi and Yakuza puzzle shogi.

FAQ

What is the best shogi anime?

March Comes In Like a Lion is the most acclaimed. It follows a teenage professional player and won major manga awards, including the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Grand Prize. The Ryuo’s Work Is Never Done! has more shogi jargon on screen, and When Will Ayumu Make His Move? is the lightest and easiest to watch.

Is there a shogi manga without an anime?

Yes. 81diver, Ryū to Ichigo, Orion’s Board and Ban-Ō are shogi manga with no anime adaptation as of October 2026. 81diver did get a live-action TV drama in Japan in 2008.

What game does Shikamaru play in Naruto?

Shikamaru plays shogi, the Japanese board game. He plays it with his teacher Asuma Sarutobi and with his father Shikaku, and he often thinks about battle plans in shogi terms. Asuma’s metaphor about protecting the king comes from the real rule that a shogi game ends when the king is checkmated.

Is Gungi in Hunter x Hunter real shogi?

No. Gungi is a fictional game invented for Hunter x Hunter. It uses a 9x9 board and the goal of checkmating a king like shogi does, but players set up their pieces freely and can stack them up to three high. Universal Music Japan released an official playable set in 2022.

Can you learn shogi from watching anime?

Not really. Shogi anime show the atmosphere of the game, the ranks and titles, and how players think, but they rarely explain moves. Learn the rules first, then rewatch; the board scenes make much more sense once you can read the position.