Ichiriki won the Meijin. 4-2 against Shibano.

He is now Kisei Meijin Honinbo Tengen.

Staring next January, he is going to defend the Kisei against Iyama again. More Ichiyama, will this be their last? Who knows.

I also wonder, can Ichiriki make the grand slam, like Iyama did? I don't think it is good news that a single player holds all titles, it doesn't speak very well about the level of the Japanese scene.

Ichiriki is doing well in international tournament again: in 1st Beihai Xinyi Cup he defeated Lian Xiao, Xie Erhao and Mi Yuting to reach the quarterfinals. The Chinese juggernaut has 5 players left, Japan two (Hsu Chiayuan/Kyo Kagen is also still in it) and Korea only one (Shin Jinseo).

It is very surprising to see two Japanese players in the last 8 of a major tournament. And this is a big tournament, with 64 players.

Here is a page in Chinese about the games in 3rd round: http://www.eweiqi.com/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=518&id=35881. The page also lists the quarterfinal matchups.

Kyo Kagen has a hard game in quarterfinal against the #1 Chinese player at the moment: Wang Xinghao. Wang Xinghao is also world #2 by the rating from goratings.org.
Ichiriki plays Li Weiqing in quarterfinal, which seems in very good form: he seems to have lost only once (to Wang Xinghao) in the last 10 games recorded in go4go.