DESCRIPTION

NHK releases a bunch of magazines for all sorts of stuff like cooking, learning languages, and Go. The monthly go magazine is called NHK テキスト囲碁講座 -- NHK Tekisuto Igo Kooza -- NHK Text Go Course. Since tekisuto is written in katakana and sounds like text it must be a loan-word. But 講座 "kooza" is written with Chinese characters so maybe the fact that it sounds like course is just a coincidence?

This magazine is only ￥600 (under $5) while the Nihon Kiin's Monthly Go World magazine ￥990 ($8). Never mind, what really matters is that shipping (to the US west coast) is ¥ 1,900 ($15). But the shipping cost is the same whether you order one or both. So I ordered both. Spoiler: All prices are from Amazon Japan. If you know of a better place to order it let me know. I've had Go World sell out (or just never be sold?) from Amazon Japan before and ended up paying a lot more to get it else where.

Each issue has a fun illustration of one or more players on it and it comes with a little pocket pamphlet, same size as the pamphlet from Go World. The pamphlet is one of my favorite parts.



This magazine seems to be more focused on study than Go World because a larger portion of the pages are devoted to study while Go World includes a lot of news in addition to study materials. I haven't seen the NHK TV show (Go Focus?) but it seems like the text lectures have some of the same Pros teaching. Though my impression from seeing NHK releasing Go Books (presumably based on the TV lectures) is that the magazine does not track the TV show -- they are different.

Sample table of contents.




One thing that I really liked was getting so many commentaries of the NHK Cup games because I can find players that will not have commentaries elsewhere. Like So Yookoku, I'm pretty sure I've seen him do commentary on the Nihon Kiin YouTube streams. I could be mistaking his face for someone else though. Yamashita Keigo is someone I know and recognize but he is not in many live streams lately that I've seen. And Kiyonari Tetsuya, I feel like I've heard his name or seen him before but I don't know where. Anyway, seeing new faces is fun.

REVIEW

First things first, I'll cover cost-to-value: you get 4 fairly detailed game commentaries (about 5 pages each), plenty of study material (about 30 pages), and the pamphlet (30 small pages) for $5. I think it's pretty good value but the shipping cost is just too high to make this magazine worth it unless you are already buying Go World. Still, the alternative is buying a book dedicated to exactly what you want for $15-25 which probably has more content. And in the end I found myself going between so many Go Books that I never even felt like I spent enough time with Go World, let along NHK Go Course. So I stopped ordering it. This is not a review about Go World but Go World has game reviews and study materials but it also has news and photos.

It's kind of hard to give my impression on the content as my Japanese is so poor. But I feel like the study materials here are a bit more like "study" compared to Go World. It feels like a course for students rather than the articles that Go World has. I mean, it is called "Go Course." That's not to say that I found the content easier than Go World, just that it felt more like it was trying to teach. Anyway, I felt that the study material was good and that it was appropriate for my level (OGS 6k).

The Nihon Kiin also has a magazine that is geared towards beginner study (月刊囲碁未来 monthly Go "Future" ?). That magazine is printed locally but they do not export it. Still, you can find it on Kindle. I have not studied the Nihon Kiin magazine though.

And of course there is the monthly European magazine being produced which can probably be read by everyone here. I haven't read it though so I can't compare.

Bottom line: I don't recommend this magazine if you need to translate like I do. But it is good.

I would like to know japanese to have access to all that material.

It is so nice to see how much 囲碁 is part of their colture
...as Chess is in the west.

_________________
When you play Weiqi you are joining millions of people across four thousand years of time.
Jonathan Hop - So You Want to Play Go?