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Why is it hard for people to realize that being pro in the Nihon kiin and the Kansai kiin because of a "recommendation" is a huge recognition of a players abilities and a great honor.
Unless I've missed something, the only person I can recall denouncing the recommendations has been TheCannyOnion referenced by Elom.
The who, what, when, where in the tabloid version of the stories is clear enough. What is worthy of discussion, as in more ruminative magazines, however, are the why and how.
For centuries, promotion by recommendation was the norm in Japanese go (and, interestingly, didn't exist in China). The first person to try to change that was Honinbo Shuho in Meiji times. The why and how were very interesting then. He was living in an era when Japan was swallowing western ideas wholesale, and he himself saw value (through the Hoensha) in meeting various eminent foreigners - ambassadors and people like the chemist Korschelt. He wished to spread go throughout Japan and saw value also in international links. Without going into any depth, the hows and whys reflected major cultural changes which included the introduction of an insei type system (though they were then called jukusei). Things didn't quite work out, because of his premature death and probably also because of a reaction to over-westernisation. It could be said that the go world went back to promotion by recommendation, except that in reality it became much worse - it became promotion by negotiation. In short, the various factions that emerged in Meiji and Taisho times reflected another cultural shift. (You can promote your pupil A if you let me promote by pupil B.)
This changed again when the Nihon Ki-in was formed and promotion by numbers became the norm - the Oteai. Rather than number of wins, the varying number of points attached to the various outcomes determined promotion (wins, jigos and losses all scored points, and depended also on the handicap). The numbers of points varied after various arguments and alternative values were put forward (mainly in the pages of Kido, with fractions being favoured over decimal points!), and self evidently this was a huge cultural change. Change made more interesting by the fact that the old system didn't die. Not only did Go Seigen become a pro by recommendation, he was able to leap to 3-dan at once. Thereafter he had to follow the Oteai system, except of course that he didn't, hence the argument about promoting him to 9-dan. And Go's case was not entirely exceptional.
Defeat in World War II imposed a vast number of cultural changes on Japan, even down to primary school level. But go was mostly immune to this. Why? Another interesting question.
Skipping forward to modern times and so overlooking some other changes (e.g. the gradual demise of the live-in system), and also simplifying somewhat, the abiding question in recent times for Japanese go became "how do we catch up with Korea and Japan." This was behind the major change whereby places in preliminary events became dependent on previous results and not on rank or age. The old system where 9-dans had automatic places in a Final Preliminary and new or low dans had to start in the First Preliminary every time was abolished, in the hope of fast-streaming young talent for the international stage. Parallel to this, private sponsors (such as Nakano Koji - a best-selling novelist) donated or bequeathed money to hold special events for young pros, again with the explicit goal of preparing them for the international stage. All of this is yet another fascinating cultural change, made even more interesting by a debate over whether it is actually working.
The latest apparent change in go culture, the rise in recommendations, is fascinating in its own way, although, like the French Revolution, it's maybe too early to pronounce on it.
If, nevertheless, I am allowed to speculate on it, I think I see the following strands. One is to speed up even further the process of getting the best young talent to the international front lines.
Another strand is a recognition that the insei league system has had its day. Almost all the new talent joining the Nihon Ki-in in recent years has come from the Ryyokusei Academy and the schools of Fujisawa Kazunari and Hong Malk-eun Saem. Their players may well also play in an insei league, or visit other go schools and salons, but they are associated predominantly with the above organisations. This in itself is a topic fertile for discussion.
A third clear strand I see is the one brought up by Elom: the progressive death by stealth of the semi-formal separate female pro qualification. What I see behind this is the move towards equality. The western idea of Japanese women being downtrodden is a misconception, even historically (Murasaki Shikibu and female ninjas for starters) but also in more modern times. If that surprises you, look up Kato Shizue. She was a feminist who caused extreme irritation for the government in the 1920s. She had the very odd platform of demanding the suffrage for women and also birth control. But her belief in birth control was based on eugenics. She could be called a far-right socialist.
But, whatever the actual achievements of Japanese women, it cannot be denied that they lived in a world, largely shaped by men. And so it was in go. It also cannot be denied that the idea of parallel male and female go systems, while philogynistic in some ways, also had a large sexist element, as comments by male professionals in articles and commentaries amply attest (e.g. "women's go is all about fighting"). Nowadays, however, women are taking part more and more in events with men, and are doing well, and so the old parallel system may be, if not withering away, then fraying at the edges. This, too, is an area worthy of discussion, and my first guess is that it is mirroring moves towards equality of the sexes in mainstream society. One of the more interesting aspects to discuss would be whether go is following society, or whether the success of go women is promoting equality. Another aspect is how much of equality amounts also to integration. The rise of go clubs such as Tojima Hana's Dream Go Salons (Tojima is a J-pop star) where smelly make smokers and gropers are not welcome may suggest a parallel system of a different kind is emerging.
Some of the other more family-oriented or child-oriented points made above are also part of the mix, in my view, but at a lower level. However, whichever way you look at it, is a truly fascinating topic worthy of wider discussion rather than dismissive simplification.