The Japan Shogi Association (日本将棋連盟, Nihon Shōgi Renmei), or JSA, is the primary organizing body for professional shogi in Japan. The JSA sets the professional calendar, negotiates sponsorship and media promotion deals, helps organize tournaments and title matches, publishes shogi-related materials, supervises and trains apprentice professionals as well as many other activities. For much of its early history, shogi followed an iemoto system centered around three families (schools): the Ōhashi (main) , the Ōhashi (branch) and the Itō . The Meijin title was hereditary and could only be held by members of these three families. These three schools were supported by the Tokugawa shogunate and thus controlled the professional shogi world up until 1868 when the Meiji Restoration began. By the time Sōin Itō , the eighth and last head of the Itō school and the 11th Hereditary Meijin, had died in 1893, the influence of the families had decreased to such an extent that they had no real power at all. More information...
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