Most go players in Japan, asked to list their top ten pros, would include the name of Umezawa Yukari 4-dan, even though she has hardly set the world alight in title matches. But she has certainly lit an Olympic-size flame for go in other ways.
One month after graduating from elite Keio University, in March 1996, she was promoted to 1-dan at the Nihon Ki-in and started work as a now long-serving go presenter for NHK television. She appeared as a model for a poster in a national safety campaign in 1999, and in December of that year began her association with what must be the best free publicity go ever had.
Everyone knows the passion the Japanese have for comics. 13th best-selling in 2000 was the go comic Hikaru no Go in the journal Shukan Jump (each episode also reprinted in paper-back form). The go consultant for this series is Umezawa.
This media-savvy young lady - born 4 October 1973 - was also one of the first pros to have her own web site, and if you visit http://www.yukari.gr.jp/main.html you may learn more than you need to know about this thoroughly modern miss. She likes peaches, melons, pickles, curried noodles and mango, hates sea-urchins, loves western music (Bette Midler and Baby Face), adores stylish clothes and buys Dolce & Gabbana if she can, and her favourite colour is blue.
Hikaru no Go 10 by Hotta Yumi, Obata Takeshi and Umezawa Yukari
She will greet you with a "Welcome to my homepage" message if you run the .wav file and wave cutely at you if you run the movie MPEG file.
If you join the free Yukari club on the web site you get a password that gives an entree to goodies such as a screensaver and a biorhythms program.
But beware if you wish to preserve the divine smile on your own machine. The BIG letters tell you very emphatically all images are copyright. This is about big business. It's nearly all in Japanese at the moment, but Yukari-chan has made hordes of fans on her travels in the west, and it can't be too long before her sponsors tap into fresh markets. She was even made the subject of a cover and feature in Nipponia (No. 14, 2000), an English-language magazine about Japan (see image left).
What has all this to do with go? Not a lot, but we should not let that obscure the fact that go is most definitely a serious activity for Umezawa Yukari, who was promoted to 4-dan in June 2000, in only her fourth year as a pro.
She learnt go from her father in June 1979. After some spectacular results in amateur tournaments, she was brought to the attention of Kato Masao 9-dan by someone he knew at a go club in Shimokitazawa. The connection is that his own son played there.
The upshot was a trial game, on three stones, which we give here. Kato claims to remember nothing about it, but it is engraved on Umezawa's heart, not least because she made a blunder that could have wrecked her chances of becoming a pro. Her father was also keen for her to take the opportunity, though she says he simply wanted her to do well at something, whether it was go or not.
Her victory against Kato led to becoming his pupil in January 1987. The rest, as they say, is history, except that is a story with a likely sequel. Umezawa keeps repeating that she wants to become stronger. She often appears with Kato, and when she makes her comments about improving one senses it stiffens the sinews in the teacher, too. He now talks firmly about wanting to be able to challenge for titles again. He hasn't got his own homepage yet, though!
