Tribute to Maki Kaji – “Grandfather of SUDOKU”

Maki Kaji (Pic: Courtesy Legacy.com)

Maki Kaji was the president of a Japanese puzzle manufacturing company (Nikoli Company Ltd). He is widely known as “the father of Sudoku”.

Maki Kaji was born on 08 Oct 1951 in Sapporo, Hokkaido. His father worked as an engineer at a telecom company and his mother was employed by a kimono shop.

Maki Kaji Kaji attended Shakujii High School in his hometown. He later studied literature at Keio University, but dropped out during his first year.

After a succession of jobs including being a roadie, a waiter and a construction worker, he started a publishing.

Kaji launched a quarterly puzzle magazine in 1980 together with two friends from his childhood. They called it Nikoli, after a race horse.

Three years later, he founded a company under the same name. The magazine, the company’s main product, grew to have 50,000 quarterly readers. The number game Sudoku appeared in early issues of Nikoli.

His interest in the puzzle piqued after encountering it in 1984 under the title “Number Place”. He formulated the name “Sudoku” while he was scrambling to get to a horse race. He shortened it from Suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru (“numbers should be single”) at the urging of his fellow workers.

After the game spread to Britain and the United States, it became wildly popular.

Kaji also invented or introduced various other puzzle games, such as Masyu. He resigned as head of Nikoli in July 2021, one month before his death.

Kaji was married to Naomi and they had two children.

Kaji died on 10 August 2021 at his home in Tokyo at age 69, from bile duct cancer.

Maki Kaji will live on for ever in the hearts of all SUDOKU solvers.

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References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maki_Kaji

“‘Father of Sudoku’ puzzles next move”. bbc.co.uk. 13 June 2000.

“Japan’s ‘father of Sudoku’ Maki Kaji dead at 69”. www.thenews.com.pk. 17 August 2021.

Jump up to:^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Albeck-Ripka, Livia; Ueno, Hisako (17 August 2021). “Maki Kaji, ‘Godfather of Sudoku,’ Dies at 69”. The New York Times. New York. Retrieved 17 August 2021.

Jump up to:^a ^b “Sudoku maker Maki Kaji, who saw life’s joy in puzzles, dies”. AP NEWS. 17 August 2021.

Smith, David (15 May 2005). “So you thought Sudoku came from the Land of the Rising Sun …” The Observer.

Devlin, Keith (28–29 January 2012). “The Numbers Game (book review of Taking Sudoku Seriously by Jason Rosenhouse et al.)”. The Wall Street Journal. Weekend Edition. p. C5.

Kelly, Tim; Lies, Elaine (16 August 2021). “Japan’s Kaji, the “godfather of Sudoku,” dies at 69″.

“Maki Kaji, the ‘godfather of Sudoku,’ dies at 69”. CNN.

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